reddwarfslash | Last Humans: Twenty Third Century Clone

Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans
Chapter 20: Clone
Summary(flashback): Lister decides to compromise his morals for love.
Warnings: Language, character death(in the past), sexual situations, slash, John Rimmer/Lister, Lister/Rimmer(implicit)
Beta: Rack
Chapter Rating: MA(18+)
Note: Sorry for the clutter. Trying to get this finished!

(ooo)

Clone

(ooo)

The Chief Administrative Officer aboard the Ganymede Station leaned over his desk, his sleeves puckering at the elbows. He stared in an imposing way down at Lister. Behind him his large grandfather clock tapped out the time like an impatient gym teacher.

Lister leaned back in his chair, refusing to be imposed upon. Being called to the CAO office was a regular occurrence for Lister. Not a week went by that he didn't violate some obscure Space Corps regulation or another. Usually threatening to quit was enough to shut the man up. They were terrified of losing their one and only PIE pilot. Lister knew this.

The CAO's chair creaked as he leaned back. Not a hair of him relaxed. "We want your permission to clone you."

"Hrm. No." Lister replied. "Now, about me vacation—"

"Mister Lister. We've tried to find another PIE pilot like you. We've looked everywhere. We tested your childhood friends, your adopted family, your neighbours in Liverpool. We've tested a half million people around the globe and in the colonies. None of them, not a single one, showed a speck of aptitude. We're losing hope here. You are utterly unique and we haven't a clue why."

Lister shrugged. "Me vacation—"

"Do you understand what I'm saying? If you're the only person alive who can use the PIE technology that creates an unworkable bottleneck for science and exploration. The Intergalactic Transportation Collective has put trillions of dollars into this research. We can't fail them because of this one snag. We can't fail the human race."

"I don't care. Really." Lister sighed.

"We don't have a clue you came from. We can't locate your parents and we've even tried comprehensive DNA scans. We've picked up potential uncles, a few first cousins, an aunt but nothing else. Nothing closer. And they all tested negative. It's like you dropped out of another dimension." The CAO shook his head. "It's an impossible situation."

"My vacation, sir?"

The CAO's shoulders slumped. "How much time do you want?"

"Six months."

"Fine."

Lister stood to leave. The CAO stared at his desk, defeated. As Lister reached the door, he spoke, "Dave. Think about what this means to humanity. To have this universe-altering technology and be unable to use it."

(ooo)

Lister let go of the mechanical soil tiller and looked back at his handiwork. Most of his rows were cock-eyed, and the heat and humidly was killing him.

Vlaad offered a plaintive meow from where he was lounging a few feet away under a broad leafed palm.

"It's not like yer helpin' any, yeah."

Vlaad's meow became more insistent.

"Fine. Let's go." Lister wiped his brow with a rag and trudged towards his little cinderblock house.

Behind it lay a valley, greener then anything Lister'd ever seen, and a hazy, purple-black mountain beyond that. Low lying mist clung to the valley sides and the sounds of birds—all colours of the rainbow, the same birds Lister remembered from his gran's living room jungle mural—echoed up from under the canapé.

Lister took a deep breath. The air smelled of mud and water and frangipani.

Inside his house, Lister stripped off his gloves and pulled the cat food from the cupboard. He tipped a half cup into Vlaad's bowl and got himself a glass of juice from the fridge.
Sitting down at the table, he sipped his juice and listened to Vlaad munching.

He was coming. He was coming. Lister grinned. He checked the flight schedule again. Arnold would have landed two hours ago, got through somewhat haphazard Fiji customs and boarded a taxi to Lister's place an hour ago.

Which meant he'd be there in minutes. Minutes.

Lister looked at his watch. Minutes. Seconds. His grin widened. Vlaad jumped into his lap, rubbing his body against Lister's chest. Lister rubbed him back, beaming down at him.

