OUTSIDE SATURN By ROBERT ERNEST GILBERT Illustrated by RICHARD KLUGA Gangsters were out of date, and the ice-sweeper was an unlikely thing to steal. But Vicenzo was a streak, so what else could Henry do? [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Infinity January 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] CHAPTER I Aziz ripped the radio from Henry's spacesuit and carefully resealed the panel. "Dis'll be the weldin' of ya, kid," Aziz said, crinkling his round, sallow face in an attempt to smile. "Yer name'll be in ever' yap--in our orbit, dat is." "But what--" Henry tried to say. "No doubt at all," Vicenzo agreed, cleverly shorting Henry's drive tube. "I don't--" Henry said. "Vicenzo figured it right, kid," Aziz said. He gestured with powerful arms too long for his short body. "Ya'll hit dat ole sweeper square on the bulb. Vicenzo's a streak." "I'm a genius," Vicenzo admitted. He smoothed the black bangs covering his forehead to the eyebrows, and he fingered the pointed sideburns reaching to his chin. "You jump into space, Henry, and then we'll increase velocity and sink into the Rings." Aziz begged, "Do us a blazer, kid. We won't go far. Too low on fuel." He lowered the helmet over Henry's bushy, blond hair and ruddy face and clamped it shut. Vicenzo and Aziz left Henry in the airvalve and closed the inner door. When the valve emptied to vacuum, Henry reluctantly lowered the outer door and stepped to the magnetized platform. Henry stood twenty meters above Ring B of the Rings of Saturn. Below him, balls of ice, metal, rock, and assorted cosmic debris flowed slowly past with stars occasionally visible between the whirling particles. To either side, the billions of tiny moons blended with distance to form a solid, glaring white band. Henry bent his knees and dived into space. Holding his body stiff with a practiced rigidity, and cautiously moving arms and legs to check any tendency to tumble, Henry glided above the Rings. Turning his head, he saw exhaust spurt from the collection of spherical cabins, tanks, and motors that was the spaceship; and the craft moved from his line of sight, leaving him alone. Henry drifted above a flat surface more than sixty-six thousand kilometers wide. To his left, Ring B extended to the black circle of the Cassini Division which separated it from the less brilliant Ring A. To his right, the gleam of Ring B abruptly changed to the dimness of the Crape Ring through which the surface of Saturn was visible. Of the giant planet, forty-three thousand kilometers away, Henry saw but half a crescent marked with vague white and yellow bands and obscure spots.