Well, that's finished the tests sir.
We just have to wait while the Navicomp processes the results.
Unfortunately I have had to allow for the fact that you cheated at your eye tests.
What do you mean, cheated?
There's no point in lying sir.
You crept in here last night, knowing you were going to have a medical,
and you copied the eye charts onto your shoes.
Oh, the results.
Ah, everything tickedyboo?
Would you like to take a seat for a moment sir?
Problem?
Are you of the school that, when faced with bad news,
prefers to hear that news naked and unvarnished,
or are you of the ilk that prefers to live in happy
and blissful ignorance of the nightmare you're facing.
Ignorance, every time.
Congratulations sir! You've come storming through your medical with flying colours.
See you next time.
Everything's OK then?
Absolutely peachy.
Kryten, I want to know, that's why I asked for a medical. Is there bad news?
Lie mode cancel. Yes sir, I'm afraid there is.
I knew it. It's the headaches isn't it.
And the heart palpitations and the blackouts
and the chest pains and the voices.
It's something to do with that isn't it?
Sir, when you died you were recreated as a hologram and your exact personality
was refined to an algorithm and duplicated electronically.
If that algorithm contained a flaw, that flaw would be duplicated also.
Flaw?
It's not common, but it's possible for a hologram to die.
As a result of both genetics and environment
you are particularly prone to stress-related nervous disorders,
and your activities over the past couple of years have pushed your brain to,
well frankly beyond breaking point.
Your T count, which is the hologrammatic equivalent of blood pressure,
is higher than a hippy on the third day of an open air festival.
Here's what I suggest. Try and avoid all stressful situations.
Spend more time in your hard light form and take a little exercise. And here,
use these Chinese worry balls whenever you feel anxious or tense.
Hey, maybe some good news. Come and check it out.
Er, Kryten, I don't want the others to know about this.
I want you to behave as if everything's absolutely normal.
As you wish sir.
There she blows.
Logging onto the ident computer.
What's this?
We've come across the ship we totalled a couple of weeks back.
We're gonna try and board it for supplies.
Is that wise sir? The scan says the superstructure
is highly unstable and could go at any time.
What if some of the simulants have survived?
There's an old cat saying: "If you're gonna eat tuna, expect bones. "
Look, ever since that refrigeration unit packed in we've had to live off
a few pathetic handfuls of moss and fungi scraped off passing asteroids.
I can't stand it any more.
Lister, they are simulants. Why on lo should they have food supplies?
Because the ident computer says they do. Look, stocked to the gills.
It's true sir. Rogue simulants always carry large stocks of food supplies
in order to prolong the torment of their torture victims.
Kryten, what's for dinner?
Tonight sir, asteroidal lichen stew followed by dandelion sorbet.
We're going in.
Sir, we have enough thistles and weeds and cultured fungus
for you to scrum yourself stupid until the day you die.
This foolhardy trip beggars logic.
Lister, we'd be fools not to listen to him. When is he ever wrong?
At least let me and Mister Rimmer go in your place.
We are after all merely electronic life forms and therefore expendable.
And what the smeg would you know, bog-bot from hell?
There's something else. I didn't want to say in front of the Cat.
The reserve fuel tank got punctured when we crashed into that ocean moon.
If we don't resupply, we're out of power, two, three days.
But what about the readouts?
I rigged the readouts. I didn't want to cause any alarm.
You rigged the readouts! You didn't want to cause any a..
I can't breathe, I'm hyperventilating.
Please sir, don't panic.
It's not panic, it's a full-blown hysterical fit!
Grind those balls sir! Grind them!
Look, we're out of options. We've got less choice than a Welsh fish and chip shop.
We've got to board that ship, even if it is on the brink of disintegration.
Let's just pray the crew are rotting in Silicon Hell with all the photocopiers.
Look, you three go. I'm not leaving Starbug.
Fine, that's fair enough. Unless of course
something weird and hideously ironic happens,
like while we were away you get boarded by a rampaging torture
party of crazed simulants in the rapid grip of bloodlust fever.
I'll go and pack.
Bring your extra brown rubber safety pants.
And your hard light remote belt, we need all the hands we can muster.
Lifesigns.
If one of those suckers bumps into me, he'll be lunching on laser,
Last time we met I was wearing the same outfit,
and no-one's gonna survive to tell that story.
Listen guys, I suppose now's as good as time as any to tell you.