Arn'd finally—after months of Lister sending pleading letters— finally said 'yes, I'll come.' He'd also said some other stuff Lister didn't care as much about. Stuff concerning confidential files on Hollister and, what he believed, would be a very quick promotion to Captain's attaché. Lister didn't care about that, at all. Except he had the vague suspicion that the prospect of promotion had given Arn the confidence to take Lister's offer up.

Lister glanced out the window to his drive way, cranking his smile up another notch.

Six hours later, and still alone, Lister checked and double checked the flight schedule. He called up Jupiter Air's customer service line and inquired about the ticket he'd purchased. He asked about the flight booking. The attendant told him that, yes, it had been booked for that day and time. But, no, no one had boarded by the name of Arnold Rimmer.

(ooo)

Lister sat outside John's quarters on the Ganymede Station. He'd cut his vacation time short to try and find out what had happened to Arnold. Vlaad lay in his lap, rubbing his head against Lister's hand.

It was a long time before John came. When he did he helped Lister to his feet and invited him inside. John wrinkled his nose at Vlaad but said nothing.

Lister'd seen the inside of John's quarters before. Many times before. He felt a twinge of guilt.

"Have a seat," John said, pointing to one of the two chairs at his table. Then he turned and pulled a thermos and two glasses out of his cupboard. He set both on the table and poured them full to the brim. "Before I say anything, I want you to have a drink." John sat down opposite Lister and tossed back his own glass.

Lister sipped his glass and gagged. It tasted like engine de-greaser. He looked up at John who shook his head and jerked his hand in a "drink" motion. Lister knocked it back and looked at John expectantly. John refilled both glasses.

"How many times?"

"Till I'm satisfied."

Lister swallowed his second and thumped the glass down. "Yer scarin' me."

Two more re-fills and John seemed satisfied.

Lister was feeling warm. And the knot in his stomach had started to unwind.

John, on the other hand, rolled his glass between his fingers, looking like he wanted to punch something.

"What's wrong?" Lister asked.

"Arn's dead."

The words seemed to roll over Lister, moving from the outside in. Numbing his fingers first, then his hands, then his arms, finally flushing through his whole body. "What?"

John didn't answer. He was crying.

Lister stared at him. "What? No. I just talked with him a week ago. He was going to come to Fiji. He was…"

John shook his head, too choked up to speak.

"What happened?"

John downed another glass and slid a card across the table towards Lister.

Lister picked it up.

The JMC offers its condolences for the loss of your family member, Arnold Judeaus Rimmer. He/She died (due to own negligence/honourably while fulfilling duties) aboard the Red Dwarf.

Charges will/won't be brought forward against your deceased relative's estate for damages incurred related to their negligence in performing his/her duties at this time.

Sincerely, Captain Frank D. Hollister

He, his, and "due to his own negligence" had been circled. The will/won't option had been left unspecified. Lister dropped the card. "Arnold's dead."

John nodded and poured Lister another glass. Lister swallowed it in one go.

"Look, Dave—" John had finally found his voice. "I'm sorry. I know how much he meant to—"

Lister slammed down his drink and stood. "Let's screw," He said and stepped over to John. He leaned down to kiss John and slammed his forehead against the man's brow with the unsteady violence of the motion. John yelped, then caught Lister's shoulders and stood.

Lister kissed John's neck and pulled on his Corps regulation tie to get rid of it. John coughed from the sudden tightness around his throat and pushed away Lister's hands, slipped out the knot and let the tie fall.

Lister got his fingers in between John's shirt collar and throat, his hands fumbling with the brass clasps and getting nowhere. "It's like goddamn armour." Lister fumed.

John slipped his hands down the front of his dress shirt, unlatching each clasp with a quick, practiced motion. Underneath, John's crisp tee-shirt smelled a bit more like him and a bit less like the Core. Lister pressed his face against John's chest. John was taller, broader and more muscular then Rimmer, although by the time Lister'd had it and left Red Dwarf, the skinny little weevil had started to fill out. Lister felt his throat close off. He shoved John onto the bed.

John barked his head against the back wall, "Tch. Easy."

