As usual also, his tone is pretty short on sweetness and light, and I do not see why Grogan, who looks something like a gorilla's mother-in-law, takes such guff from a beanpole like Frankie.
But Grogan only says, "I think something is wrong with my trumpet. I have it fixed before tonight."
Frankie smirks. "Do that," he says, looking like a grinning weasel. "We want you to play for dancing, not for calling in Martian moose."
Frankie walks away, and Hotlips shrugs.
"Leave us get our beer," he says simply, and we go to the ferry.
We pile into the space-ferry with the other musicians and anyone else who is going down to dirty old terra firma, and when everybody who is going aboard is aboard, the doors close, and the ferry drifts into space. Hotlips and I find seats, and we look back at the gambling ship. It is a thrill you do not get used to, no matter how many times you see it.
The sailor boys who build the Saturn—they give it the handle of Satellite II then—would not know their baby now, Frankie does such a good job of revamping it. Of course, it is not used as a gambling ship then—at least not altogether, if you know what I mean. Way back in 1998 when they get it in the sky, they are more interested in it being useful than pretty; anybody that got nasty and unsanitary ideas just forgot them when they saw that iron casket floating in a sky that could be filled with hydrogen bombs or old laundry without so much as a four-bar intro as warning.
Frankie buys Satellite II at a war surplus sale when moon flights become as easy as commuters' trips, and he smoothes out its shape so it looks like an egg and then puts a fin around it for ships to land on. After that, it does not take much imagination to call it the Saturn. Then he gets his Western Hemisphere license and opens for business.
My daydreaming stops, for suddenly Hotlips is grabbing my arm and pointing out the window.
"What for are you grabbing my arm and waving your fist at the window, Hotlips?" I inquire politely of him.