Tell us what?
We can't actually use the bazookoids. They're for psychological reasons only.
Look, the scan said that the superstructure is so unstable
that even a load noise could start a shipquake.
That's why I skipped chillies for breakfast.
Why didn't you tell us?
Didn't wanna cause any panic.
You didn't want to cause any p..
A teleporter.
Hmmm, fully functional.
Let's grab what we can and load up.
Quietly.
It's not gonna hold much longer sir, we'd better make this the last batch.
One more trip Kryten, let me get one more crate
of that red hot West Indian red pepper sauce.
Shhhhh.
Well, if it isn't my old friends, the human vermin, the scab of slime,
the pus-sucking, puke-laden walking cesspits of unspeakableness.
She remembers us
Annihilated my ship, slaughtered by fellow simulants,
and you practically destroyed me. Yes, I remember you.
There's one thing you should know.
Last time we met I was wearing a cute little black number
with peach trim and gold spangles,
and although it looks like I'm wearing the same outfit today,
it is in fact an entirely different cute little black number
with completely different gold spangles.
That was an important speech sir, and it needed to be made,
but might I suggest that from this moment the rest of the discourse
is conducted by those with brains larger than a grape.
Take it away, bud.
OK, let's knock on the door and ask for Ronnie Real.
This is a classic stalemate situation.
You can't use your weapons and neither can we.
Let's chalk this one down to experience and we'll be on our merry way, yeah?
Actually, as far as psychotic deranged ruthless killer simulants go,
you're a bit of a babe. What are you doing tonight?
Dying. Care to join me?
Hey come on, let's just talk, OK?
We didn't start any of this, and I think that maybe
NOW is a good time to sit down and parlez.
Let's not hang around, just get on with it.
There is nothing to discuss. In sixty seconds you'll be dead.
You can't be serious.
I'm totally serious.
I don't believe you're being serious.
I do not understand why you're having such problems grasping this concept.
I'm a totally ruthless amoral killing machine so why,
in the name of all that's putrid, don't you believe I'm serious.
I'm going to say this one more time.
You've still got a chance to change your mind.
Think about it, everything we've been through,
does none of that mean anything to you?
Cheers Rimmer! He's started a shipquake!
The superstructures disintegrating!
The teleporter!
I must warn you sir, the teleporter's not calibrated for human tissue.
There's a twenty percent chance you'll be turned inside out when you materialise.
Let me check my lining. Innards and lavender, I can carry that off.
What's this?
Don't you remember sir? This is a week last Thursday.
In the panic I must have made a programming error.
For goodness sake Kryten!
Don't you know how rude it is to burst in
on an earlier version of yourself without warning?
You've made our day totally surreal now. I'm very cross!
Pardon my paradox. It's just that the ship you're about to encounter
We don't know what we're about to encounter.
Don't compound your temporal faux-pas by telling us our future.
Where's the rangy, handsome one?
What, you? You scarpered in that escape pod,
you slimy, triple-faced, back-stabbing Judas.
Ah, I'm safe then? Thank God for that.
Don't talk to them! You see what you've done now!
Just get back to your own damn time line!
Here we go then.
Well, be you later.
Let's get out of the landing bay. It's gonna blow!
All in all, a hundred percent successful trip.
Sir, we lost Mister Rimmer!
All in all, a hundred percent successful trip.
Can't believe he did that, not even Rimmer.
Sir, I didn't get the opportunity to tell you before,
but earlier today I discovered that Mister Rimmer
is suffering from a stress-related nervous disorder.
Next time I see him he'll be suffering from a fist-related teeth disorder.
Incoming message.
My escape plan worked then?
What escape plan?
The valiant plan whereby I set off the disintegration of the ship's hull
by bravely leaping into the escape pod thereby creating a diversion,
so you could... Actually, how did you escape?
Well, the teleporter.
That wasn't the only way, but as good as any I suppose.
Still, I'm sure no-one's forgetting the sheer manliness
and stiff-upper-lippedness of the diversionary part of the plan
and to hasten with all speed the recovery of the modest hero of the hour.
Actually, Flash, that might be a bit of a problem.
What do you mean?
You're accelerating away from us way above our top speed
I've logged into your ident computer sir.
Rogue simulants looted the pod
from a colonisation seeding ship constructed in the 25th Century.
There are no controls as such,
it is programmed to take you to the nearest planet with an S3 atmosphere.
