From: GRS00042@conrad.appstate.edu
Subject: Season 6, Episode
1: Psirens
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RED DWARF Series VI Episode
1, "Psirens"
1 Model Shot.
Starfield. We pan to reveal enormous sun. After a pause, Starbug
beetles across
the disk of the sun.
2 Int. Obs. deck.
Dark. Various consoles click into life as we pan
around the room, and
come to rest on two deep sleep units. Suddenly, one of them flares with
blue
light from the inside, and its hood hisses back, revealing a slowly-
waking,
bearded LISTER, wearing soiled long johns.
He sits up. His
mouth
tastes vile. He notices his fingernails
and toenails are six
inches long.
LISTER pads across the room, and starts to cut his nails in
a
desk-mounted pencil sharpener. He
catches his reflection in a blank TV
screen.
LISTER: (To his
reflection) Who the hell are you?
3 Int. (OB) Starbug engine
room.
KRYTEN empties some waste into a large hatch marked 'Waste
Compactor' and
presses the start button.
Crushing sounds. He opens the
hatch and takes
out the garbage, now in a perfect cube.
4 Int.
Mid-section.
More hi-tech than before. Light panels line the back wall.
Switches,
radar screens, etc.
There is a large flatbed scanner screen, which
doubles as a table,
surrounded by four chairs. KRYTEN
climbs up the
spiral staircase with the waste cube. LISTER is standing there, looking
a bit
nonplussed.
KRYTEN: Welcome back on-line, sir. How are you feeling?
LISTER: I can't
remember anything. I don't know who I
am. What is this
place?
Who are you?
As he speaks, KRYTEN places the cube in a waste
disposal chute and
launches it into space.
KRYTEN: Ah, you have
a touch of amnesia. That's quite common
after such
a long period in Deep
Sleep. You've been out for just over
two hundred
years.
LISTER:
Two hundred years?
KRYTEN: Actually, I woke you last spring, but you
absolutely insisted on
another
three months.
LISTER: What did you say my name was?
KRYTEN: Lister,
sir.
LISTER: And you are -?
LISTER follows KRYTEN into...
5
Int. Galley.
KRYTEN: Kryten.
I was just preparing your breakfast tray.
LISTER examines the
tray.
LISTER: These cornflakes have got grated raw onions sprinkled
over them.
KRYTEN: That's how you like them, sir.
LISTER: Do I? (Sips from glass. Winces.) This orange juice is
revolting.
KRYTEN: That's not orange juice, sir. That's your early-morning pick-me-
up.
Chilled vindaloo sauce.
LISTER: I drink curry sauce for
breakfast?
KRYTEN: Depends on your mood.
If you get up in the afternoon, you often
prefer to start the day with a can of last
night's flat lager. That's
why you sleep with a tea strainer by your
bed: to sieve out the cigar
dimps.
LISTER: I drink, I smoke, I have
curry sauce for breakfast? Raw
onions
on my cereal? I sound like some barely human grossed-out
slime ball.
KRYTEN: Oh excellent, sir.
It's all flooding back then?
LISTER: No. None of it is.
KRYTEN sets a box in front of
LISTER.
KRYTEN: Perhaps these will help. Your personal artifacts.
You asked me
to keep them
safe.
LISTER takes out a photo.
KRYTEN: Kristine
Kochanski. You dated her for three
weeks once. Before
she discarded you for a catering
officer.
LISTER: She's beautiful.
KRYTEN: It's your ambition, sir,
somehow to get her back and lie on top
of her and move up and down rapidly in that curious way that
humans
find so agreeable. Personally, I prefer partnership
whist.
LISTER takes out a book.
LISTER: Ah! Wait a minute. This feels more like it.
Aristotle's
Metaphysica. At last --
something wholesome and commendable about me.
KRYTEN: Hardly, sir. You use that book to hide your secret
Polaroid
collection of naked
ex-girlfriends.
LISTER: (Looking through them) God, I went out with a lot
of nurses,
didn't I?
KRYTEN:
I don't believe those are authentic uniforms, sir. Note the
astonishing brevity of those hemlines.
I believe all those girls are
imposters, pretending to belong to the medical profession for some
nefarious purpose as yet unknown.
KRYTEN
hands LISTER his guitar.
LISTER: Is this mine? Do I play the guitar?
KRYTEN: Do you
play the guitar? Do I have a head
shaped like an amusing
ice
cube? Why don't you chock out a few
power chords? See if anything
comes back to you.
LISTER plucks
tunelessly at the strings.
KRYTEN: The Axeman's back!
LISTER:
Don't patronize me. I can't play the
guitar. Anyone with half
an ear can tell that.
KRYTEN: Please,
sir -- you are not yourself at present.
When you're
fully
functional, and your personality's restored, you will firmly
believe that you can play the guitar like
the ghost of Hendrix.
LISTER: Is there something good you can tell me
about myself? Something
laudable?
KRYTEN: Laudable... Well, you
frequently help me with my laundry duties
by wearing your underpants inside out and extending their wear
time by
three weeks.
LISTER:
I'm an animal! I'm a tasteless,
uncouth, tone-deaf, mindless,
revolting, randy, blokeish, semi-literate space bum.
KRYTEN: (Gives
him a bear hug.) Welcome back, Davey!
KRYTEN open the fridge, gets
out RIMMER's frozen light bee and pops it
into a pan of boiling
water.
LISTER: What's that?
