His face fell slack.
"Fool's gold!" he muttered, flinging the piece away in a small fury.
It was just pyrites, worth a few cents a pound in the market and not worth the hauling. Timkin sat down on the miniature worldlet and cursed all the gods of luck and ill luck. He had been out a month now, and no bonanza. Of course, it had been so for the past ten years. Each year the old prospector hoped for his big find, and each year he only eked out a precarious living, picking up odd bits from the rings.
He looked with bleary eye over the plane of the rings, stretching vastly in all directions. Timkin was not young any more. His lean spare body could not stand the rigors of space much longer. His leathery, seamed face showed the strain of countless near-escapes from death. If he didn't strike it rich this trip he'd have to retire—poor. He'd be one of those derelicts, haunting the Titan docks and mooching meals.
He shuddered.
Hopelessly, he watched the endless parade of the rings. By far the most of their expanse was just worthless rock. Then he saw a jet black lump not far off. It was coal. Timkin grinned mirthlessly.
Coal had been used as an industrial fuel and chemical storehouse some 200 years ago. Today it was no more than a curiosity in museums. That was his luck—spotting things in the rings that would barely pay the expenses of his trip.
As he sat he also saw a whitish mass further along—fossil bones. And nearby, a dully shining angular object, probably a bit of machinery.
Sighing, Timkin got up. "Got to make expenses," he muttered. "Might as well collect those odds and ends."
His reaction pistol took him to the lump of coal. It was four feet in diameter but in weightless space it was no strain for Timkin to push it toward his ship and stow it through the back lock into the hold.