How long is it going to take to get me back?
Ah well, let's see shall we, checking the local area.
Er, no, nothing there. Going to mid-range.
Er, still nothing. Going to long range... long, long range...
long, long, long range. Ah, here we have it, just computing.
Well? How long?
Have you still got those Chinese worry balls sir?
Yes.
Well start grinding them like you've never ground before.
How long?
Let me tell him Kryten.
How long?
A year and a half.
That's ridiculous! You've got to find a way of getting me back.
Well we could try to bring you down with a round from a laser cannon, sir.
Form an orderly queue behind the gun-sight.
Another way!
Sir, there are no other options.
Wait! Something's happening! Course change!
Check. Your guidance system's found a nearer S3 planet.
It's taking you through that wormhole at 4_9_5_3_7_2.
Ah, that's a lot better. You should make planetfall in four days.
Isn't there some kind of a time dilation problem when you go through a wormhole?
Well, yes there is. Since you're travelling through a compressed space,
time will move more swiftly for the object passing though the wormhole.
One minute on this side of the wormhole will represent many years on the other.
So, is that good?
Balls on standby sir.
More than a year and a half?
Er, yes sir, a little more.
How much more?
Well, let's not beat around a bush, a lot more.
Kryten, that's still beating around the bush. Just tell me.
Well, remember that medieval war sir, that lasted quite a long time.
The Thirty Years War?
No, not that war sir, the other one.
The Hundred Years War?
Now take that figure, and multiply it by six,
and then you'll come up with your golden number sir.
Six hundred years!
Pinch me!
We're losing contact, any minute.
Six hundred years with just myself as company, I'll go raving mad!
And as the pod was looted from a seeding ship,
there may even be emergency terraforming equipment on board,
possibly even with a genetic capability.
But I'll never survive, I'm not the Robinson Crusoe type.
I'm lousy at woodwork, I'm no good in the wild.
Do you know, when I was at school it took me five terms to make a tent peg?
Losing contact, any second. See you in eight lifetimes.
One last word sir, remember your condition.
Whatever happens, try and avoid stressful situations.
Whatever befalls you, try and greet it
with a smile on your lips and a song in your heart.
You are a total, total, complete and utter, total, total, complete and utter total...
Well, he's gone.
So, what do we do now?
Nothing we can do, I know for a fact there's no champagne.
On our side of this time dilation phenomena it will appear
as if Mister Rimmer has gone for just a few hours,
but from Mister Rimmer's point of view, he will have
to wait six entire centuries for us to reach him.
To hell with the champagne, we can celebrate with urine resyc.
This is the personal log of Space Corps hard-light hologram Arnold J. Rimmer.
Day 1: After landing, I ventured forth to explore the place
I would be calling home for the next two thirds of a millennium.
A desert planet, the only life forms the most basic single-celled protozoa, and me.
Relationships would be difficult, but not impossible.
I repaired to the pod, to appraise the supply situation.
The pod had indeed been looted from a seeding ship.
Among the supplies I found two strange devices, labelled "Eco-Accelerator Rockets".
I held out little hope that they might improve my lot, but launched them anyway.
For six days and nights the entire planet was wracked with storms,
the like of which I had never witnessed before or since.
Then, just as suddenly, they stopped.
In just six days I had created my own world, lush and verdant.
I had created "Rimmerworld". I was Adam, in my own Eden,
and only one thing was missing, my own Jane.
As I studied the pod's textbooks, my excitement grew.
It seemed entirely possible for me to create a fully grown female clone,
using my own DNA as a template.
After months of careful nurture, the cocoon cracked. Something had gone hideously wrong,
the clone was just an identical copy of me.
I went back to the manuals, and tried again...
There she blows, an S3 planet.
Navicomp locked. Entering atmosphere.
Got something. Try quadrant four-niner-seven-two.
According to the scan, there's lifesigns.
Confirmed. Thousands of them.
Either Mister Rimmer had the incredible good fortune to land on a populated planet, or...
Or what?
It's too hideous to contemplate.
Preparing to land.
Wait, nasal alert!
What, are you getting something?
I sure am. My nasal hairs are quivering like an opera singer's bosom on the high notes.
Halt, abomination!
Rimmer?
Silence, travesty.
Rimmer?
Never have I seen such a hideously formed and un-naturally freakish deviant.
Rimmer?
