Disclaimer: None of these people are mine, none of these space ships are mine, if you think I'm making money off this after reading it you should get yourself checked for droid rot.

It was a tragic wreck.

No life forms remained; only enough lager, whisky and the fermented juices of combined potato peelings and laundry fluff, to keep an elephant in pink ice -skating hallucinations for a month.

So it was probably unwise to have consumed it all in one big "Salute to the dead people we failed to rescue" party that night, along with some curry and chips.

"This always happens, man."

Lister had passed through the good stages of being drunk and was well into morose.

"We find some hideous twisted wreck, search for survivors and find only something that looks like the contents of a very happy dog's bowl. Sometimes it seems every living thing in the universe has been turned into Meaty Chunks."

"Look on the bright shide" Slurred the Cat "at least nothing tried to kill us."

Kryten attempted to nod encouragingly and discovered that somehow his head appeared to be screwed on backwards. And inside out.

"Explshsnyp." He managed.

Lister drained the last dregs of Y-front-and-King-Edward's Special Brew and burped a long and mournful burp.

"Sometimes I wonder why we go on. I mean what's the point? Maybe, next time some monstrous, slavering beast wants to eat me, I should just sling some salt under each arm and wish him bon appetit. At least I'll go out as a good meal."

He drooped dangerously close to the tandoori remains on his plate.

The legs beneath the table stirred slightly.

"An excellent idea Listy. Although possibly the poor creature would rather starve to death than suffer the one hundred percent curry content of your wretched body.

It'd probably spend its remaining days running from bush to bush with a leaf in each paw, regretting its sins."

Rimmer groaned slightly, regretting a considerable number (at least 0.5 percent) of his own sins, and promptly passed out again.

"Oh, thanks pal. Thanks a smegging lot."

Lister lifted his head sharply, his depression swiftly dissolving into anger, and waved his finger in the vague direction of the table's underside.

"You, Rimmer, are a goit. No, hang on, you're an utter mega-goit, a goit supreme, you are…King Kong Mighty Wallah of the Land of Goitdom."

"A total Smmeeeeee…Smmmeeeeee….an idiot." Kryten added sleepily.

"Yeah, alphabet head, you're about as popular as a flea circus at Cruft's."

"You're a stream of crusty, diseased pigeon vomit."

"You're more worthless than Edwina Currie's diaries…"

"Contracting Space Mumps while wearing a tight-fitting helmet would be preferable to spending time with a micturitious, odorous Scunthorpe like you."

"..you revolting foul-organned, nasally-bizarre onion-brain.

You're an influenzic mucal blob, with bog-brush hair and the personal charm of Hermann Goering's armpit juice."

"Er, Rimmer?"

"…a drooling, vegetative hologrammatic git. Sorry, what?"

"Rimmer, that's enough man. You're not supposed to join in it's…it's bad etiquette- or something." He trailed off.

The Cat stared in grudging admiration.

"Hey, don't stop him, he's nearly as good at this at we are. Hell, he's even better…than you and ice-cube head, anyway."

Lister shook his head to clear the fuzz and immediately, and liquidly, regretted it. Wiping his mouth, he got to his feet, shaking slightly.

"I think we should all go to sleep now. Plenty to do tomorrow. Planets to find, toenails to eat, …hey, maybe, just maybe, I'll make my bed…"

"But sir…"

"No worries, Kryten, I can handle it. Even the sheet with the sharp edging and the corrosive stains. At least, when my head stops spinning I will.

Anyway, it's time to crash."

Cat and Kryten staggered away to find comfortable areas of floor to pass out on as he helped Rimmer over to his bunk.

"I'm jusht a little lamb that'sh loo-oost itsh way…I know I could..always beee good…"

"With someone to watch… O-oh-ver me." Lister finished, quietly and badly out of tune. Carefully, he pulled a blanket over Rimmer and then slid himself, even more carefully, into his own bed.

Any bloody thing with a surplus of fangs tried to eat him tomorrow, he thought muzzily, he'd kick it's smegging arse into subspace.