Lister didn't listen. Instead he worked on John's pants, trying to force the hook and eye to pop. When it wouldn't, he pulled John's tailored black slacks down over his slim hips. John was limp. Either the grief or the booze or the hit to the head had done it.

Lister stopped, straddled John's thighs and slumped. The pain was crawling up his throat and he had nothing left to force it away.

"Hey." John said. "Easy there." He sat up and pulled Lister against his chest.

The motion, the contact… Lister couldn't hold back any more. He sobbed, helpless.

(ooo)

Lister woke. It took him a few minutes to realize where he was—in John's quarters—and what had happened the night before. Blessed forgetfulness vanished, replaced by a heavy misery that threatened to suffocate him.

"Morning," John said, slipping into bed and settled Lister against his chest. Lister realized that this was the first time he'd ever woke up with John. John was in pressed flannel pyjamas with a pair of reading glasses on his nose and an envelope in his hand. Lister sniffled. Pressed flannel pyjamas. Arn would have worn silk, but he would have pressed them too.

Lister lay back, comforted a bit by John's presence. He glanced up at the older man, realizing, for the first time, that his eyes were more green hazel then Arnold's yellow-hazel and his hair was darker and straighter. "What’s that?" He nodded at the envelope.

"Someone dropped off a letter in the morning." John replied and tore it open. "Ah. More news from the JMC."

John read in silence. Then threw it down and sighed. "Fucking gits."

Lister picked it up.

The JMC has been successful in its suit against the estate of Arnold J. Rimmer. His/Her assets have been seized. Unfortunately, the award exceeds the total value of his/her estate. As per the JMC contract, JMC will re-instate the personality algorithm of the deceased to work off the shortfall. If the cost of maintaining a hologram exceeds his/her wage category, be advised that relatives of the deceased are responsible for the outstanding balance. Thank you.

Lister threw the card down in disgust. "What is this smeg? He's not a piece of equipment!" Then Lister realized. "Of course! His hologram. We could have 'm back!"

Jim shook his head. "I don't know, Dave. I understand how you feel but… that kind of life, it's worse then being a quadriplegic. It's like a living death."

"I want to get it. At least… At least I'll have something of him."

"Do you know how hard it is to purchase personality algorithms? I don't even know if you can privately. You wouldn't even have a chance at offering a bid. Not unless you have some enormous corporation up your sleeve. Plus, if you even got him, the amount of power it would take to turn him on and keep him running… you'd have to be a trillionaire to afford it."

(ooo)

"I'll do it." Lister stepped up to the Chief Administrative Officer's desk. "But I have conditions."

The man's eyes narrowed; he leaned back in his chair. "Continue."

"I want to raise the kid as me own. No force growing in a pod. None of that. I don't want you brass-buttons screwin' around with him."

The CAO paused to consider, then nodded.

"And I want you to get me a personality algorithm from the JMC mining ship Red Dwarf. I also want you to build a projection unit in me house on Fiji."

The CAO's eyes bulged. "Do you know the cost? That's insane!"

Lister shrugged his shoulders and turned away.

"Think of the cost to humanity! Worlds we'll be unable to explore—"

"Or strip-mine." Lister stopped to counter.

"You're setting humanity back centuries! Millennia! You'll be remembered as the man that ended the space core's exploration of deep sky!"

Lister didn't pause as he stepped through the open door.

"Wait!"

Lister stopped.

"Who is it?"

"Who's what sir?" Lister turned.

"Who is this blasted personality algorithm you want so badly?"

"His name is Arnold Rimmer." Lister grinned.

(ooo)

Lister walked past the observatory deck over the Ganymede Station mess hall. The sounds of boisterous diners filtered up from below. He wasn't cleared for the deck at that hour, but he'd charmed his way into possession of a clearance code.

Something in the hall caught his eye.

A group of dodgy looking blokes—Lister didn't recognize them, they were crew from a shift he never worked—were cheering on someone in the centre of their group. He had his back to the deck windows and he was knocking back shots like nobody's business. A drinking game. Lister grinned.

He was about to leave, when the bloke in the middle half turned.

