The Interlevel Limited left the lower warmth and streaked up the
great winding tunnel through the neat residential suburbs, through
the squalid upper levels, through the ice-locked roots of ancient
Manhattan. But Steel barely noticed when the windows in his compartment
frosted over. He was studying his glacier maps.
The comet crater was located near the frozen ruins of what was once a
surface city named Jersey. He'd been on a snow-deer hunt up there once;
an old guide had told him about the ice-bear cubs.
Steel plotted his course from the Surface Terminal to the Ruins, then
checked his equipment list--electrosuit, oxygen helmet, volt rifle,
rations. He'd charter a little ski plane at the Terminal.
When he finished, he leaned back in his seat and glanced at his watch.
Almost there. Had he forgotten anything? Fitted into the oxygen helmet
was a little radio unit so he could keep in touch with Stahl. He'd set
up a receiver in a vacant room in the Vita-Heat Building and arranged
for one of Stahl's guards to be there at all times. He'd also arranged
for Stahl to send a copy of their contract--reward or insurance--to
Commissioner Brandt. Not that he didn't trust Stahl.... Well, it looked
as if he was all set. He'd buy a hunting license to put on the ski
plane--for all anybody'd know he was out for snow-deer. He'd spend the
night at the Terminal Hotel, leave first thing in the morning....
When the Limited's whirring ceased, he put away the maps and picked
up his bag. As the outer door slid open, he stepped out into the vast
Terminal and headed for the viewway that would take him to the hotel.
The Terminal was a heavily insulated cavern in the ice crust. The
landing and departure stalls encircled the huge room where the motley
thousands of hurrying travelers bought tickets, waved goodbyes or
greetings, or waited sleepily around Dr. Albert Harmon's chrome statue.
As Steel passed the statue of the shaggy-haired bespectacled old man,
he eyed it thoughtfully. Dr. Harmon's experiments with household and
jet propulsion heat had done a lot of good but it looked as if his
green-eyed daughter wasn't good for anything but a cocktail party....
Then he was on the viewway. His spine tingled at the sight outside.
Standing on the crowded belt as it slid past the Terminal's long
window, he had a perfect view of the glacier. Glistening in the
starlight, the great ice waste stretched to the horizon like a sheet of
silver. Tiny varicolored lights swept across the jet backdrop of outer
space--freight planes bound for Earth's other buried city-states, for
the frozen mines of Neptune, Venus, Mars, or for the nebulous worlds
of other suns. Those other suns, pinpoints of light in infinity--when
the Solar System had cooled, they had been a beckoning hope. Then their
planets had been found even less inhabitable than Earth. Poisoned
atmospheres, molten lands, boiling seas--habitation was impossible. It
was undoubtedly mankind's greatest tragedy, Steel thought, that it was
doomed to call a frozen Earth home forever.
"Look! A liner's coming in!"
A group of tourists ahead of Steel stepped off the belt to the walkway
alongside and stared through the plexiglass window at a fish-like space
ship that was drifting down to a landing stall nearby. Steel also
stepped off to watch.
"It's all automatic," one of the tourists explained to his wife. "A
radio beam brings 'em here and lands 'em. The pilots don't have much to
do."
Steel watched the great ship settle to the stall's roof, the roof slid
open, the ship sank in out of sight, the roof slide closed again.
"Let's go down and watch 'em unload." The tourists moved to a belt
nearby that led to the landing stall. And, because he had nothing
better to do till morning--Steel followed them.
The moment he got there he knew something was wrong.
"Get back!" A Terminal guard stepped in front of the group of
onlookers. "Nobody's allowed near the ship!"
Beyond the quickly formed line of guards, Steel saw an excited group of
Terminal executives gathered at the ship's open door. What was up? The
ship appeared to be okay. It had come in all right.
"What's the trouble?" somebody asked.
The guard was staring anxiously at the ship himself. "Don't know," he
said. "When that ship came in, _there wasn't nobody on it_...."
Steel shouldered his way to the front of the crowd to stare across
at the ship's open door. Around him, the crowd buzzed with the news.
A woman who had been waiting to meet somebody on the ship started
screaming. The ship had come in on the radar beam, on time, but with
pilots, stewardesses, twenty passengers, and cargo--missing!
"Pirates!" The word swept through the crowd. The ship had come from
Venus. And not five minutes ago the pilot had reported he was arriving
on schedule, the trip uneventful. Then the crowd quickly discovered
what had happened. A Terminal cop appeared at the ship's door. A hush
went over the crowd. In the cop's hand was an ice-bear's claw.