The Flying Cuspidors - V. R. Francis, ebook, Temp
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The Flying Cuspidors
Francis, V.R.
Published:
1958
Type(s):
Short Fiction, Science Fiction
Source:
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Copyright:
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check the copyright status in your country.
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2
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from
Fantastic Universe
August 1958. Extens-
ive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this
publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have
been corrected without note.
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Hotlips Grogan may not be as handsome and good-looking like me or as
brainy and intellectual, but in this fiscal year of 2056 he is the gonest
trumpet-tooter this side of Alpha Centauri. You would know what I
mean right off if you ever hear him give out with "Stars Fell on Venus,"
or "Martian Love Song," or "Shine On, Harvest Luna." Believe me, it is
out of this world. He is not only hot, he is radioactive. On a clear day he
is
playing
notes
you
cannot
hear
without
you
are
wearing
special
equipment.
That is for a fact.
Mostly he is a good man—cool, solid, and in the warp. But one night
he is playing strictly in three or four wrong keys.
I am the ivory man for this elite bunch of musicians, and I am scoop-
ing up my three-dee music from the battered electronic eighty-eight
when he comes over looking plenty worried.
"Eddie," he says, "I got a problem."
"You got a problem, all right," I tell him. "You are not getting a job
selling Venusian fish, the way you play today."
He frowns. "It is pretty bad, I suppose."
"Bad is not the word," I say, but I spare his feelings and do not say the
word it is. "What gives?"
He looks around him, careful to see if anybody in the place is close
enough to hear. But it is only afternoon rehearsal on the gambling
ship
Saturn
, and the waiters are busy mopping up the floor and leaning
on their long-handled sterilizers, and the boys in the band are picking up
their music to go down to Earth to get some shut-eye or maybe an atomic
beer or two before we open that night.
Hotlips Grogan leans over and whispers in my ear. "It is the thrush,"
he says.
"The thrush?" I say, loud, before he clamps one of his big hands over
my kisser. "The thrush," I say, softer; "you mean the canary?"
He
waves
his
arms
like
a
bird.
"Thrush,
canary—I
mean
Stella
Starlight."
For a minute I stand with my mouth open and think of this. Then I
rubber for the ninety-seventh time at the female warbler, who is standing
talking to Frankie, the band leader. She is a thrush new to the band and
plenty cute—a blonde, with everything where it is supposed to be, and
maybe a little extra helping in a couple spots. I give her my usual
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approving once-over, just in case I miss something the last ninety-six
approving once-overs I give her.
"What about her?" I say.
"It is her fault I play like I do," Hotlips Grogan tells me sadly. "Come
on. Leave us go guzzle a beer and I will tell you about it."
Just then Frankie comes over, looking nasty like as usual, and he says
to Grogan, "You are not playing too well today, Hotlips. Maybe you hurt
your lip on a beer bottle, huh?"
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 in-
tro as warning.
Frankie buys
Satellite II
at a war surplus sale when moon flights be-
come 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.
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