 What do the four men seek/value most in a star? That no one had ever heard of it before
How could they believe in his choice when every star in this forsaken section of space was surrounded by a beckoning red rim? Russell had no idea now how long the four of them had been plunging toward the red-rimmed sun that never seemed to get any nearer. All Russell knew was that they were millions of light years from any place he had ever heard about, where the galactic space lanterns had absolutely no recognizable pattern. Compared with the universe in which one of them drifted, a wrecked ship was a lot smaller than a grain of sand on a nice warm beach back on Earth, or one of those specks of silver dust that floated like strange seeds down the night winds of Venus. When the four of them had escaped from that prison colony on a sizzling hot asteroid rock in the Ronlwhyn system, that wasn't enough for Dunbar. That's what all four of them had been trying to find all their lives in the big cold grabbag of eternity—a rich star, a rich far fertile star where no one else had ever been, loaded with treasure that had no name, that no one had ever heard of before. And was, because of that, the richest treasure of all. No one for God only knew how many of millions of light years away could see or care. "You're still sure it's the sun up ahead ...
 obscurity of location
 obscurity of location  population of women  geographical features  prevalence of riches