KRYTEN: Mr Rimmer, sir. He's a hologram, sir. This is his light bee.
LISTER:
Rimmer... He's my best mate, isn't he?
KRYTEN: You _are_ sick, sir. I'm getting woried. Maybe a little
synaptic enhancer will do the trick.
KRYTEN
takes out syringe gun and fires it into LISTER's neck. KRYTEN
takes the light bee out of the
water and places it in an egg cup. And
LISTER
follows KRYTEN into
6 Int. Mid-dection.
KRYTEN places the
light bee on the scanner and sits in front of the
computer screen on the
rearwall.
KRYTEN: Initiating boot-up sequence.
KRYTEN
taps some panels on the keyboard, and the light bee flares into
life and
hovers out of the egg cup.
KRYTEN: Download physical form.
RIMMER's
image crackles into existence around the light bee, in black and
white,
with ripples of white noise interference.
KRYTEN: Access personality
banks.
On the screen, a bar chart appears.
KRYTEN:
Download characteristics. Load
arrogance.
The first bar (a tall one) shrinks towards the bottom of
the screen, like
liquid being poured from a vial, to the accompaniment of
appropriate
computer sound effects.
KRYTEN: Load charisma.
The
second bar (a very, very short one) disppears off the screen with a
single
blip!
KRYTEN: Load neuroses.
The next, the longest bar,
drains off the screen. Followed by the
next,
and the next, and the next... RIMMER becomes fully formed and
colourful.
KRYTEN: Download memory.
As RIMMER recieves
his memory, his face contorts into various
combinations of horror, shock,
anguish, and occasional brief spasms of
joy. He gets his bearings.
LISTER: Oh. _That_ Rimmer.
7 Int.
Mid-section.
They are all sitting around the scanner scope. The CAT is cracking the
head of a
boiled mouse in an egg cup. RIMMER is
looking at him aghast.
LISTER is tucking into his cornflakes.
LISTER:
Good cornflakes. Nice and oniony. Pass me the Tabasco sauce --
just needs a bit more pep in it.
KRYTEN:
Congratulations, sir. You seem to be on
your way to full recall.
Next
thing you know, you'll be convinced you can play the guitar.
LISTER:
(Astonished) I can play the guitar! I'm
a diva, man. I can make
that lump of wood sing like a Yukon bear
trapper on his annual visit to
the brothel.
CAT: That's as may be, bud. But the deal stays the same.
LISTER: I know, I know. If I want to strum my guitar, I have to put
on a
suit and do it in outer
space. Peasants.
LISTER liberally
douses the cornflakes with Tabasco, then swigs from the
bottle.
KRYTEN:
Suggest we begin the debriefing. Mr
Rimmer?
RIMMER: Thank you Kryten.
Gentlemen, as we're all aware, we have lost
Red Dwarf.
This is not the time for small-minded, petty recrimination.
The time for that is when LISTER is
court-martialled after we get back
to Earth.
LISTER: I didn't lose it.
RIMMER: You're the one who
parked it, Lister. You're the one
who
couldn't remember which
planetoid you'd left it around.
LISTER: Yeah, but they all look the same,
those little blue-green
planetoids. They're all sort of
little, blue-green and planetoidy.
KRYTEN: Sirs, please, there's no
advantage in finger-pointing. We
didn't
lose Red Dwarf. Red Dwarf was stolen. By persons... or life forms
unknown.
CAT: Who would steal a
gigantic red trash can with no brakes and three
million years on the clock?
KRYTEN: Rogue droids...
Genetically engineered life forms... Figments of
Mr Lister's imagination made solid by some
weird space ray. Who knows?
The important thing is, after two hundred
years of following their
vapour
trail, we have them.
LISTER: What d'you mean?
KRYTEN clears
some breakfast things off the scanner screen.
KRYTEN: They've been
forced to make a massive detour to circumnavigate
this asteroid belt. However, Starbug is small enough to
negotiate its
way directly
through the middle. For the first time
in two centuries,
we have the
oppurtunity to head them off at the pass, as it were, and
recover Holly.
CAT: Well, what are we
waiting for?
RIMMER: Without deflectors?
What about Space Corps Directive one-seven-
four-two?
KRYTEN:
One-seven-four-two? 'No member of the
Corps should ever report
for
active duty in a ginger toupee'? Thanks
for reminding us of that
regulation, sir. But is it
really that pertinent in this particular
situation?
RIMMER: One-seven-four-_three_, then.
KRYTEN: Oh, I
_see_. 'No registered vessel should
attempt to transverse
an asteroid
belt without deflectors.'
RIMMER: Yes?
God, he's pedantic.
LISTER: Rimmer, check out the supply
situation. (Indicates computer
printout.) Your hologram's on battery
back-up. We've only got oxygen
for three months: water, if we drink re-cyc, seven weeks. And worst
of all,
we're down to our last two thousand poppadoms.
We're in
trouble, big
time.
RIMMER: You know how unstable these belts are. Rogue asteroids... meteor
storms.
One direct hit on that plexiglass viescreen, and our innards
will be turned inside out quicker than a
pair of Lister's old
underpants.
LISTER: We're out of options, man. We're taking her in.
KRYTEN: Recommend
the Cat pilots. His superior reflexes
and nasal
intuition will give us
our best chance.
CAT, LISTER and KRYTEN stand to leave.
