Timkin looked over the things crammed in his hold, gleaned from the rings for a month. Their total value would possibly pay for the trip with a few SS-dollars to spare. Yet one find of gold or precious stone and he would dump the whole mess out and be far the richer.
Growling to himself, Timkin took off his vac-suit and went to the controls. He debated. He still had food and fuel enough for three days before he had to return to the Titan docks. What should he do?
"I'm going to the Crêpe Ring," he finally told himself. "I had no luck in Rings A and B, so why not try C just to play it out to the finish?"
Timkin had started, a month ago, at the outer ring—Ring A. This portion of the rings had an outer diameter of 171,000 miles and extended inward toward Saturn for 11,100 miles.
Then there was a separation of 2,200 miles between rings A and B named Cassini's Division when first seen through earthly telescopes centuries ago.
Ring B was 145,000 miles, outer diameter, and some 18,000 miles wide. Another space of 1000 miles and then came Ring C or the Crêpe Ring, 11,000 miles wide. So had the rings of Saturn distributed themselves, under the laws of gravitation, when the first moon exploded ages before. The first moon had not been large, for the total mass of all the rings was estimated at no more than one-quarter of earth's moon.
Timkin urged his old rattletrap Jetabout up from the plane of the rings till he had a clear path before him and then jetted straight toward mighty Saturn, which hung in the sky like a bloated, vari-colored marble.
He crossed the narrow empty space between Rings B and C and finally cruised over the outer edges of the Crêpe Ring. Saturn was only 17,000 miles distant and Timkin could feel the faint tug of its powerful gravitation.
"Now," Timkin said between set teeth, "let's see if I have any luck. I've got three days to nose around through the Crêpe Ring, searching. I know there's gold or diamonds ahead ... if I can just stumble on them."