Ice Planet

Slowly a faint siren hum penetrated the cabin, not unlike the sound of a power plant. A power plant it was too, the ship digging in full blast as it skirted the pull of Neptune. Ricker turned away from his garrulous neighbor, saw the sea-tinted planet had doubled in size. It was a perfect sphere, without a mark on its surface, a ring of solid hydrogen and helium. A worthless world, thought Ricker; worthless as was half the universe—because the woman in the seat up front had killed a man!