Lister dropped Arnold's personality disc. With a cry he knelt to pick it up and by the time he was standing again, the group had reformed and hid the shot-drinker from view.

Lister leaned on the glass. Searching. Had it been…? Him? A clone? An adult clone he hadn’t known about? Lister's fingers fisted around Arnold's personality disc. The edge cut into his thumb.

He looked down at it, then back into the mess hall. The rowdy band had moved off, probably to the communal game room. Lister shook his head. He'd be talking to that bastard CAO—later.

He jogged off down the hall, swearing to himself. A bit beyond the observation deck was the 4D projection room. Currently it only did deep space imaging, but Lister'd found something to alter it for human holograms. The bloke that'd worked it all out warned him it would be low res. Which meant the hologram itself wouldn't be fully functional.

Lister didn't care.

It'd taken a year to get Arnold back, and another year to cobble together the projection hack.

In the meantime his clone had been born; for now the kid—Jim Lister—was mostly being raised by pediatrians, nurses and professional child development psychologists in the Ganymede laboratory. They'd wanted to make sure everything was on track and within acceptable parameters.

Lister got him on weekends. Not this weekend, though. Jim was undergoing another battery of tests.

Inside the projection room, Lister slipped Rimmer's disc into the drive and powered up the system. He entered the hack into a command line. Entered run.

For a long moment nothing happened. The lights flickered, his box full of stolen parts whirred, and a faintly translucent man appeared, sitting, on the ground.

"Arnold!" Lister knelt and threw his arms around him.

Lister went straight through, landing on his chin. He turned over and laughed. "Arnold!"

The hologram hadn't responded. Instead it looked around itself, scared and frantic. "I can't see! I can't see!" It's arms flailed, trying to find some sort of purchase. "I can't touch anything! Am I dead?"

"Arnold?" Lister sat up, rubbing his smarting chin. It was Rimmer. Lister couldn't touch him, but he'd known that. He'd known it. It was just reflex that had made him reach out. "Arn?" Lister asked again and was met with no recognition once more. "Can't you hear me?"

"Am I dead?" Rimmer repeated. He tried to stand, but was paralyzed, stuck in the position Lister had programmed him to boot up in. "I can't move! Please! Somebody, help me! I think I'm dead!" Rimmer cried out, his arms still flailing, almost as if he couldn't control them.

"Arn?" Lister tried again, and again he tried to reach out to the man. His hand went through Rimmer's cheek.

"I'm dead." Rimmer's arms slumped beside his thighs.

Lister jumped up, trying to get as close as he could to Rimmer without falling through the man. "Rimmer! I'm right here. You're not dead. You're a hologram!"

No recognition.

Rimmer began to sob in earnest. Lister bit his lip, his hands fluttered around Rimmer's face and shoulders.

"If I'm paralyzed. Let me die." Rimmer whispered, face contorted. "I want to feel nothing, nothing at all, not even my own thoughts."

"Please, Arn." Lister couldn't stand any more. "I'm sorry." He said, and reached out to flick the projection unit off.

In the sudden dark, Lister leaned his head into his hands and cried.

(ooo)

"I can't believe yeh did this." Lister slammed his fist down on the CAO's desk. The man started and looked up at Lister, a moment of shame flashing across his face. "You created two clones—"

"We created several, Mister Lister. The cloning process is volatile. You have to have at least five zygotes for every one viable clone. The fact that two clones survived the process. Unexpected chance."

"I told you, one." Lister glared.

"What would you have us do? Kill him?" The CAO steepled his fingers and stared Lister down.

Lister turned away. "I told you no accelerated growth. No personality algorithm transplants and I wanted to raise—"

"We understand your concern—”

“But you don’t care?” Lister fumed. “I told you—”

The CAO raised his hand. “But you must realize that we don't know exactly what makes you tick." The CAO swooped up out of his chair. Lister jumped back. "Is it your DNA? Is it your upbringing? We don't have a clue and if we don't account for all the variables… our investment will be lost."

