Lester and Lester on Holiday

“We thank you for flying Heaven Spaceways and wish our customers an enjoyable holiday.”
 
Lester Phelps allowed himself a thin smile as he stepped out of the air-conditioned first-class cabin and into the shocking heat of New Tenerife. He adjusted his brand new linen suit-jacket and took in the vista of the expensive part of New Tenerife’s spaceport. The attractive air-hostess smiled the “I’m paid to give the impression I might sleep with you if you buy enough over priced beverages” smile and wished him farewell as he stepped lightly down the ramp. Behind him came a fingers-on-chalkboard screech as SNIDE slid down the hand rail of the disembarkation ramp and shooting off the end, alighted on Lester’s shoulder.
 
“That was so cool!” Lester said to himself more excitedly than his expression, “did you see that TV, all those movies!” The giddy part of him lowered his voice, “the hostess was really cute too.” The other Lester - the in-control one – sighed: “you didn’t get out a lot when you were me, did you?”
 
“Oh no, n-never been on holiday before,” Lester told himself as they approached the First Class arrivals and suddenly nervous Lester cranked up ten notches. “They’ll check us! We’re going to get caught!”
 
Lester remained ice-cold, even as his other self strained to hide in the back of his brain. He handed over his ticket and holo-passport. The pretty arrivals girl smiled attractively and as she checked the documents she said: “Welcome to New Tenerife Mr…” a light frown would have creased her brow, had she not been botoxed, “Nipples?”
 
“Thank you,” Lester said, stifling a whimper from his other self. He took back the fake documents and proceeded past to a lounge area. At the bar he asked the staff member where he would be picked up from.
 
“Mr?”
 
“Nipples,” Lester held the barman in a steel stare that dared him to laugh or smirk, “Seymour Nipples.”
 
“Uh, one moment Mr… uh… yes, here we are. Your Chauffeur will be here shortly, can I get you a drink?”
 
“Diet coke please!” Squeaked Lester happily. He scowled briefly then added, “and a bourbon and soda.”
 
“Diet coke, and a bourbon and soda,” the barman looked puzzled.
 
“Yes,” Lester said, again with that stare, “both. In separate glasses. And a straw in the coke! Let’s not get carried away.”
 
The barman provided the drinks and Lester retreated to a quiet booth where he picked up the latest newspaper. He read it idly, while his metallic left hand attempted to awkwardly feed coke into his face. He then had to put down the other paper so that he could drink the whiskey.
 
“Yuck,” Lester said, “how can you drink that stuff? It’s a good mix,” he told himself, “very smooth.”
 
The Newspaper was thrilled that Queen Brittany of Britain had chosen to holiday at New Tenerife, Lester admired the fine figure of a young woman as she capered on the digital image and smiled at the paparazzi. Further into the paper was a tiny sidebar about the post-multiple Blue Dwarf/ Hymenoptera invasion cleanup operation, Lester downloaded it to his neural net, what he was calling – much to the other Lester’s annoyance – his “scrapbook”.
 
“W-we’re still not in the p-paper,” Lester tutted, “you’d think someone w-would mention something.” Lester turned the page and sipped his whiskey, followed by a slurp of diet Coke. “No mention of Dysart either, not really surprising though.”
 
Lester thought for a while then: “Who is this Nipples person anyway? I don’t know, Dysart suggested him when we did the IOU, h-he thought it’d be p-pretty funny. You never met him? N-no, h-he’s a high up, s-some sort of …”
 
“Ambassador Niples?”
 
Lester looked up, “that’s how it’s pronounced? Yes. That’s me.”
 
A man in a chauffeur’s uniform saluted: “Your car is here sir, are you ready?”
 
“Yes,” Lester tossed the paper aside and stood up.
 
“We had some trouble with your luggage sir.”
 
“What sort of trouble?”
 
“I think you had best come and see for yourself,” he said.
 
The car was a beautiful Bentley, a new model but made in the style of old-fashioned petrol-powered vehicles. It even had a sound-system designed to simulate the noise of a combustion engine. LesterÂ’s suitcase was beside it, defying all attempts to get it into the spacious boot by a young airport porter. Every time the boy went to grab the case it reversed, then sped around him and promptly butted him in the knees.
 
“I’ll handle this,” Lester said and put a foot out, causing the luggage to keel over. He unclipped the latch and flipped it open, revealing a very sparse collection of clothes, most still with the price-tag on and two Skutters.
 
“Frederick, Ricardo, welcome to New Tenerife,” Lester said, helping them out of the case, “you can ride up front if you promise to behave.”
 
The Skutters shook their little claw heads and one of them dug into the suitcase producing first a leather pouch full of dollarpound notes and then a flyer for the local casino. Lester smiled and raised his metal hand, “TAXI!” he yelled.
 
A hover-taxi came down and screeched to a halt, the Skutters boarded and Lester unfolded a $£50 note for the driver, “look after my friends, please?” The Taxi roared off.
 
Lester got into the Bentley which drove smoothly off, “the Hilton, isn’t it sir?” the driver asked.
 
“Yes,” Lester replied, then: “can we afford that? Of course. How? It’s a surprise,” Lester answered and looked out the window so that he wouldn’t have to see the driver’s expression in the mirror.
 
* * *
 
Customs and Excise was a tiny office in an otherwise sprawling high-tech centre that was the New Tenerife spaceport. Since the place was a hedonistic paradise for sun, fun and thrills, hardly any trouble was caused that couldn’t be swept under the carpet or merely labelled “high spirits”. Sure there was a serious drug problem, half the southern peninsula were whacked out on Bliss, but since Bliss made you feel like God, but act like Frank Spencer, there was rarely any actual trouble, other than the occasional drowning as Blissheads attempted to prove their deification.
 
The interior Police Force was a mammoth military operation with special Hawaiian shirts and shorts-clad riot cops trained in crowd dispersal that could put down any bar fight that actually spilled out onto the street.
 
This was why the Customs and Excise department consisted of two very cross men sitting in a window-less room, surrounded by banks of monitors, only half of which were working.
 
Carlsten sniggered, “that’s stupid,” he said. This was monumental, since it was the first thing that he’d said to Brickhaus in the last seventy-two hours.
 
Brikhaus shifted in his seat, finished the chapter of his novel about young people doing salacious young-people things and eventually regarded Carlsten with a lazy sigh. “What’s stupid?”
 
“Some people got no imagination,” Carlsten snorted. This surprised Brikhaus, who assumed there were rocks with more imagination than Carlsten. “Look, this guy arrives in town an’ uses the joke name “Seymour Nipples” with a space-cab, right, for when they book the flight plan,” Carlsten showed him the display. “Then we get another Seymour Nipples, over on the First Class flight from Earth, giving it all lah-de-dah chauffeur driven smeg. Some people just ain’t got an original idea.”
 
Brikhaus considered this, then: “show me the travel documents for both of ‘em.”
 
“It’s just a joke name,” Carlsten protested, “just kids or something, smegging around.”
 
“Just show me,” Brikhaus grunted. Carlsten tapped at the controls and displayed the information on two separate monitors. Brikhaus grinned, “how does the same bloke arrive on a space cab, twenty minutes before arriving on a First Class Heaven Spaceways flight? Carlsten? Get the guns.”
 
<To Be Continued>Win John Lewis vouchers with BigSnapSearch.com Search now