RIMMER:
For pity's sake, one breech in that hull, and we're people pate
CAT:
There's on ald Cat proverb: 'It's
better to live one hour as a
tiger, than a whole lifetime as a worm.'
RIMMER: There's an old
human saying: 'Whoever heard of a
wormskin rug?'
8 Model Shot.
Starbug's rear jets flare
and it arcs into the asteroid belt.
9 Model Shot.
We see
the back of Starbug as it tacks through a narrow gap between two
huge
asteroids.
10 Int. Cockpit.
All at their stations. Tense.
Suddenly, orange light flares from their
right. CAT wrenches the controls to the left.
11
Model Shot.
A huge lick of flame leaps out at Starbug from a gas
geyser on one of the
asteroids.
12 Int. Cockpit.
Starbug
nicks the opposite asteroid as it swerves to avoid the flame, and
they all
stagger with the impact.
LISTER: Nice stick work, man.
CAT
wrinkles his nose.
CAT: Something's coming.
KRYTEN: Nothing on
the navicomp.
CAT: I can smell it.
(Peers through screen.) Something big.
LISTER: I'm getting nothing,
either.
CAT: These nostrils never lie.
RIMMER: He's right. Co-ordinates 1746 by 9472. Take a peek, gentlemen.
There's a meteor bigger than King Kong's
first dump of the day, and
it's
screaming straight towards us.
KRYTEN: It's far too vast to go
around.
RIMMER: Reverse thrust.
CAT: There's no time. Face it -- we're deader than corduroy.
LISTER:
Kryten, you know what to do.
KRYTEN; On my way, sir.
RIMMER:
Lister. Given that we've got as much
chance of getting out of
this in
one piece as a Jammy Dodger that's been dunked in hot coffee
and wiggled about for three minutes, perhaps
you'd do me the courtesy
of
explaining what he's doing?
LISTER: He souped up the waste disposal. Filled the eject system with
rocket fuel, and turned it into a sort of
high-impact garbage cannon.
RIMMER: A garbage cannon? You're going to try and shoot that out of
the
sky with tin cans and a
banana peel?
LISTER: There's a thermos of nitro-glycerine in there,
too.
KRYTEN picks up a cube of garbage, opens a hatch in the wall
marked
'Waste disposal unit 5' and places the cube in the chute
inside.
KRYTEN: Waste disposal unit armed, and ready to fire.
RIMMER:
Kryten -- will this work?
KRYTEN: Lie Mode. (pause) Of course it will work, sir. No worries.
(Winks
to LISTER) Hook, line, sinker, rod and copy of _Angling Times_.
CAT: Here
it comes!
LISTER: Bearing zero-seven-niner-two. Fire!
KRYTEN pulls the waste disposal lever.
13
Model Shot.
The waste cube blasts out of an orifice above Starbug's
front lights,
heads straight for the giant meteor, hits it in the middle
and blasts it
to pieces.
14 Int. Cockpit.
ALL whoop
and cheer, apart from RIMMER who shakes his head in disbelief.
KRYTEN:
Relocating Red Dwarf's vapour trail.
Present speed and course,
estimated time of interception, twelve hours, seven minutes.
CAT:
(Sniffs.) Check your screens. I'm
getting something new, and it
does not smell good.
RIMMER: Enhance four. Nothing.
Enhance eight... Sixteen.
(Shakes
head.)
Thirty-two... Still nix. Enhance
sixty-four. Got it. Some
kind of ship.
LISTER: Wait a minute. There's another one. And another.
KRYTEN: I'm getting them
too. Ten of them... twelve.
RIMMER:
All derelict.
LISTER: It looks like this is some kind of spaceship
graveyard.
15 Model Shot.
A tiny Starbug flies between a
group of asteroids, all with wrecked space
craft embedded in them.
16
Int. Cockpit.
LISTER: Anyone else got the feeling that we've been
led here like lambs
to the kebab
shop?
RIMMER: We are not moving another inch until we've found out what
brought
these ships down.
KRYTEN:
Recommend we stop engines and launch scouter.
CAT flicks some
switches.
CAT: Engines stopped.
Launching scouter.
Sound effects: scouter launched. Cut
to:
17 OB. Int. Crashed ship.
We are inside. A laser beam burns a circle in the hull,
which falls
inwards, and scouter's search beam pierces the smoke as it
hovers through
the hole into the ship.
18 Int.
Mid-section.
LISTER, RIMMER, KRYTEN and CAT hunched over the scanner
screen.
KRYTEN: We're in.
19 OB. Int. Crashed ship.
Scouter's
POV as it hovers its way through the derelict craft. Dark and
scary.
20 Int. Mid-section.
LISTER:
Scouter, stop. Go back. Stop.
Angle, forty-five degrees to
your left. Magnify.
CAT:
What's that?
RIMMER: Human remains.
Wait. Angle: five degrees right. Ten degrees
up. Stop. There:
some kind of writing on the floor.
P-S-I-R-E-N-S.
Psirens?
KRYTEN: The poor devil scrawled it in his death throes,
using a
combination of his own
blood and even some lengths of his own
intestines.
RIMMER: Who would do that?
LISTER: Someone who
badly needed a pen.
CAT: What I don't understand is why he went to the
trouble of using his
kidney as a
full stop.
RIMMER: I don't think he meant that. It probably just plopped out.
KRYTEN: Whoever he was,
clearly he was desperate to warn any poor
wretches who wandered into the same deadly trap.
They
exchange worried looks.
