"Inner Asteroid Belt," Dave stated. "A puny one, compared to the one outside Mars, but nonetheless a Belt. Uncharted, and deadly." Tension spread along Hiller's back. "We've had no advance data on crap like that, not one bit." "We have now," Dave shrugged. "Why didn't one of the first trips miss this?" "This Inner Belt orbits, too. Clustered minor particles with low reflectivity may be a phenomenon found only in scattered sections of the Belt. The first Marships happened to hit them, just like us. Certainly no light instrument on Earth I know of could pick them up. They'd move out too fast to register on a plate. So, they're our babies." The commander remarked soberly, "You evidently already know what this means." "It's a lousy break.... The first ships must have tried to get through...." Hiller brought his palms together to bolster the searching of his mind. He was surprised to find them moist. "What about the size of the particles in these clusters?" "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?" "A mile here, a couple of miles there. I really haven't figured that aspect yet." "Well, figure it." The commander jumped down from the observation seat. "Get George, the psychologist, he types fast. Compile what data you have, have him type it, send it down to me. I'll be in my quarters. And hurry, man, or they'll be more than stars dead around here." He slammed open the entrance panel to the observatory. By that time he had cooled enough to pause and throw Dave a half-smile and limp salute. "Thanks for the wide-awake work. Now, get busy." * * * * * His watch showed he had been drowsing for more than an hour. The pictures had exhausted themselves, and his head felt clearer. He had needed that rest badly.