Created by Rob Grant & Dough Naylor, Written by Dough Naylor, Paul Alexander

Kryten (Moving to the end of the bench) 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.

Rimmer (Sitting up) What do you mean, cheated?

Kryten 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.

Rimmer I admit I might have taken a peek, but I'm a competitive man Kryten, always have been. That's what makes me what I am.

Kryten We're all perfectly well aware of what you are sir. Oh, the results. (Moves over to the panel, and returns with a small piece of card)

Rimmer (Standing) Ah, everything tickedyboo?

Kryten Would you like to take a seat for a moment sir?

Rimmer (Sitting on the bench) Problem?

Kryten You don't have any next of kin, do you sir?

Rimmer No, they all died of heart attacks. And not just heart attacks - aneurysms, strokes, brain clots, you name it.

Kryten 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.

Rimmer Ignorance, every time.

Kryten (Very cheerily) Congratulations sir! You've come storming through your medical with flying colours. See you next time.

Rimmer Everything's OK then?

Kryten Absolutely peachy.

Rimmer I want to know, Kryten, if there's something wrong.

Kryten If there were something wrong, sir, I would tell you.

Rimmer Even if I'd asked you not to?

Kryten Well no. In that case I would lie and tell you everything was absolutely peachy.

Rimmer Kryten, I want to know, that's why I asked for a medical. Is there bad news?

Kryten Lie mode cancel. Yes sir, I'm afraid there is.

Rimmer (Half sitting up, clutching chest) 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?

Kryten 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.

Rimmer Flaw?

Kryten It's not common, but it's possible for a hologram to die.

Rimmer Kryten, kindly get to the point before I jam your nose between your cheeks and make it the filling of a buttock sandwich.

Kryten 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. (Rimmer starts breathing heavily, and moves over to what looks like a deep sleep booth) 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, and if you wish to avoid a gigantic electronic aneurysm, it is imperative that you start on a program of relaxation.

Rimmer I see, and you thought that the best way for me to start this program of relaxation was to tell me my brains are about to explode. You've got the bedside manner of an abattoir giblet gutter.

Kryten 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 (moving over to a cupboard), try these Chinese worry balls whenever you feel anxious or tense. (Rimmer looks at the balls suspiciously)

Lister (Entering) Hey, maybe some good news. Come and check it out. (Leaves)

Rimmer Er, Kryten, I don't want the others to know about this. I want you to behave as if everything's absolutely normal.

Kryten As you wish sir.

Lister There she blows.

Cat Logging onto the ident computer.

Rimmer (Entering, standing by Lister's chair) What's this?

Lister We've come across the simulant ship we totalled a couple of weeks back. We're gonna try and board it for supplies.

Kryten Is that wise sir? The scan says the superstructure is highly unstable and could go at any time.

Rimmer What if some of the simulants have survived?

Cat There's an old Cat saying: "If you're gonna eat tuna, expect bones."

Rimmer (Back in his own seat) There's an old human saying: "If you're gonna talk garbage, expect pain."

Lister Look, we'll take our chances man, OK?

Rimmer No K. They're cybernetically deranged mechanical killing machines. Not content with blasting their ship out of the sky, you now want to go back and steal what remains of their belongings? That's the metaphorical equivalent of flopping your wedding tackle into a lion's mouth and flicking his love spuds with a wet towel. Total insanity.

Lister 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.

Kryten Well sir, are you really saying you'd rather have a psychopathic mechanical killer rip off your skull and play your frontal nodes like a xylophone than have another bowl of my nourishing space nettle soup?

Cat Buddy, I'd hand him the sticks and hold up the sheet music.

Rimmer Lister, they are simulants. Why on Io should they have food supplies?

Lister Because the ident computer says they do. Look,stocked to the gills.

Kryten (To Rimmer) It's true sir. Rogue simulants always carry large stocks of food supplies in order to prolong the torment of their torture victims. In some cases, they've kept subjects alive for over forty years in a state of perpetual agony.