LISTER: Scouter's located the black
box. Replay final entry.
On
the screen, white noise, which settles to become...
21 OB. Int.
Crashed ship.
All on one shot, overhead, wide angle. Mad ASTRO, wide-eyed with fear,
talks
directly to the camera eating a burger ravenously.
ASTRO: They're
closing in. They're all over the
ship. They've got Hank,
and Ludo.
Tina, Jerry, Tim, Gordy, Sam.
They even got Jeff. At
least
I think so: I found a huge pile of his intestines on his
bunk. Maybe
the rest of him escaped, I don't know. What am I saying? I'm half-
crazed
with fear. I know I'm next. It's just a matter of time
before...
From the doorway behind
him, a hideous INSECTOID biped with mandibles
advances towards him.
INSECTOID:
(Speaks disgusting, incomprehensible insect language.)
ASTRO: Oh God,
you're so beautiful, I can't resist you.
But I have to be
strong. I know what you
want.
INSECTOID: (Insect talk.)
ASTRO: No, you don't. You want to love me. You want to suck out my
brains with a straw, like you did the rest
of them.
INSECTOID: (Insect talk.)
ASTRO: I'm different? Is that what you said to Jeff? Just before you
slurped up the contents of his skull, like
it was a double-thick brain
shake? Get away from me.
The
INSECTOID reaches him. He backs out of
shot, the creature holds up a
metal straw and follows. The ASTRO screams. The screen is splattered
with red.
ASTRO: (VO)
What have you done, you evil harlot!
You've squeezed all the
ketchup out of my burger. Now
what! No! Get that straw out of my
ear!
There is a slurping sound and more gunk hits the
screen. The INSECTOID
lurches into
view, something grey and slimy dangling from it's mouth. It
sucks it in like spaghetti, then
licks the screen.
22 Int. Mid-section.
The four of them
watching the replay on the scanner screen.
Without
changing expression, RIMMER falls backwards out of shot in
a dead faint.
23 Model Shot.
Starbug gingerly tacks
through the spaceship graveyard.
24 Int. Mid-section.
All
seated round the scanner table. LISTER
has a sheaf of papers.
LISTER: OK.
Scouter's checked out black boxes on three of the derelicts.
This entire belt is swarming with some kind
of genetically engineered
life
form who can alter your perception, telepathically. They're
called
Psirens. Like with Ulysees in the
ancient Turkish legend.
KRYTEN: I believe the legend was Greek, sir.
LISTER:
Whatever. Some country that's big on
curly shoes and hoummos.
the
point is, they use this power of illusion to lure you on to the
asteroids, strip the ship of anything they
can use and suck out your
brains.
RIMMER: They shouldn't bother us, then. There's barely a snack on board.
KRYTEN:
We can't turn back. We'll lose Red
Dwarf.
LISTER: Look, we'll be through the belt in three, maybe four
hours.
We've just got to be on
our toes. They'll try and tempt us,
scare us,
break our morale -
anything to force us down on to the rocks.
Just be
alert.
A
wall monitor starts to fizzle with white noise.
CAT: Incoming
message. It's pretty weak.
CAT
crosses to the monitor and fine-tunes the controls. The screen
clears and
25 Int. Cushiony, curtainy
area.
Two beautiful TEMPTRESSES appear.
TEMPTRESS 1:
Please help us. Our settlement is
almost extinct. There
are only women left.
TEMPTRESS 2:
Barely three thousand of us.
TEMPTRESS 1: If we are to survive, we need
males to spread their seed
among
our number. We beg you. Make love to us.
TEMPTRESS 2: Make love
to all of us. Please, we beseech
you...
26 Int. Mid-section.
The screen dies.
CAT:
You heard 'em -- they want seed-spreaders.
I'm going to apply. You
guys deal with this Psiren thing. I'll deal with this.
CAT dashes
into the cockpit. Pause. He steps back again.
CAT: Call me
paranoid, but you don't think they were these Psiren dude
things...?
LISTER, RIMMER and
KRYTEN nod patiently.
CAT: Even the brunette?
LISTER,
RIMMER and KRYTEN nod.
CAT: You don't think there's any chance
they're just two nice girls who
both happen to want my seed for totally legitimate reasons?
LISTER,
RIMMER and KRYTEN shake their heads.
CAT: I don't need to tell you
this is a big disappointment. Damn
vixens!
How could they be so
cunning? If anyone wants me, I'll be
taking a
cold shower in liquid
oxygen.
CAT exits to cockpit.
RIMMER: Well, if that's the
most sophisticated enticement these Psirens
can throw at us, I hardly think we're exactly in danger of
being
bewitched.
KRYTEN: If
I may postulate a theory, sir: that was
merely the level of
sophistication required to lure the Cat. And it worked. Had we
not
stopped him, he would now be
on one of those asteroids, crawling around
without his brain, trying to write 'Oh boy, was _I_ suckered'
with his
own intestinal
tract.
LISTER: Look, we'll make it.
All we've got to do is stay on the case.
The screen
fizzles.
LISTER: Incoming message.
Here they come again.
The picture is riddled with
interference.
27 Int. Ship interior.
A wounded WOMAN
looks into the camera. In the
background, through the
smoke, we can vaguely make out that the WOMAN and
her companions are
fighting a futile rearguard action. She is talking into a communicator.
WOMAN:
Can anyone read me? This is Captain Tau
of the SCS Pioneer.
