In the last fifty-six hours he'd learned many things. He'd started off thinking that the structure and composition of planet crust and rock formations were incredibly boring. But now he was absolutely certain of it. Still, he now knew more about uranium production and mining techniques than he knew about the London Jets Megabowl-winning team Of '75 - and he knew what the entire London Jets Megabowl-winning team of '75 had for breakfast on the day of the game.
This was the way it went: fissile uranium-233 could be synthesised from the non-fissile thorium isotope: thorium-232. And this was the best part: thorium-232 wasn't even rare. It was abundant in the universe. It abounded! There was lots of it! And this was confirmed when his radiometric spectrographic survey turned up seven likely moons in this solar system alone.
Five of them would have required underground mining, so he had to rule them out.
Of the remaining two, one, the more likely one, was seven months' travel away.
But on the nearer moon, less than five days' journey away, there was an eighty-seven per cent probability that the ore deposits he needed were lying close to the surface. No shafts, no pitprops, no radon gas ventilation problems.
Maybe he could do it. Red Dwarf was a mining ship - it had all the equipment: the earth-moving vehicles, the processing plants, the whole enchilada!
When he turned into his sleeping quarters, it took several moments before his tired brain registered what it was that was different.
At first he assumed he must have got out of the lift on the wrong floor, and he was now standing on the wrong deck. Then he saw his goldfish, only the water was clean, and you could see the plastic Vatican quite clearly. He looked around.
The dull grey metal walls had vanished behind a Victorian floral print in various pretty pinks. The bedspreads were in delicate cream lace, festoon blinds in a mixture of rosebud patterns hung over the viewport window. A salmon-tinted Aubusson rug swept from under the bunks to the new porcelain pedestal wash basin. The lounge area was curtained off from the bunks by red silk drapes, with gold tie-backs. The table in the middle of the room was covered in a briar rose, short-skirted circular cloth, on top of which stood rows of newly polished boots and piles of neat, crisply folded laundry.
It was appalling.
It was an atrocity against machismo.
'What the smeg is going on?'
Kryten looked up from his ironing.
'Good afternoon, Mr David, sir.'
'What have you done?'
'A spot of tidying.'
'What are these?' Lister snatched an unrecognisable item from the pile of laundry.
'Your boxer shorts' Mr David.'
'No way are these my boxer shorts,' said Lister. 'They bend. What have you done to this place? What is this? This bowl of scented pencil shavings?'
'Potpourri, sir.'
'Pope who? Where is everything? Where's my orange peel with the cig dimps in it?
Where's the remnants of last Wednesday's curry? I hadn't finished eating it!
Where's my coffee mug with the mould in it?'
'I threw it away, sir. I threw it all away.'
'You what? I was breeding that mould. It was called "Albert". I was trying to get him two feet high.'
'Why, sir?'
'Because it drove Rimmer nuts. And driving Rimmer nuts is what keeps me going. What did you do it for?'
'The two Mr Rimmers ordered me to, sir. They even recommended the decor. They said it was very you.'
Lister sat down on the apple-green chintz-covered chaise longue, next to the potted plastic wisteria, and wondered where he could begin. There was something about Kryten that really disturbed him, but he wasn't quite sure what. He was A Slave, and Lister hated that. For some reason, Mankind seemed to be obsessed with enslaving someone : black slavery, class slavery, housewife slavery, and now mechanoid slavery. Then it hit him : it wasn't so much Slavery that got to him, though get to him it did; it was The Happy Slave. It was the acquiescence, the assent to serve, the willingness to BE A Slave.
'What about you?' Lister looked up as Kryten ploughed through the ironing.
'Don't you ever want to do something just for yourself?'
'Myself?' Kryten sniggered. 'That's a bit of a barmy notion, if you don't mind my saying so sir.'
'Isn't there anything you look forward to?'
Kryten stood, the steaming iron in his hand for a full minute, trying to think of an answer.
'Androids,' he said' at last. 'I look forward to Androids.'
'Besides Androids?'
Kryten had another think 'Getting a new squidgy mop?' he ventured.
'Besides dumb soap operas and even dumber cleaning utensils?'
Kryten fell silent.
'What do you think of thorium mining?'
Kryten looked baffled.
'Follow me.'
***
They found the Cat on Corridor omega 577, sleeping peacefully on top of a narrow metal locker, a hairnet protecting his pompadour.
'Hey Cat - wake up.' Lister rocked the locker.
The Cat opened one eye. 'This'd better be good. I was sleeping. And sleeping is my third favourite thing.'
'Come on. Follow me.'
A yawn split the Cat's face and made his head appear to double in size. He sprang down from the locker, arched his spine and stretched until the back of his head was touching the heels of his gold-braided sleeping slippers, and yawned again. He opened the locker door, reached inside, and draped an imitation King Penguin fur smoking jacket casually over his shoulders, before popping the top off a magnum of milk and filling a crystal goblet. He gargled petitely, urinated in the locker and followed Lister and Kryten down the corridor.
'Where are we going?'
'Mining.'
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