Rimmer If we wanted to live in a state of perpetual agony, we'd let Lister play his guitar. We don't. I say drive on.

Lister Kryten, what's for dinner?

Kryten Tonight sir, asteroidal lichen stew followed by dandelion sorbet.

Lister We're going in.

Kryten (To Lister) Sir, can't you see your behaviour is totally irrational?

Rimmer In which case we can remove him from duty as per Space Corps Directive 1_9_6_1_5_6.

Kryten 1_9_6_1_5_6? Any officer caught sniffing the saddle of the exercise bicycle in the women's gym will be discharged without trial? Hmm, I'm sorry sir, that doesn't quite get to the nub of the matter for me. (To Lister) 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.

Rimmer Lister, we'd be fools not to listen to him. When is he ever wrong? Alright, he may have a head shaped like an inexplicably popular fishing float but he does operate from a position of total logic and we'd be fools to ignore his sage council.

Kryten At least let me and Mister Rimmer go in your place. We are after all merely electronic life forms and therefore expendable.

Rimmer And what the smeg would you know, bog-bot from hell?

Lister There's something else. I didn't want to say in front of the Cat. (Quick shot of 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.

Kryten (Checking a panel) But what about the readouts?

Lister I rigged the readouts. I didn't want to cause any alarm.

Rimmer You rigged the readouts! You didn't want to cause any a.. (hyperventilates, and recovers as he grinds the worry balls) I can't breathe, I'm hyperventilating.

Kryten Please sir, don't panic.

Rimmer It's not panic, it's a full-blown hysterical fit!

Kryten Grind those balls sir! Grind them!

Rimmer (Grinding) So let me get this straight. If we board that ship and get captured, we're finished. However if we board that ship and don't get captured, but the superstructure disintegrates around us, we're finished. On the other hand, if we board that ship and don't get captured and the superstructure doesn't disintegrate around us, but we can't find any fuel, we are in fact finished.

Lister That's about the shape of it, yeah.

Kryten After you with the balls sir.

Lister 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.

Rimmer Look, you three go. I'm not leaving Starbug.

Lister 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.

Rimmer I'll go and pack. (Moves to the staircase)

Lister Bring your extra brown rubber safety pants.

Kryten Lifesigns.

Cat If one of those suckers bumps into me, he'll be lunching on laser, (Arms bazookoid) Last time we met I was wearing the same outfit, and no-one's gonna survive to tell that story.

Lister Listen guys, I suppose now's as good as time as any to tell you.

Rimmer Tell us what?

Lister 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. (Reacting to the others' stares) Why are you all looking at me like that?

Cat Like what?

Lister Like I'm a nostril hair in a Spanish omelette.

Rimmer Why didn't you tell us?

Lister Didn't wanna cause any panic.

Rimmer You didn't want to cause any p.. (Hyperventilates, then slowly recovers as he grinds the balls) Let me get this clear in my head. If we meet one of these totally deranged killing machines, we have to engage them in combat silently? What do we do, whisper "charge", tippytoe up to them all screaming "shhh" and chloroform them with Lister's armpits? Priceless.

Lister (Spotting) A teleporter.

Kryten (Checking the controls) Hmmm, fully functional.

Cat Let's grab what we can and load up.

Rimmer Quietly.

Kryten It's not gonna hold much longer sir, we'd better make this the last batch.

Lister One more trip Kryten, let me get one more crate of that red hot West Indian red pepper sauce.

Kryten Shhhhh.

Simulant (Pointing her weapon at the crew) Well, if it isn't my old friends, the human vermin, the scab of slime, the pus-sucking, puke-laden walking cesspits of unspeakableness.

Cat She remembers us

Simulant Annihilated my ship, slaughtered by fellow simulants, and you practically destroyed me. Yes, I remember you.

Cat (Pointing at the Simulant) 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.

Kryten 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 conduct