"Huck Larsoe!" said Timkin in recognition for he knew all the other prospectors back at the Titan docks.
"Yeh, Timkin," returned Huck Larsoe, grinning. "I was the Jetabout that passed you a while ago. Just before you went out of my sight, I saw your ship suddenly scoot on a backtrack. That spelled a find to me! So I turned and came back, and followed you up."
Timkin didn't like it. Huck Larsoe was a younger man and filled out his vac-suit with a powerful, hulking body. His stubble of unshaven black beard formed an unkempt fringe to the hard-bitten face that peered out of the visor. There was something in his cold grey eyes that froze Timkin. There was such a thing as claim-jumping here in the lawless territory of the rings.
"You sure struck it rich," Huck Larsoe went on. "But maybe you didn't hear me before. I said it was lucky—for me!"
"Y-you can't take this from me," Timkin began, his voice tinny as it came out of the chin-transmitter to impinge on the radio vibrators at Larsoe's ears. "It's mine! I found it!"
"Sure, you found it," agreed Larsoe. "But I'm taking it away from you, see?"
"No!" shrilled Timkin. "That's plain robbery—piracy! I'll tell the police back at Titan."
Larsoe leered. "And what witnesses have you got? You and me are the only two humans around here for 50,000 miles. It'll be your word against mine back at Titan. If I say I found it myself and you're trying to cut in on it they'll have to believe me. Because I'll have the gold."
Timkin had no weapon. The reaction "pistol" was not a weapon at all, merely a device for moving in space by means of short, harmless rocket blasts. He struggled against the bigger man. Larsoe laughed as he gave the slighter man a shove that sent him spinning off the lump and almost into another ring body with jagged edges.