We're under
attack from some kind of scavengers -- Psirens. They lured
us on to
this god-forsaken asteroid -- killed most of the crew.
She turns and
lets out a volley of laser fire.
LISTER: Is this genuine?
The
WOMAN is shot dead. A second WOMAN
picks up the communicator, and
turns to the screen.
KOCHANSKI:
Don't try and help us. We're
finished. Save yourselves.
LISTER:
Kochanski!
KOCHANSKI: Dave? Is
that you?
LISTER: I thought you were dead.
KOCHANSKI: No time to
explain. We're over-run! Get out of the belt
while you can!
LISTER: It's
Kochanski.
KOCHANSKI: We'll be OK -- they'll never take us alive. I'm keeping back
three bullets. One for me and one for each of the two kids.
LISTER:
Kids?
KOCHANSKI: Your two sons, Dave.
LISTER: My sons? But how...? I don't understand.
KOCHANSKI:
When you went into stasis, I broke into the sperm bank, Dave,
back on Red Dwarf. You're a father. (Turns.)
Here they come! (Cocks
the gun and calls off.) Jim, Bexley, come to
Mummy.
LISTER: Wait! Don't do
anything. I'm coming in.
The
screen blanks.
28 Int. Mid-section.
LISTER: Kryten -- get
the bazookoids. Rimmer -- plot a
course.
LISTER grabs a space helmet.
RIMMER: Lister, tune
into Sanity FM.
LISTER: What? Are
you saying they were... Psirens?
RIMMER: Of course. It's as plain as a Bulgarian pin-up.
LISTER:
You're sure?
RIMMER: Come on, Listy, you're giving simpletons a bad
name.
CAT leans in from thee cockpit.
CAT: I think you
should take a look at this. Something's
heading
straight for us.
KRYTEN:
What is it?
CAT: What do you call one of those giant meteorites that are
covered in
flames?
KRYTEN: A
giant, flaming meteorite?
CAT: That's it!
29 Model Shot.
Flaming
meteor hurtling through space.
30 Int. Cockpit.
All take
up their stations.
KRYTEN: Should I load the garbage cannon?
LISTER:
Wouldn't make a dent.
RIMMER: Plot course change.
KRYTEN turns
to navicomp.
CAT: Engaging re-heat!
KRYTEN: Wait! There's nothing on the radar.
RIMMER:
So?
KRYTEN: I think it's another illusion.
LISTER: Psirens?
KRYTEN:
Cat? Are you getting any scent from
that meteorite?
CAT: Scent? You
think there's going to be a duty-free shop on it?
KRYTEN: Can you _smell_
anything?
CAT: No. (Looks at
RIMMER.) Just a little holo-fear.
KRYTEN: Recommend we maintain current
course. That fire-ball does not
exist.
RIMMER: Say you're wrong?
KRYTEN:
Sir, I'll stake my reputation on it.
RIMMER: Kryten, you haven't got a
reputation.
KRYTEN: No, but I hope to acquire one from this
escapade.
LISTER: It's closing.
Too late to run.
The others brace themselves. KRYTEN remains defiantly erect.
KRYTEN:
Relax, gentlemen, we're quite safe.
31 Model Shot.
The
flaming meteor hurtles towards Starbug ... and passes harmlessly
through
it.
32 Int. Cockpit.
They are momentarily bathed in an
orange glow, then back to normal.
They
unbrace.
KRYTEN: Well, I can't hang around saving
your necks all day. Swagger
mode.
KRYTEN swaggers out.
KRYTEN:
Guess I'd better make a start on that ironing.
LISTER follows
him.
CAT: (Sniffs the air.) I'm getting another one. (To RIMMER.) Better get
Kryten.
He'll tell us what to do.
RIMMER: I'm perfectly capable of dealing
with a giant, flaming meteorite,
thank you so very much. We do
not need to enlist the services of a
domestic droid with a head shaped like a genetically flawed
lumpfish.
CAT: OK, keep your H
on. So what do we do?
RIMMER:
There's nothing on the radar. It's
another illusion. We do
nothing.
LISTER and KRYTEN come
back in.
LISTER: What's happening, guys? Cabin temperature's rising.
RIMMER: Psirens again. Another illusion. It's all in hand.
KRYTEN: Permission to speak, sir?
RIMMER:
Refused.
KRYTEN: What if this time it's a real fireball and the radar
read-out
that's the
illusion?
RIMMER: Relax, gentlemen.
We're quite safe.
LISTER: Cat -- chuck a left, man.
They
brace themselves, except for RIMMER, who stands nobly erect.
33
Model Shot.
The flaming meteor hurtles towards Starbug ... and smashes
into it.
34 Int. Cockpit.
RIMMER gets flung backwards
through the cockpit door. Sparks and
smoke
from the consoles.
35 Model Shot. Night.
Starbug
crashes on to an asteroid.
36 Int. Cockpit.
LISTER and
CAT are putting out small fires on the consoles. KRYTEN is
checking the computer screen. RIMMER staggers in.
RIMMER: Any
damage?
CAT: Not too bad. A couple
of the sensors are out, fuel-intake chambers
are both flooded and the left pilot seat doesn't go up and down
any
more.
RIMMER: We came through
that intact?
KRYTEN: Starbug was built to last, sir. This old baby's crashed more
times than a ZX81.
LISTER: It's the
material it's built from. Aerospace
engineers
discovered that, after
a plane crash, the only thing that always
survives intasct is a cute little doll. They built Starbug out of the
same stuff.
