Better Than Life by Grant Naylor

Author:Grant Naylor [Naylor, Grant]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Humour
ISBN: 9780451452313
Publisher: Roc
Published: 1990-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

Lister had his first meal in four days, sixteen hours after Rimmer had vanished.

He sat in front of the brazier, and looked down at the grey, chipped enamel of the ship-issue plate.

The meal almost looked nice. It was garnished with potato crisps, topped by crumbled water biscuits, sprinkled with mustard and decorated with flower-twirls of Bonjella gum ointment.

But it was still dogfood.

It was still rich, chunky lumps of rabbit, in a thick, marrowbone jelly.

It was still utterly revolting.

A dozen times he dug in his fork and held the quivering mass centimetres from his lips, but he just couldn't bring himself to put it in his mouth and swallow.

If it had had a neutral smell, it might have been all right. But the smell of dogfood had always filled Lister with nausea. After disco urinals, his own socks and Spanish perfume, it was his least favourite smell.

So he waited. He waited until he was so hungry he didn't care. Until the dogfood wasn't dogfood. Until it was a prime slab of fillet steak sizzling in a creamy fresh blue-cheese sauce.

With the pinched eyes of a gourmet sampling perfection he slid the wobbling forkful between his lips. He chewed. He chewed a bit more. Then he swallowed the dogfood.

He sat for a while. Well, he thought, now I know why dogs lick their testicles. It's to get rid of the taste of the food.

He placed the fork back on the plate, rose and staggered uneasily to the Starbug's tail-section to try and take his mind off eating. He opened up the locker that stored the 'bug's tiny library and tried to find some distraction. It was no good. Everything reminded him of food.

He glanced down the spines. Charles Lamb. Sir Francis Bacon. And his eyes started playing tricks: Herman Wok, he read, and The Caretaker, by Harold Pinta. He saw food everywhere, even when it wasn't there. Eric Van Lustbader - Eric Van - bread van, meat van: food.

There was nothing else for it. He returned to the vessel's mid-section, finished off the dogfood, curled up and fell happily asleep.

He awoke to the sound of creaking metal. Creaking metal and running water. He unzipped his sleep bag. His clothes were wet. He was sweating.

There was a crash, and he was flung across the cabin. The 'bug was tilting. Cupboards and lockers hurled themselves open and disgorged their contents over the warm metal deck. Lister clattered to his feet and tried to scramble up the incline and into the cockpit, but the 'bug lurched again and sent him tumbling through the back hatchway and into the tail section.

Then Starbug started to move. Slowly at first, it slid lazily backwards, its outer hull grinding against the landscape, fans and support legs bending and snapping as it went.

Lister clawed his way up the ship, and staggered to a viewport window.

Ice world was melting. Overnight, its Ice Age was ending. The warm kiss of its new sun was thawing the planet which had been frozen for countless millennia.

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