"Yer investment? These are kids."

"Well, not quite." Another voice. Lister's voice.

Lister turned towards the door to the CAO's office. His doppelganger stared back at him. He looked exactly like a ten years younger Lister.

Staring at himself Lister felt shock and then pin-pricks of free-floating panic. He wondered what his clone felt, staring at him.

"Hi," Lister's clone said. "They call me Bexley. Dave Bexley Lister." Bexley held out his hand.

Lister stared at him, mouth gaping. He shook his clone's hand.

"You remember—?"

"Everythin'? Yeah. Right up to our routine backup. A week after we stepped out of the Red Dwarf's stasis pod."

"Are yeh… okay with it?"

Bexley smiled faintly. "I'm me, yeah? That's never going to change."

Lister glanced back to the CAO. The man was smug. Lister's anger deflated into awkwardness. "Well, if you're okay with it." He eyed Bexley. "They haven't made you okay with it, have they?"

(ooo)

"Jim, what yeh doin'?" Lister leaned over his son's—clone's—shoulder and tried to catch a glimpse of whatever it was he had in his hands.

Jim leaned forward to shield it from view, then turned to smile up at Lister. His adoring, guileless smile made Lister feel sad and sick all at once. He patted Jim's shoulder. "Keep yer secrets."

Jim nodded and selected a screw-driver from his array of tools.

Lister moved off into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee. "Pick it up in a bit, yeah? John's comin' later."

"Yes, da." Jim offered up another of his heart-wrenching smiles and turned back to his tinkering.

Lister sipped his coffee, steeling himself for his trip into the attic. Everything seemed to be harder these days. Lister closed his eyes.

A keening wail, muffled, but still distinct echoed through Lister's ranch-style injection molded house. He dropped the cup to the counter—ignored the sound of shattering—and ran for the hidden attic stairs. Pulling them down by the draw-string, he noticed Jim had followed him.

"Go back, Jim." Lister commanded, rushed.

Jim stepped back but continued to watch from down the hall.

Lister pulled hard on the stair and it folded out, bottom scraping against the tile floor.

Up in the attic Lister searched the dark for a faint glow. He couldn't find it. Panic set in. He fumbled around against the far wall, searching for his pair of holo-gloves.

When he found them, he pulled them on and started shoving aside the overturned couch and desk.

The awful sound started up again and this time Lister was able to pinpoint its source. He threw the mattress off the bed and found Arnold curled up on his side underneath it.

Lister knelt beside him. Arnold was naked and slicked with sweat, although it was hard to tell through the thick rubber of the holo-gloves.

Lister touched his shoulder, then tried to hold the man. It was like picking up a cat with a pair of tongs.

Arnold moaned. His eyes fluttered open. He registered Lister and his eyes narrowed. He swatted Lister away. "Get off me, you repulsive git!"

Lister sat back, his head bowed.

"This must be the ninth level of Hell. What did I do to deserve you?" Arnold spat at Lister. "Stuck for eternity with the man I loathe most."

"Look, yeh don't mean that." Lister knew Arnold didn't. Or, at least, his Arnold hadn't. Lister was very much aware that this wasn't his Arnold. Not completely. And he felt terrible for that. He felt guilty for never being able to think of this wretched, vicious creature as his. But he was. Lister's mistake.

Lister helped Arnold stand. "What set you off today?"

"Oh, nothing much, just a little frustration at being completely unable to leave this house, being completely unable to touch anything and having my only company be number one, two and three on my list of people whose presence is less preferable then a tribe of jungle cannibals. Other then that my life is just peaches!"

Lister sat back on his heels and weathered. Lister'd given up trying to explain to Arnold why, exactly, he'd resurrected the man. Rimmer thought Lister's tale of them being lovers was some kind of monstrous, filthy joke and refused to entertain the truth of it. Rimmer decided, instead, that Lister was punishing him due to profound professional jealousy and personal animosity.

"John's coming over." Lister said, helping Arnold sit and then righting the desk.

