RIDE THE CREPE RING By Milton Lesser Norma thought it would be a great thrill to dodge the meteors in Saturn's forbidden Ring. A thrill yes--but would she live to enjoy it?... [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy March 1952 Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Mimas was a cold little world where the sun's rays seldom reached. You stayed under a big glassite dome on the four-hundred mile sphere if you stayed there at all, and you hardly saw the sun anyway because Saturn and its rings were so big and so bright. The temperature under the dome was kept in the forties because Mimas was a summer resort, provided you wanted to travel three quarters of a billion miles to leave the heat and the bustle of the inferior planets behind you. It was cold, but Mr. S. Smith sweated. The S. was for Socrates, but everyone called him Smitty. Now he looked at his visitor and the sweat formed little glistening beads on his forehead. The man was short and stout with a bald head and a florid face. He looked silly next to Socrates Smith because Socrates stood six and a half feet tall without his space-boots, and he could have been a Martian bone bird for all the flesh on his body. "That's the size of it, Smith," the florid little man said. "We don't care if you _are_ a billion miles from the sun--" "Eight-hundred eighty-five million nine-hundred and sixty-three thousand seventy-two," Socrates said proudly. "The most distant pleasure-spot in the Solar System. Want to get away from it all? Come to Mimas, with Saturn's rings right in your backyard...." "That's it. We've had enough monkey business. Government was sued because it sanctioned your artificial satellite above Jupiter's Red Spot. The Red Spot Palace--bah! More people complained of asthma--" "I included spacesuits with each domette, Mr. Farquhart. How did I know somebody sold me an inferior product?" Farquhart shook his head. "None of my business. All your customers went to Mars to get rid of their asthma. Mars boomed, then over-produced. We had deflation, and the whole tourist business went to pot for three years. Why don't you try something simple like a spa on one of the Venusian islands? I got a cousin--" "Too crowded, too much competition. No, Mr. Farquhart, I have something different here. It'll make me a million. Then I can retire, buy me an estate on Ganymede and be out of your hair." "It's not as simple as that, Smith. First I got to check this place. Is it safe? How do I know it's safe? Will you give phony asthma to ten thousand people again?" * * * * *