Chapter 5

Lister Spanners Conversation

"First of all me ankles swelled up to the thickness of inbred royalty."
He explained to Red Dwarf's current guest. "On top on me athletes feet no less, it was simply murder. Then it was morning sickness, but it wasn't was it now? It was morning, noon, tea time, after tea time, early supper, late supper, something to eat before you go to bed, wake up in the middle of the night to take a leak sickness, it was. Where the smell of anything even slightly revolting would set me off. Rimmer wasn't allowed near me for the first three weeks of the pregnancy on the threat of having his light bee eaten."
His counterpart sat across the room just listening. Smiling on occasion.

"Finally I had to start wrapping me red polka dotted bandanna around
me nose, just to get a mild sausage and chicken vindaloo past me
sensitive, mutating, metamorphosing protective motherly body."
He paused remembering,

"It was brutal." Lister started again. "Aches, pains, swollen ankles. All the things that twenty five year old male isn't supposed to have. Is It?"
Spanners smiled and said nothing Lister resumed.

"At first I thought it was impossible.
Me, Dave, Lister the last man alive. Up the duff and alone in deep space.
What would me poor old grandmother think of me now. He turned and looked at Spanners. "Uh sorry, our grandmother."

"Sure, maybe it was possible in the Femverse, and the natural order of things for the men there to give birth. But I figured that when we re-entered my own universe all dimensional laws would kind of right themselves. You know?"
Spanners looked up from the picture of a future echo. The
photo of Dave Lister with his two newborns, a picture of his counterpart from another dimension. A picture of the man he was currently conversing with.

"Obviously they didn't." Spanners indicated the picture.

"No, I was wrong. I was doubly wrong. The natural laws of order couldn't defy the all encompassing law of all universes, dimensions and fast food kitchens; Where there can be life, there will be life.
Unfortunately except for one or two vindaloos of dubious origins and incredible half lives, I never planned on this happening within my own body."

"Isn't that the way it always is," said Spanners. "Still you have to laugh."
Dave ignored the good natured remark. "At first I thought it was impossible, then I thought it unlikely, then impossible unless certain circumstances has, have or had, come into play. Then impossible again, then likely, then possible, then probable. Then unlikely again, then likely again for about five minutes."

"Finally it could be possible only with written permission from a licensed urologist, a native American Mid-wife and served with a Medi bay hi ball, shaken not stirred." Spanners helped.

"Just about as I was absolutely certain that it was totally imsmeggen- possible for me to be pregnant with my female Doppler ganger's child I heard those immortal six words. I remember them so clearly." Lister imitated Rimmer's voice. "I'm Going to be an uncle."

Spanners had gotten a jump on the crew before they had a chance to react. Coupled with the fact that he could over ride all the security doors he would come up against with Lister's voice and hand print. He was also able to to avoid detection from Holly's monitors with his handy sonic screwdriver.
His plan was to make it down to the landing bay and get out of town.
Jumping out of this crazy hatch seemed to make all the sense in the world to Spanners Lister. "The security deck. I mean seriously."

As he ran down a corridor he thought "Why the hell should he hang around with these nutters? What could possibly keep me here?"
At first Spanners ran past the stasis pods which contained Jim and Bexly, the image not registering in his mind. When the image finally did register in his brain his feet skidded to a halt. He had to make sure he saw what he thought he saw, and he slowly walked back to the pod.

That's where Dave Lister found him. He had pulled up a plastic chair up to the pods and had his face held up to the glass. Lister explained the existence of the boys, and the reason that they were in stasis.

"So you can't let them out at all? You can't even hold them?"
"Kryten worked out a schedule where I can hold them for about a minute a day."

"Only a minute?"
Outside the stasis pods they age at a rate of a day every forty seconds.
So I take them out one at a time. You know, gotta make it last.
This floored Spanners. Now he had a connection with this Dave Lister. Now he had to stay.

"Well setting up the Navi Comps is the really hard part. If you
screw that up you could end up almost anywhere or any when." Just like I did, he thought.