"Who?" Arnold asked

Lister's stomach sank. "Your brother." Arnold was forgetting more and more of his life. A JMC hologram didn't last much past ten years.

"Oh yes, that smug goit. Tell him that I said 'hi.'" Rimmer paused. "No, that's not right. No. Tell him I told him to 'piss of and die.'"

"He'll be over later today. You could come down."

Arnold didn't answer. He waved Lister away, re-absorbed by a new game of Risk he'd brought up on his hologrammatic computer screen.

Lister watched him, then descended the stairs.

At the bottom, when he could finally lift the folding stairs and close the trap door to the attic, Lister felt relief. And then immediately felt like a monster for feeling relief.

Jim watched from around the courner at the end of the hall.

Lister shook his head and slumped towards him.

"Da? Do you want to go pick uncle John up?" Jim asked. The little project he'd been working on earlier had been packed away. "We could go swimming on the way."

Lister glanced at his clone. "I don't know. I'm pretty tired. John said he'd make his own way here."

If Jim was disappointed, he didn't let on. Lister felt another twinge of guilt and added it to the pile.

"Can I ride Jangles?"

Lister nodded and Jim ran off. His clone gone, Lister settled into his chair and watched the palms swaying in the valley through his picture window.

He was still there when John knocked on the door. Lister looked over. Arn's elder brother waved at him through the wire mesh and opened the screen door to step inside.

Lister was always a little surprised by John's size every time he saw him. Somehow, whenever John was talking with Lister, he always made himself seem about Lister's height. He didn't know how John did it.

Lister had long since realized Jim’s magnificent bastard persona was like Arnold’s—some sort of shield or defence. Although Jim did it better, or, at least, more confidently. Maybe because he wasn’t as attached to it. Lister sighed.

"Hi." John took a chair opposite Lister. He looked flushed from the walk and happy. "How are Jim and Arn?"

"Jim… He's doin' well I suppose. He's got good grades. Arn." Lister stretched his legs out in front of him. "Arn's deteriorating."

"I can hear you two fruits talking about me!"

Lister jumped a bit at Arnold's voice.

John smiled and shook his head. "I imagine he's a handful."

"I know what you two get up to! Don't think I don't. I hear you and it makes me sick."

Lister choked, his face hot. He’d never completely forgiven himself for being with John. Although they weren’t, currently, being anything but friends.

John leaned back. "You're full of shit, Arn, and you know it!" He glanced at Lister. "He's guessing. Come on, let's go outside." John stood and walked towards the door. Lister followed after a moment.

John leaned against the porch railing, watching the horizon. It was a clear day; Lister could see all the way to the ocean.

"It's a beautiful place."

"Yeah." It still had an impact on Lister, did Fiji. It managed to stir something in him besides exhaustion and sadness.

"I noticed you've abandoned your garden," John said.

Lister fished in his pocket for his rumpled pack of cigs. John waved for one. "Too much work."

"Doesn't seem like you." John lit his cigarette and offered a light to Lister. "You used to love working with your hands in the dirt."

Lister shrugged.

John turned back to the view. "Can you believe I'm almost retirement age?"

Lister glanced at John. The man still looked like he was an athletic fifty. "Naw."

"Next year they're going to give me a promotion to a desk job." John laughed. "I may just take early retirement."

"That'd be nice." Lister offered. Lister was still working in the Corps. Still flying missions. "How's Bexley?"

"Amazing." John said. "He's tough as nails. He's started work on an intra-galactic transit way. I think it's called StarTransit™. It's all very hush-hush."

Lister nodded. "It makes me proud. Weird, yeah."

"Well, he is you." John dropped the butt of his smoke into the can Lister used as an ashtray. "What are you going to do about him?" John shrugged towards the attic.

Lister closed his eyes. "What's there to do?"

"He's draining the life out of you."

"He hates me." Lister leaned onto the porch railing.

"Look at it from his point of view. He doesn't remember your relationship because his personality back up occurred months before it happened. He doesn't understand why you're attached to him. And he's stuck living like a ghost because you chose to bring him back."

