Mrs. Entwhistle craned her neck upward, and through the top of her glassite helmet her face looked like a fish underwater. "I thought we go _in_ the ring, Mr. Smith." He nodded. "Of course we do. We're a thousand miles out now. See? If you look carefully, you probably can see some of the bigger particles shining." "Um, yes." "But we don't go in here. This is the outer ring and we pass under it. We also go under Cassini's Division--the dark band which separates this from the inner ring. I'll take you there, through the brighter ring, up to the border of the crepe one. But then we turn back. That would be dangerous." "Why?" "Because the crepe ring receives no sunlight. It's dark, that's why, and we'd have to rely on radar to keep the ship out of trouble. It's tricky business and it's dangerous. A little light flashes on and off and it tells you which way to steer, but unless you can see what you're doing--like you can in the bright ring, it's dangerous." In another few minutes Socrates cut the ship sharply upward, and before long the solid whiteness of the ring had been replaced by a chaos of flying rock. That's what it looked like--huge boulders, ton piled upon ton, and the closer they came, the faster the rocks seemed to move. In another moment the rocks were below as well as above them, and Mrs. Entwhistle screamed. "What's the matter?" "I'm afraid. Please, Mr. Smith--" "You have nothing to worry about--" "I can't help it if I'm afraid. Take me back!" Socrates turned sharply and the ship zoomed through an empty space. The rear port showed only a massive rock; it had been that close.... "If you don't keep quiet. Please--" "Take me back!" Socrates had had a few cases like this, and taking the customer back was comparatively simple. Although this bright ring was the largest, and although it did have a longitudinal width of sixteen thousand miles, its latitudinal depth was no more than ten miles. Now he gunned the ship up and in a moment they hung poised in deep space above the ring. "We'll stay clear of the ring and go back to Mimas--" "Why?" "You were afraid. You said so, that's why." "Well, I changed my mind. What would all the girls on Earth say if they knew I hadn't actually seen the ring? Take me back, Mr. Smith. I'll be brave." Socrates smiled. "That's a good girl," he said, and they dove again for the brightness of the ring. But he almost wished she hadn't changed her mind. Then he could have returned to the spacefield and watched for Norma. * * * * * He cut a zigzag course through the hurtling meteors. Someone, he knew, had once bothered to chart all the tiny particles of the ring, but it had taken a lifetime and it was far from accurate. Socrates preferred the seat-of-the-pants method. In less than two hours they had cut through the width of the ring and ahead was darkness--darker, it seemed, than space itself.