Mike was busy thinking and didn't ask for a translation. After all, he needed the money and if he didn't take it these two deluded characters would no doubt find someone who would.
"Besides," Nicko said in Terran, "the female's a dream. The legs—the torso—very nice to be in space with."
"Shut up! This is a business trip! Remember that. Exactly the same as though we were hauling a couple of fat Terran bankers."
"Sure. But that kitty's got more in the bank than—"
"Get the hell out of here! Go over to the Exchange and see if our new pile came in on that ship."
Outer Port was a man-made satellite artificially oxygenated and gravitated. It was the largest of a group assembled during the experimental period of the late twenty-first century. Later, methods of shifting asteroids and small planets into desired orbits were developed and the construction of space globes and platforms was discontinued.
At that time, the Interplanetary Guild of Space Guides purchased the satellite and moored it on the perimeter of the System to serve as a headquarters for their activities. They smashed a bottle of wine on it and christened it Outer Port after which every guide got drunk by way of celebration.
It was a bleak establishment. With no solar supplement, it lay in the eternal twilight of far space, the artificial heat of its surface rising against eternal cold thus causing a perpetual fogging of its atmosphere mixture.
So when the Space Queen blasted fifteen hours later, Doree Brandon brightened perceptibly. Professor Brandon remained in the lounge. Nicko was aft, watching the tube primers. Doree was with Mike in the control cabin.