CAT: How long before we can take off
again?
KRYTEN: Oh, just a matter of ... Wait. The front landing stanchion is
embedded in the rock up to its joint. We're going to have to go out
there and blast it free.
LISTER: I'll go.
KRYTEN: Sir,
the atmosphere is thin, and this place is likely to be
crawling with Psirens.
LISTER: You sort
out the engines. I'll be out there two
minutes,
maximum.
37
Model Shot. Night.
Crashed Starbug.
Tiny sparks by the front landing leg.
We cut to:
38 Ext. (OB) Asteroid. Night.
Welding
gun held by LISTER, in space suit, as he tries to free Starbug's
landing
leg. Attached to the neck of the suit
is a breathing pipe, which
looks a bit like a harmonica, from which he
occasionally sucks air. He
stops
and presses a communicator button on his wrist.
LISTER: How's
that?
CAT: (VO. Dist.) Looking
good. We'll clear the rest on
take-off.
LISTER: On my way back.
LISTER packs his gear. From behind him, he hears;
PSIREN:
Hi, Dave.
LISTER spins to see a PSIREN -- a cross between Catwoman
and Barbarella.
LISTER: Smegging heck. It's Pete Tranter's sister!
PETE TRANTER'S SISTER: Remember me, Dave? You lusted after me all
through your puberty. There's
nothing more potent than an adolescent
fantasy. Don't you
remember? You wanted me so badly: And now, at
last, I can be yours.
LISTER trains his welding gun on
her.
LISTER: Back off, Pete Tranter's sister! I know what you're after: it's
moist and pink and it's inside my head.
And that's where it's staying.
PETE TRANTER'S SISTER: Oh come on, Dave. You know what you want.
You
want to squeeze my
buttocks together to make one juicy giant peach.
LISTER: I get it. You're trying to make me drown in my own
drool. Well,
it won't work.
PETE TRANTER'S
SISTER: Don't fight it.
PETE
TRANTER'S SISTER advances. On the
ground we see the shadow she
casts is her true form: the hideous bipedal insectoid we saw
before.
LISTER, unaware, swoons and sways, trying to fight his
desire.
LISTER: Stay back, Pete Tranter's sister.
PETE
TRANTER'S SISTER: How long has it been
since you made love to a
woman?
LISTER: I admit it's been a while.
PETE TRANTER'S
SISTER: It's been over three million
years, Dave.
LISTER: I prefer to count it in Ice Ages: then it's just four. And if
you count it in _leap_ Ice Ages, it's hardly even one.
PETE
TRANTER'S SISTER: That's a long time,
Dave, for a man of your
drives.
LISTER: that's a long time for a Welsh shepherd who's
allergic to wool.
PETE TRANTER'S SISTER:
Kiss me.
Two-shot: as
the PSIREN approaches LISTER, we see it in its insectoid
form.
LISTER:
I can't resist you any more, Pete Tranter's sister.
PETE TRANTER'S
SISTER: Your death will be
exquisite. I'll take you to
the peak of ecstasy, then I'll blow your
mind.
We intercut between LISTER passionately necking with PETE
TRANTER'S
SISTER and LISTER necking with the hideous INSECTOID PSIREN,
including
licking it's swarfega-dripping mandibles. Slowly, PETE TRANTER'S SISTER
raises a
metal straw, like the one we saw in the mad Astro scene, about
to plunge
it into his head, when a shot rings out and PETE TRANTER'S
SISTER is hit
in the back. Before LISTER's eyes, the
illusion ends and
he sees the INSECTOID PSIREN thrashing around on the
ground, squealing in
it's death throes.
He looks up. KRYTEN holds a
smoking bazookoid.
KRYTEN: Come on, Dave -- let's get out of
here.
As LISTER walks past him, we see KRYTEN is concealing a metal
straw
behind his back.
LISTER: (To himself.) Dave?
Slo-mo: LISTER spins as the metal straw arcs down
towards his head. He
blasts
KRYTEN. The illusion ends and another
INSECTOID PSIREN dies,
jerking and squealing. LISTER's radio crackles.
KRYTEN: (VO. Dist.) Sir?
Is everything OK out there?
LISTER: Stand by with the airlock. I'm coming back.
39 Int.
Cockpit.
RIMMER and KRYTEN craning over the mike.
RIMMER:
What's the delay?
LISTER: (VO.
Dist.) A couple of Psirens wiped each other out fighting
over my brains ... Oh, no. It's the TV weather girl from channel
27.
KRYTEN: Sir. Fight it! Don't look at her.
LISTER: (VO. Dist.) It's not that easy, Kryten -- you
can't see what
she's doing with
her pointy stick.
CAT: I'm starting up the engines.
RIMMER: Get back
in here.
KRYTEN exits to mid-section. Over the radio, we hear LISTER firing.
LISTER:
(VO. Dist.) On my way.
CAT
starts up the engines.
40 Int. Mid-section.
KRYTEN stands
by the airlock, looking at a video monitor.
The monitor
blinks into life and LISTER appears.
LISTER:
(VO. Dist.) It's me.
KRYTEN
presses a button.
41 Int. Airlock doors.
The outer
airlock doors hiss open (A flat), and through swirling smoke,
LISTER steps
in. He presses the door close
button.
LISTER: I'm in.
42 Int. Mid-section.
KRYTEN
opens the inner airlock door and closes it as LISTER staggers in.