Silence mutant! How dare you stand there and address a norm using that face.
It's a revolting insult against nature.
This might sound like a bit of a corny line, but can't even bring myself to say it.
Say what?
Take us to your leader.
Oh sir, how could you!
Let the great one judge them.
Who disturbs our royal snooze?
Rimmer? It's us.
Dear lord, what created such foulness.
Is it the product of a marriage twixt woman and gerbil?
Do you remember? Six hundred years ago?
We used to be your ship mates, we've come to save you.
That ain't goalpost-head, he doesn't smell right.
Agreed, he scans as organic, not hologram.
The 'H' is an affectation. Possibly it has become a symbol of power.
These deformed monsters are no sight for my concubines.
My treasures of pulchritude, run along. Avert your eyes from her great beauty.
Let the trial begin, before my jacuzzi water grows tepid.
These three abominations stand charged on eight counts of gross deviancy.
Not content with not looking like the true image,
they flaunt freakish behaviour such as charm, bravery, compassion and honour.
Are there no sighs of normalcy in these wretches?
No cowardice or pomposity, no snideyness or smarm,
not even basic honest-to-goodness double-dealing two-facedness?
Sire, these creatures did not even attempt
to sell each other out for their own freedom,
they lack even the most basic natural drives.
How do you plead?
Er sir, we wish to speak to the hologram known as Rimmer.
I am he!
Not so, we are seeking the creator of your race,
the father of your people, the first true Rimmer, the template for your species.
Enough of this heresy. At the stroke of dawn take them out and kill them.
And when you've killed them, burn the bodies,
then bring me the cold ashes on a silver plate, with a glass of chilled sancerre.
This guy's an animal. Doesn't he know it's red wine with cold ashes?.
Rimmer?
Smell checks out. That truly is old toilet-brush hair himself.
Of course, I remember. Custer! Derek Custer! Kit! Titan!
What's happened to him bud?
How long have you been in here sir, in this godforsaken pit from hell.
Speed count mode. Five hundred and fifty seven years?
What! You've been stuck in this cell all this time?
What happened?
Can you imagine a society composed entirely of me?
I'm trying not to. The last time I did that it took a week to dry the mattress.
Thousands upon thousands of back-stabbing treacherous
hypocritical cowardly slime-mongering Judases. They overthrew me.
When they found out they couldn't damage my hard light drive,
they locked me in here so I could never threaten their insane lust for power.
Look bud, I can understand them locking you up,
but what have they got against me, Derek and Titan?
Anyone who deviates from the template is reviled.
The smallest physical flaw and they're banished from society,
and anyone who displays behaviour deemed out of character
or un-Rimmerlike is punished by death.
Is that why no-one on the planet is brave, sexy, noble or charming?
All crimes here.
Man. I must be Public Enemy numbers one, two and three.
Oh what have I created?
Your very own personal hell.
Well, fun though its been hearing about
your last five hundred years of total misery,
shouldn't we be making skedaddle plans? I for one could not bear
the prospect of being burned alive. Flames and peach! Ooh, I'd rather die.
Have you tried escaping Rimmer?
The whole planet is populated with back-stabbing slimeballs.
The minute I got out, I'd be sold back immediately.
There's got to be a way out.
There hasn't been a prison built that could hold Derek Custer.
Why don't we scrape away this mortar here, slide one of these bricks out,
then using a rope weaved from strands of this hessian,
rip up a kind of a pulley system
so that when a guard comes in, using it as a trip wire,
gets laid out, and we put Rimmer in the guard's uniform,
he leads us out, we steal some swords, and fight our way back to the 'bug.
Or we could use the teleporter.
Or, at a pinch, we could use the teleporter.
Oh, I've done it again.
Two anomalies in one day,
I must have accidentally tapped into the previous calibration.
Sorry about that, it's just that we're escaping from Rimmerworld.
Don't tell them that, they don't want to know the future.
Poor old Rimmer doesn't want to know
he's going to get persecuted for six centuries by a load of his own clones.
Careful bud, for a minute there I thought you were going to let slip
that he spends the next five hundred and fifty seven years locked in a dungeon.
Rimmerworld?
I'm saying nothing man, don't want to spoil the surprise.
Rimmerworld was weeks ago.
We're far more concerned at the moment about
the quite hideous thing that's happened to Lister.
He's right bud, where are you?
Yeah, where am I? I wanna know!