"Anywhere or any when?" Inquired the Cat who was suddenly paying attention. The ships compliment plus Lister squared were currently in the Science Lab.

"I don't know. Let's say we end up in another universe where the crew gets wiped out or I wasn't such a twonk when I was younger."
"But I always assumed the Omni Verse was in the center of a black hole." said Holly, some of his I.Q. showing. Like a gal at the Saturday night dance in a new dress.

"In some universes it is and in some it ain't."

"And what's that supposed to mean" Questioned Rimmer,
shaking his head from side to side.

"Is that from the ladybird book of astro physics? Or was it in last months
issue of "What Bike." Yes I can see it now. With a pull out poster included."

"Look it doesn't matter where it is, hell that's the easy part."
Kryten interjected, "If that, Mr. Spanners sir is the easy part. Then
what is the hard part?"
Spanners looked into Kryten's strangely familiar eyes, where did he know them from?

"The hard part," he said, would be trying to navigate a dilapidated Red Dwarf through it successfully. I mean no offense to your lovely mainframe, but calculating the billions of figures to navigate it would be like trying to thread an apple through the eye of a needle."

"Wouldn't that give you apple sauce?" Asked the Cat hopefully, his mind on lunch.

"And we can't take your craft because it's too small."

"Yea a one seater. Two if you had to cram in an emergency."

"Then why don't we use the Starbug?" Said Kryten. "It would seem small enough to be able to navigate it's way through the Omni verse, yet large enough to accommodate all involved."

"You have a transport vessel?" Spanners seemed mildly surprised.

"Several actually."

"Do you have anything more sturdy than a Starbug?" asked Spanners.

"Why is that?" Lister asking accusatory.

"Well hell if a Starbug is all you got, I can make it Omni Verse travelable.
I thought ahead and brought along some tools and a bit of this and that.
Together we can make a skip with thrusters fly."

Dave Lister was finally starting to accept this other Lister. Sure
he came in on the wrong foot, but wasn't he being a little too hard on
his other self. Maybe right from the start, when he saw Kachanski's
photo while going through Spanners' wallet, trying to unravel the mystery while his double remained unconscious. Then the strangest part when he saw a photo of the twins. Barely two years of age, but toddlers none the less. Just like his, except his were trapped in stasis.

Yet Spanners loved his children as much as he loved his, which were more or less the same people. He realized then that he had to trust his double. Completely.

"I say he's all right. Lets go with his plan to overhaul one of the transport
vessels. Navigate the Omni Verse and get my babies home. And if this
ugly smeg head thinks he can help. Then I'm all for it. Who's with us?"
Kryten was the first to respond, thrilled by the cute rebellion in his adopted owners' voice. As a mechanoid Kryten didn't have the ability to rebel
on his own, and in his own warped way he came to regard these kind of human traits as irresistible.

"Being a mechanoid I am compelled to agree with a human. Therefore I am willing to sacrifice my life in the aid of the four Listers. I'm in."

"I just have one question, questioned the Cat. Is there the slightest possibility that after we get through this Omni thingy you monkeys been going on about, will there be any women?"
A smile crept across Spanners face, "Well I can't say for sure, but there were women in my universe, and if we get back there I may be inclined to introduce you to some."

"Well then I'm going along with the Ugly brothers. I'll start packing. Bye."
And then there was one. Rimmer.

"Back to your universe. I thought we were going back to the universe
of the frightening fems. Where old Deb and Arnie await us with open arms
and open legs." Rimmer noticeably shivered at the thought.

"Yea but I figured on the way home I can take my own ship through it
and try another time to catch up with Ace. Or go home."

"I say do what ever the smeg you want. There is no way I'm going joy riding
with the scouse twins and that automated toilet attendant. Back to that universe with that woman. Again, hardly."

"A simple no would have surfaced Rimmer."

"Come on," said Dave, and he Spanners and Kryten walked out the door. Leaving Rimmer alone.

Alone. Like he would be after they left. Rimmer soon started contemplating
a strategy of his own.