Lester - \"And now for something completely different... again.\"
Where: StarbugWhen: A few hours after Justin's meal with Captain PhelpsWho: Lester Seventeen-Dot-Phelps-------------------------------------------------------
Lester's head thunked gently against the cockpit viewport.
The ship of gesticulating monkeys. That had been the worst. No wait, the musical ship, that had been awful. Lester had actually activated the EVA suit's sonic shielding for that one and completed his work in blissful ignorance. He'd then lost Callum briefly on the ship where the humans required alcohol in the same way as water and Justin had rather predictably disappeared deep into the ship of nymphomaniacs. Yep, that had been the worst, the most terrifying. People wanting, physically desiring him. In the end Lester had sealed himself in the control room to complete repairs. He'd effected a repair, but now Justin Pancake was absolutely useless to anyone, currently enjoying his fifteenth cold shower. Callum Kochanski was in the engine room, singing a bawdy ballad.
The monkey Lester was out there somewhere, having repelled their boarders and was dilligently repairing more ships. As Lester had encountered a reasonably sensible member of the crew, usually himself, he'd charged them with going out and initiating repairs. Some of the Lesters, at least the cooler ones, had started calling it "viral engineering": as they went out and "infected" other Blue Dwarfs with a cure, the rate of repair increased exponentially. Lester was faintly pleased to see some of the Dwarfs returning to their home universes.
But now there was this Blue Dwarf. He hit the control again.'Allo! Who is eet?''This is Lester Seventeen-Dot-Phelps, in Starbug. We've identified you as Blue Dwarf 782.''OK?''Please tell your Captain that I have a mission to repair the dangerous malfunction that is drawing the Blue Dwarfs into this universe.''Well I'll ask heem, but I don't theenk he'll be very keen. Uh, he's already got one, you see.''What?' Lester felt, as usual that someone had turned over two pages of the script again.'Oh yes, I'ts very nice.' There was some whispered mutterings and then he heard 'I told him we've already got one,' followed by sniggers.'Hello? Already got a what?''Of course not!' The mock French voice squawked back, 'You are English types-a!''What?''I'm French! Why do you think I have this outrageous accent?''What the smegging hell are you talking about?''Mind your own business!''Look, I really need to get in and effect repairs before the universe explodes.''You don't frighten us, English pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottom, sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-called Arthur King, you and all your silly English K-nnnnniggets!' The speaker started blowing raspberries and eventually Lester flicked the radio off.'What a strange person,' he remarked to SNIDE.
They eventually snuck in by parking close to one of Blue Dwarfs 782's waste disposal chutes, space walking and climbing up. Lester emerged in his EVA suit into white corridor 289 and removed his helmet. Almost immediately a man in a suit and bowler hat goose-stepped past him and proceeded erratically down the corridor, his legs wobbling like jelly. Lester stared after him and began to follow his map to the broken Plasma Enticer when four men dressed as Grannies pushed past him, one of them shoved him and the other whacked him with a handbag. Lester picked himself up and found the lift.
The lift emerged onto the promenade and Lester began to make his way carefully to the location of the damaged equipment. He stepped past four Yorkshiremen in cloth hats on deckchairs lamenting their childhood brutalities. He passed a pet shop in which a man was screaming and banging a blue-feathered parrot violently against the counter top. Further on was a cheese shop, things seemed normal in there, but Lester couldn't hear what they were saying. Then the customer took up a pistol and shot the shopkeeper dead. He then collected his paper and left, whistling.
Lester cowered in fear in an alcove. Across the concourse he could see a residential block and from a high-level window a hoarde of bearded men clutching milk bottles pleaded silently to be released from some macabre imprisonment. SNIDE tugged at his arm and they pushed further into the alcove, finding a locked side-door into the next establishment. It didn't take long to decode the security lock, although Lester felt guilty for doing so and suddenly he was in the kitchens of a clearly upmarket restaurant.
Activity was in full swing. Chefs and cooks and waiters pushed past each other, producing vast amounts of gourmet food. Whole suckling pigs and roasted venison was being seared over spits, while mountains of creamy mashed potato were being ferried out by the cartload. Lester went unnoticed to the adjoining door and spotted the destination. An enormous man sat sagging, morbidly, terrifiyingly, suicidally obese in front of a devastated banquet. His head lolled and clearly he had stuffed himself afresh. Great gobbets of food hung from his enormous dinner jacket and he looked pale, green and sweaty. SNIDE tugged at Lester's arm again and he began to creep out of the kitchen and along the back of the restaurant. An access hatch in the rear wall led to the Plasma Enticer array. He had just started unscrewing the connecting bolts when he heard a waiter with a familiarly appalling French accent offer the obese man an apertif.'Bugger orf, I'm stuffed.''It is wah-fer theen,' the greasy waiter coaxed. Lester ignored this and started on the last bolt.There was a deafening boom, bits of gore splatted Lester, running down his neck and into the collar of his EVA suit. The walls were sprayed red and giblets slowly dripped down onto the opulent carpet. Lester pried the panel off the wall, then sealed himself in.
Half an hour later he risked peeking out, wearing his full EVA suit with helmet. The sight that met him was shocking, primarily for its normality. A quiet restaurant scene, with a pianist, bustling waiters and prim and proper epicurean diners. Lester secured the access panel and made for the door just as the morbidly obese man pushed through and headed for the same seat he had died in thirty minutes before. Lester's mind was ready to go for wander now and seemed to be fighting to abandon his body. SNIDE clung in fear to his shoulder, little pincers threatening to puncture the EVA suit. He pushed through the insane people, once again passing the man brandishing the parrot and the homicidal cheese shop customer.
'Oi!' Lester stopped as someone finally seemed to have spotted him, 'you there!'It was an army officer of some kind, in a hat and medals and everything.'Which one are you?' He asked.'S-sorry?''Which one are you? You one of the background jobs? The diving guy? Your suits not very good is it?''I - I don't...''We'll have to get you in your proper place! Can't be having with all this silliness, now. Do you have somewhere to be?''Yes,' Lester whimpered.'Well then, get a move on!' The officer pointed up the promenade and then turned away to harang a couple of Keep Left signs, 'I bloody told you! We're not doing that one!'
Lester took SNIDE into the collar of his suit, fastened his helmet and leapt bodily out the waste disposal chute. He fell for what seemed like miles and was ejected into space where he enjoyed a brief moment of weightlessness before colliding with the hull of Starbug with a resounding clang. He scrambled dizzily into the airlock and within minutes was gratefully breathing in the foul recycled air of a relatively sane spaceship. Behind him the Blue Dwarf stretched, warped, the folded and vanished back to its own universe.
Justin emerged from the rear compartments, his uniform undone but on and a towel wrapped around his head, 'All right Lester? What'd I miss?'Lester looked at him with bulging, horror-filled eyes and Justin took a step back in shock.Something bleeped on the cockpit control panel and Justin sat heavily in the pilot seat behind it. 'Looks like a personal distress beacon,' he said, 'punching up the target.' Justin leaned forward to squint through the crowd of Blue Dwarfs. 'Ooh, it's the ugly one.' He looked at Lester's expression, 'well uglier. Let's go be heroes.' He fired up Starbugs engines and they soared towards Kara, Keto and Dysart.
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