"Hey, I can be plenty calm. In fact, I think I'm takin' this whole thing pretty well."

More or less, anyway. He'd long suppressed the inward screaming and swearing. Which would undoubtedly bubble up later, but nobody said Korso ever knew how to deal with his problems in a healthy way.

"Besides, this is more for everyone else's sake than mine. I'm gonna be stuck here living off hugs, I might as well make sure I look presentable for the target audience. Doubt there's gonna be a line around the block to hang out with a scruffy-looking spacer."