"I thought we could work it out, yeah?"

"I don't know, Dave. My brother is horribly literal. I don't think he'll understand that he's in a relationship until he actually is in a physical relationship."

"I can't touch him."

John took one of Lister's smokes and pulled the broken end off. "So he's not going to get it." John grimaced. "I know how hard it must be for you. You see the man you love in there, but you can't get close. You know, if he'd just let you in for a moment... Well, anyway." He glanced back at the sky. "When you and Arn were together, it was one of the few times I could stand him. You managed to knock away some of the bitterness and self-pity. He did…does love you—somewhere in that rat's nest of a heart."

"Hrm," Lister said.

"I'm worried about Jim." John offered, abruptly.

"What? Why?" Lister asked. "He's a good kid. Never gets into trouble. No bullyin', no stealin'. He's a little saint. Can't believe he's my clone."

"Not that. I mean, he's obsessed with saving you, Dave. I don't know how that happened but he should be a selfish little monster like every other kid. He's too absorbed by your problems. He's going to end up resenting you."

Lister stubbed out his smoke and glared at John. "Just another thing I spooned, yeah? Smeg. Add it to the pile."

"You're overwhelmed right now," John continued, in his logical and hard-headed way, "But try to get him involved in something other then trying to fix your life."

"Is that it then? Is it time for your life to be analyzed?"

"I'm…just… Sorry." John bowed his head and kicked at a loose board in the porch. "I don’t want either of you to get hurt."

Lister's shoulders slumped, "I don't know how to make it right."

John stepped over and pulled Lister into a hug. He rested his chin on Lister's forehead. Lister could hear him swallow. Odd. He'd never really seen John nervous.

"Look. I wanted to tell you that my youngest went off to college. My wife and I… we haven't slept in the same room for twenty years. She has her house plants…" John trailed off, angling his cigarette up between two fingers and staring intently at the burning end. "She has a creepy relationship with this zucchini plant she bought on Titan. Sometimes I go into the bathroom and it's just sitting in the shower stall emanating smugness." He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "And if she needs human companionship, there's always the pool boy. Her decision to hire him, by the way."

Lister stepped back, puzzled.

"What I mean to say is… I could spend more time with you. We could take our vacations together, that sort of thing."

"Yeah, sure man! Just two blokes livin' large, havin' fun." Lister grinned. "I can get behind that."

John seemed like he wanted to say something more. Then he half turned, shielding his eyes against the glare from the solar reflectors. "Exactly."

"Why don't you unpack your things in the old house?" Lister told him. "We can stay there. Arn will probably appreciate having the house to hisself."

"Sure." John offered Lister a smile and set off towards his rented transport.

Lister watched him go. Jim rode past John on the other side of the driveway fence and waved, Jangle's hooves kicking up clods of dirt. Then he turned Lister's big grey gelding and trotted up to Lister.

"I've something to show you, da." He grinned.

"Yeah?" Lister helped his clone dismount. The boy was light and slender, although Lister remembered being a bit of a chub at his age. Jim tied the gelding to the fence and ran off into the kitchen.

He came back a few excited seconds later with something cradled in his hands. He thrust it at Lister with a huge smile.

Lister took it and slipped off the tea-towel the boy had used to cover it. It was the hologrammatic orchid Lister had bought to brighten up Rimmer's attic a few weeks before.

"Yeah, Jim?" Lister said, confused.

"Touch it, da." Jim pushed Lister's hands towards the stem of the plant.

Lister did. Underneath his fingers he felt something like a stem, if it was covered in a roiling mass of caterpillars. "What?" Lister blinked.

"It's a hologram you can touch." Jim said, his brown eyes gleaming. "It's not quite right yet. I got the idea when Bexley taught me how the PIE engine worked. He sent me some PIE chipsets and I figured out how to use quantum entanglement to access the form the image was taken of. Then I made it materialize here. It's cool, right da?"

For some reason he couldn't explain Lister felt fat tears sliding down his face. "It's smegging boss, Jim."