"From what I've calculated, they're fruitstand variety, for the most part."
"Watermelons?" grunted Hiller, pessimistically.
"A few, maybe. But they're not cranberries, either."
"Density?"
"Roughly eight or nine. I can get that figure closer later on."
Hiller became irritated at himself for letting what started to be short silence grow longer. The astronomer may have followed his thoughts; he handed him a long photograph.
"Here's one I made at 150 diameters of the general area of the Inner Belt we're due to pass through on our present course."
Hiller winced at the sight: the fuzzy glow thinned in the foreground and thickening, paraded through the middle distance, still stretching on until it faded from the lens' capability.
"We'll have to revise some of our theories about the formation of the Outer Belt," Dave was saying. "It's apparently much deeper and wider than anyone's guessed. Looks to me like a dead star went through our system, breaking up a planet and maybe peeling a little off itself. That would account perhaps for the retrograde orbit—"
"Dave, I don't give a good goddam about any dead star!" Hiller exploded his tension. "How far apart are these space fruit?"