LISTER:
It's getting pretty hairy out there.
Come on -- Let's vamoose.
43 Int. Cockpit.
CAT
starts to take off.
44 Int. Mid-section.
As KRYTEN and
LISTER head for the cockpit, the airlock monitor fizzes on
again and a
SECOND LISTER appears on the screen.
LISTER 2: What the hell are you
doing taking off when I'm still outside?
Let me in.
KRYTEN double-takes between the LISTER inside and
the LISTER on the
monitor.
KRYTEN: I'm afraid, sir, you're
already here.
RIMMER steps down from the cockpit.
LISTER
1: He's a Psiren -- don't let him in.
LISTER 2: For god's sake -- I can't
hang on any longer. _He's_ the
Psiren.
Let me in!
RIMMER: What do we do?
KRYTEN: there's no way to
tell which is which. We have to let him
in.
RIMMER: That means we'll definitely have one Psiren on board. A brain-
sucking psychotic temporal lobe slurper.
KRYTEN: There's a
fifty per cent chance we have one on board already. We
can't risk
killing the real Lister. I'm letting
him in.
RIMMER: What about Space Corps directive 5796?
KRYTEN:
5796? 'No officer above the rank of
mess sergeant is permitted
to go
into combat with pierced nipples'?!? Pardon me, but how does that
possibly pertain to the current situation?
RIMMER:
5797, then.
KRYTEN: To hell with the regs, sir. I'm letting him in.
KRYTEN presses the door
release.
RIMMER: On your square head be it.
45 Model
Shot.
Starbug flying through asteroid belt.
46 Int.
Mid-section.
The TWO LISTERS are seated side by side, KRYTEN has a
bazookoid trained
on them. RIMMER
watches them warily. The CAT steps down
from the
cockpit with a bazookoid.
CAT: We're on auto.
LISTER
1: How many times? _He's_ the
Psiren. I'm me.
LISTER 2: How can
you believe this for two seconds? He
doesn't even
_look_ like me. He's podgy.
He hasn't got my classic profile.
KRYTEN: Sir, you both look
identical.
The TWO LISTERS look at each other, then look
forward.
LISTER 1 AND 2: (Together.) No way.
KRYTEN: We're
going to try some tests.
RIMMER: A series of questions to trick and
confuse you. If you fail to
answer correctly or for any reason hesitate,
you'll be shot.
LISTER 1: Come on, Rimmer, give us a break.
LISTER 2:
(Overlapping.) For god's sake, Rimmer, do me a lemon.
RIMMER:
Kryten?
KRYTEN throws two apples.
BOTH LISTERS catch them right-handed.
KRYTEN: Both
right-handed. Correct. You have a tattoo on your left
buttock, true or false?
LISTER 1 AND 2:
(Together) True.
RIMMER: (To LISTER 1) You. It's dedicated to the one unbending love of
your life.
Describe the tattoo.
LISTER 1: It's a heart with an arrow through
it, and underneath it says
'I
love vindaloo' in dripping curry sauce.
RIMMER: (To LISTER 2) You. How did you get it?
LISTER 2: Planet
leave on Ganymede. Went on the razz
with Petersen. He
spiked my cocktail with half a pint of four
star petrol. When I next
awoke, I'd enrolled as a novice monk in a
Ganymedian monastery. I
discovered the vindaloo tattoo when I handed
in my habit.
RIMMER: Take your shoes and socks off. Kryten?
KRYTEN puts two pairs of
scissors on the scanner top.
RIMMER: Now, gentlemen: trim your toe nails.
Both LISTERS
start biting their toenails.
RIMMER: Enough.
KRYTEN picks
up LISTER's guitar and hands it to LISTER 1.
RIMMER: Play the
guitar.
LISTER 1: Here?
Inside?
RIMMER: Play it.
LISTER 1 starts playing the
guitar. It is a superb display of
axemanship. (If we could get some guitar diva to crouch
behind Lister
and be his arms, ecstasy.) After about fifteen seconds of
astonishing
virtuosity, the music builds to a crescendo and ends. As the last chord
dies away, KRYTEN and
CAT hit LISTER 1 with volley after volley of
bazookoid fire. The INSECTOID PSIREN writhes and screeches
on the floor.
LISTER 2: How did you know that wasn't me?
CAT:
'Cause that dude could play.
LISTER 2: He wasn't any better than me.
KRYTEN:
That's how you _believe_ you play, sir.
That's why, when the
Psiren read your mind, he shared your delusion that you are not a
ten-
thumbed, tone-deaf,
talentless noise polluter.
LISTER: Are you seriously saying you think he
was better than me?
LISTER picks up the guitar and starts
playing. It's terrible.
LISTER:
What's the difference? If anything,
this is slightly better.
CAT: A little survival tip, bud. Never play your guitar in front of a
man with a loaded gun.
LISTER: I resent
this. I resent you saving my life in
this way. I won't
forget this.
RIMMER: Where's it
gone?
ALL look down for the PSIREN's corpse. It has vanished. A trail of
yellow Psiren blood leads to the spiral
staircase.
KRYTEN: It's crawled down to the engine room.
Alert
lights flash and a siren whoops.
RIMMER: Meteor storm! Off the port bow. It's a biggie.
KRYTEN: Recommend you two stay here and man
the cockpit. Mr Rimmer and I
will pursue the Psiren.
RIMMER: Um,
that's quite a good plan, Kryten.
