Author's Note: Cat's introduction is based on the scene from 'Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers'

There was a city in the cargo bay. It was just too amazing to put into words. It stretched for miles ahead.

Rimmer gripped the handle on the bazookoid with some trepidation. "Some sort of alien civilization has built a city in the cargo hold…," he murmured in amazement. "They must've seen Red Dwarf just floating along and claimed it for their own."

Kochanski wanted to dispute Rimmer's theory, but she had to admit, she was a bit stuck for an explanation. She wished she could contact Holly, but he was too far away for them to speak to.

Crudely fashioned igloo-shaped dwellings lined the walkways, hummocks of carved wood, without doorways. Each had only a slit, perhaps only a yard long and foot high, cut six feet from the ground.

They made their way down the walkways, checking inside some of the hummocks, but finding only enough room for two people to hunker down and peer outside through the slit, not to mention a few books with blank pages.

Ten minutes later, they found several benches all gathered around before a large plasma-screen television. It had a video player hooked up to it, and when they removed the videocassette, they found it was the Flintstones.

"This is so weird…," Kochanski murmured. "Whoever built this place, they must've been an entire organization, which means there should've been a lot of them… So where are they all?"

Rimmer had no answer. He spotted a small café down the street with tables and parasols. He was still tired, so he sat down in one of the chairs, setting the heavy mining laser on the table. Kochanski couldn't sit in a non-hologrammatic chair, so she was forced to stand next to him.

"What's the life form detector say?" she asked.

Rimmer checked the handheld device. "It's nearby," he whispered. "And it looks like it's coming here…"

Before he could pick up the bazookoid again, there was a flash of pink, and he suddenly found himself flying backwards in his chair. In an instant, he was pinned to the floor by a man with a bouffant hairstyle and a neon pink suit.

Kochanski was left powerless, unable to do anything to help as this strange man proceeded to sniff Rimmer up and down.

The man himself cowered nervously. "P-p-p-please, sir, let's talk about this reasonably!" he squeaked. "I was just walking along with my friend here. We're a bit lost. We could just be on our…"

The pink-suited man took a deep sniff of Rimmer's face, and a moment later, he was on his feet and cleaning his suit with a toothbrush. "Sorry, man – I thought you were food."

Within a few hours, they brought this creature back up to the main floor. They had to promise him they had food. Even weirder, instead of joining them in the lift, he felt inclined to climb up the through the air ducts. He got to the Drive Room before they did.

They took him to Rimmer's sleeping quarters, taking him to the tiny table and chairs with the laughable sign, 'Recreational Area'.

"What do you want to eat?" Kochanski asked.

"Fish," Cat replied immediately.

"Rimmer – go get a fish dinner from the food machine."

"Yes, ma'am. Right away, ma'am," Rimmer replied quickly, and he hurried out of the room to the machine down the corridor. He ordered the food from it and brought it back to find the man was now sniffing Kochanski, much to her disgust.

"Er… should I come back later, ma'am?" Rimmer asked awkwardly.

Suddenly, the stranger sniffed in Rimmer's direction, and he immediately ran over and started sniffing the fish. He promptly started giggling happily and snuggling Rimmer, licking his face with his rough tongue.

Grimacing, Rimmer panicked and set it down on the table, and the man began eating away without even using a fork.

"What the hell is he?" Rimmer demanded, wiping his face with a paper napkin.

"He's a cat," Holly announced, reminding them he was here.

"What, a cat?!" Kochanski asked, bemused. "How?"

"During the radioactive crisis, the cat you smuggled aboard was safely sealed in the hold."

Rimmer looked at Kochanski in astonishment. "You smuggled a cat onboard? An un-quarantined cat? That's against regs!"

"I didn't smuggle it aboard! Dave did!" she snapped defensively.

"Dave…? Lister?"

"Yes!"

Rimmer sucked in his cheeks and looked to the heavens. "Ohhhh… Listy…," he moaned. "Listy, Listy, Listy… Rest in peace, you slobby arse…"

Kochanski glared at him. "Stop that. He was upset after I dumped him. I talked to him after he came back from planet leave and confiscated it."

"He got it from…? Oh, god. Who knows what that thing was crawling with?"

Kochanski shook her head. "Holly, how can that man be a cat?"

"Well, for openers, the cat was pregnant."

"… Dave, you idiot," she hissed in annoyance.

So Holly delved into the history of the cats are far as he could piece it together. Fortunately, Rimmer had kept some of the blank books they had found, and they were able to figure out that cats didn't use words but smells to tell stories in print. They finally found a book that told the history of the cat people, and they learned how the cats had been involved in a civil war about whether or not their god's name was Cloister or Clister.

"Lister… God of the Cat People," Rimmer muttered bitterly. "Some people get all the breaks…"

Kochanski shook her head. "So he's the last one?"

"It would appear so," Holly confirmed. "I'm not detecting anything else down there."

"So Cloister or Clister or whatever… What's the story on him?"

"It says he took the woman Kris, the Goddess of Red, to be his bride and entrusted the Holy Mother, Frankenstein, to her care, to protect her from the evil men who wished to kill her."

"Frankenstein?" Rimmer repeated.

"It's what he named the cat," she admitted. "I couldn't help but keep calling her that."

Rimmer shook his head. He glanced over at the Cat, who had finished his meal and was now brushing his eyebrows with a toothbrush. "So what'll we do with him?" he asked.

Kochanski shrugged. "I suppose he'll just stay with us. We'll teach him to use the food dispensers so he can look after himself."

Rimmer nodded. Then he looked at her thoughtfully. "What about us?"

That was one question too many for Kochanski. She was losing the ability to form answers, and she knew that Rimmer wasn't about to have an idea that would put him in bad standing with her.

"What about us, indeed," she said quietly.

The Cat finally finished his grooming. "Well, I'm gonna go grab my next nap," he said amiably. "Catch you monkeys later." With next to no effort, he took an acrobatic leap and curled up on top of Rimmer's locker, falling asleep in the confined space.

Deciding that wasn't a bad idea, Rimmer walked over to the bunk, kicked his boots off and got back into bed.

Kochanski could only shake her head helplessly. Back to square one, but with a super-evolved cat in a nice suit.