Excellent in all but one
detail. I think you know what it
is. (Waves.) 'Bye.
KRYTEN: There's
no time to argue.
KRYTEN heads for the spiral stairs. The others dash into the cockpit.
After
a short pause, the bloodstain trail vanishes, and the wounded
PSIREN drops
its illusion of invisibility and re-appears where it fell.
47 Int.
(OB) Engine room.
KRYTEN prowls around with his Psi-scan and
bazookoid. He gets an alert
beep
on his psi-scan, and rotates. He looks
up. The wounded PSIREN is
behind
him, some distance away.
KRYTEN: Please, I have no desire to hurt
you. Let us set you down on an
asteroid where your fellow GELFs can attend
to your wounds.
The PSIREN rasps insectly.
KRYTEN:
There's no logic in trying to engage me in combat. I am
unseducible,
in that I have no desires or lusts, and my brain is
synthetic and consequently of no interest to
you. Give yourself up.
KRYTEN
looks astonished. When we cut back, the
PSIREN has become a
female scientist, MAMET.
KRYTEN: Professor
Mamet? My creator.
MAMET: Hello,
Kryten.
KRYTEN: What is the function of this illusion?
MAMET
starts to advance on him.
MAMET: You cannot harm me, Kryten. It's coded into every cell in your
body.
You're totally defenceless against me.
KRYTEN lowers his
bazookoid and takes out his walkie-talkie.
KRYTEN: True. However, the others are not so
hampered.
MAMET: You are also programmed to obey my every command. Drop the radio.
KRYTEN
involuntarily drops the walkie-talkie.
MAMET: Open the waste
compactor.
Against his will, KRYTEN opens the waste compactor we saw
earlier.
KRYTEN: What are you doing?
MAMET: Climb inside.
KRYTEN:
No!
But he climbs inside.
KRYTEN: This serves no...
MAMET:
Engage the mechanism.
KRYTEN: You're sick!
KRYTEN struggles
with himself but loses. He presses the
compactor
button. The hatch
closes.
MAMET: Die!
We hear the sound of KRYTEN being
crushed. A silence. We hear footsteps
on the metal stairs. MAMET wheels round. Shot:
LISTER, the CAT and
RIMMER walking along the gantry.
LISTER:
Kryten? You here? The meteor storm was another illusion. The
Psiren's not as badly wounded as we thought.
RIMMER: Kryten?
They
spot KRYTEN's psi-scan and bazookoid, abandoned on the floor.
CAT:
It's got him.
LISTER picks up the psi-scan and activates it.
LISTER:
(Shouts) Kryten?
48 Int. (OB) Another section of engine room.
CAT,
LISTER and RIMMER walk down some stairs.
RIMMER suddenly fades to
black and white.
RIMMER: My
battery's going. Only a few seconds
left. Need a recharge...
RIMMER's
image vanishes, and his light bee falls to the floor. LISTER
picks it up and pockets it.
LISTER: And
then there were two.
CAT and LISTER round a corner. We see the INSECTOID PSIREN standing
against
a wall. Bizarrely, CAT and LISTER don't
react but walk straight
up to it.
LISTER: (To CAT) Want a
drink, man?
CAT: I'm parched.
LISTER stands facing the
PSIREN
LISTER: (To CAT) Cola?
From another angle, we see
what they see: a Coke machine. LISTER
reaches for a button.
LISTER:
Wait a minute. What's a vending machine
doing in the engine
room?
In
a flurry of arms, mandibles and probosces, the INSECTOID PSIREN
attacks
CAT and LISTER, knocking them both out.
As they lie helpless,
the INSECTOID PSIREN takes out the metal
straw. They are dead meat.
49
Int. (OB) Engine room.
The waste compactor hatch springs open, and
KRYTEN drops out. He has
been
compacted into a cube, with short, stumpy legs but no arms.
KRYTEN:
You scum-sucking mollusc. You can't do
this to us.
He waddles furiously down the corridor. He catches sight of them on the
deck
below.
50 Int. (OB) Another section of the engine room.
The
INSECTOID has the woozy LISTER by the locks, about to plunge the
straw
into his brain. We see CUBED KRYTEN
plummet down towards the
INSECTOID.
The INSECTOID looks up, but too late, as CUBED KRYTEN crushes
it.
51
Model Shot. Starbug in Space.
52 Int. Cockpit.
CAT in the
pilot seat, LISTER next to him. RIMMER
at navicomp.
RIMMER: That's it -- we're clear of the belt.
LISTER:
What about Red Dwarf?
RIMMER: According to the navicomp, it's gone into
that gas nebula.
CAT: Then that's where we're heading.
The
CUBED KRYTEN waddles in with a tea tray on top of him.
KRYTEN: Tea,
anyone?
LISTER: Cheers, man.
KRYTEN: Suggest you don't put your cups
on the console, sir. It leaves
those ugly little ring marks. Why not use me as a table?
LISTER: I
thought you were going to fix yourself.
KRYTEN: Not until I've performed all
my duties, sir. I can't go
gallivanting off engaging my self-repair
unit, not when there's a pile
of
laundry in the washroom the size of the north face of the Eiger.
Besides, Cat has invited me to the weekly
crap game tonight.
CAT: He's gonna be the dice.
RIMMER: Approaching
nebula.
LISTER: Let's see what's in there.
53 Model Shot.
Starbug flies into the gas nebula.
The End