"That--that's what's so awful," the fellow said. "It was carrying a
load of Venusian tungsoid. And there ain't but two things you can make
with tungsoid--electrotubes or _suffo-gas_!"
Suffo-gas! A deadly vapor, its production had been banned on Earth ever
since mankind moved underground. One whiff of suffo-gas in New York's
ventilation pipes.... Steel turned back through the crowd.
He didn't take the belt to the hotel. He walked, big hands deep in his
pockets, thinking, thinking things he hardly dared think of.
That ship had been pirated close by. Its route in from Venus was from
the south-east. That cargo of tungsoid had been pirated over the
Jersey Ruins. He was on the right track and it was a hurry-up job.
There was little reason to believe The Bear had gotten interested in
electrotubes....
* * * * *
Next morning when the first yellow rays of the sun's dying ember
slanted across the ice, Steel's ski plane circled up from the Terminal
and headed south-east.
Crossing the sub-zero ice crevices on foot would have taken months
but it was just a short hop by plane. It was a hop, however, that few
planes took. Freight and liner traffic from the Terminal immediately
headed for the stratosphere. Near the surface, the glacier's fangs
probed every cloud and blizzards of liquid air roamed the uncharted
chasms. Only an occasional prospector or hunter attempted low-altitude
flying here and often these never returned.
This morning, however, Steel was lucky. The weather was clear and
ceiling unusually high, the peaks rearing from the shadow-filled
valleys like glittering icicles in the pale yellow light. When he
checked his instruments by the chart and headed the plane down over the
ice field that choked the Jersey Ruins, he grinned silently behind the
control lever. Now, if the blizzard would only hold off for an hour or
so....
The crumbling ruins of ancient buildings jutted up from the snow,
monuments of a long-departed civilization. Although never actually
explored, the Ruins were thought to extend for miles south of the
comet crater. More was known about the crater itself since it was only
a few centuries old. Its gigantic explosion had knifed a deep valley
in the ice mountains that was still relatively warm. Lichen grew on
the snow here, bats hung in the caves, and ice-bears had a shorter
hibernation. And _The_ Bear? Any crevice, any ruined building here
might be his lair.
Scanning the drifts below through his windows, Steel looked for
tracks, melting snow or rocket stains. As he looked, he kept an eye on
his auto-sextant. As it clicked off the changing coordinates of his
location, he marked his position on the chart. Vanish he might like
those other five cops who'd gone after The Bear, Steel thought, but not
without a trace--not as long as the little microphone in his helmet was
ready for an instant S.O.S. He'd tested it at the Terminal; Stahl's man
was on the job.
On a little plateau below, he saw a herd of bluish white snow-deer.
They looked up and then stampeded in all directions as he passed over.
Odd he hadn't seen any bears yet.
He was banking low over the half-buried top of a building, squinting
down at the white drifts, when he saw the ball.
"Now how the hell did that happen...."
He circled lower. It was a ball of solid ice. He could see all the way
through it. It was about six feet in diameter, smooth as glass. It was
perfectly round, like a huge green bubble. It lay there on the snow,
sparkling in the dull light. "Funny ice formation--"
Then the ball _moved_.
Watching, Steel almost rammed a building. He pulled up, staring at
the thing. The ball rose slowly, ten feet above the snow. Suspended
by nothing. Then it drifted slowly over the wastes, aimlessly, like a
bubble in the breeze.
Steel followed it, amazed. A strong air current? But it wasn't
affecting the plane. Besides, that chunk of ice probably weighed half a
ton!
The thing finally came to rest against an ice crag near one of the
wrecked buildings. Steel went in close and hovered, examining it with
bewildered eyes. And it was just a ball of ice. That's all it _was_.
Well, lots of queer things happened on the glacier.... Shaking his
head, he started to zoom away.
Then it happened.
More of the ice balls! Hundreds of them! Curving down upon him from
above!
Colorless, unseen until they were upon him, they blocked the plane on
every side.
"What in the--!" Steel banked, twisted the plane into every contortion.
But at every turn the glistening spheres stood before him, closing in
like a net, relentlessly forcing him down.
Fifty feet above the snow, he realized he'd have to ram them. The plane
was strong--maybe he could crash through.
Then, as if anticipating this very thought, the spheres moved in
suddenly against the plane, pressed upon it from above, forced it down.
It was pressed quickly down to the snow.
As it settled into the snow level with the cabin windows, the spheres
slowly melted together to form a rough-hewn roof and walls. The plane
was enclosed completely.
Steel's heart hammered. His breath fogged his helmet. He stared at the
encircling wall, jerked the control lever helplessly. It was only then
he remembered his microphone.
"Six-foot balls of ice!" he cried hoarsely. "Some kind of remote
control! X-26.9-18.7!" He started giving the coordinates of his
location.
"_That's hardly worth while now...._"
Steel shivered even in the electrosuit's warmth. Slowly, he turned
around.
The walls and roof that imprisoned him joined, behind him, the side
of one of the ruined buildings, a crumbling structure of weathered
concrete. The ruin had a door. In the door, an oxygen helmet topping a
snow-white electrosuit, stood a tall thin man. One gloved hand rested
lightly upon the butt of a volt pistol holstered at his hip.
"_Our little Trojan Horse--those balls of ice_," the man continued,
"_have several interesting properties. They're also a very effective
barrier against radio transmission._" His voice was coming into the
plane on the same radio frequency Steel had been trying to send on.
Behind his helmet, the man's face was lean, thin-lipped, deeply
tanned--a tan that wasn't of Earth. That tan had come through a
space ship's viewplate, close in the heat of some foreign sun. He
strode over to the plane and took out his pistol to rap impatiently on
the cabin window.
"_Get out of there! That hunting license on your ship doesn't fool me.
A few minutes ago you passed over a herd of snow-deer without firing a
shot. The Bear will be mighty interested in why you're up here snooping
around...._"
* * * * *
The Bear--the word hit Steel like an electric shock. He'd thought he
was on the right track, he'd hoped, but now that it was proved it was
something to think about. He'd found The Bear's hideout and what could
he do about it?
He didn't move at first. He sat there looking at the man through the
window, his mind running hot trying to figure out what to do. In the
middle of the glacier, a six-foot-thick wall in front of him, the man
with the gun outside. _And_ his radio useless--his ace card trumped
with the game just started. It looked like that insurance policy hadn't
been a bad idea....
The fellow banged on the plane with his pistol again. "_Come on! Open
up!_"
Steel opened up. At a wave of the pistol, he stepped out to the frozen
snow. At another wave, he raised his hands. The man stepped around
him, jabbed the gun in his spine and went over him expertly. He found
Steel's pistol and dropped it in the snow. "_Now start walking ahead
of me. And no foolishness._" The pistol shoved Steel ahead through the
ruin's door.
Inside it was just like ten million other surface ruins. You walked
into what had been about the thirtieth floor above the street and found
only drifted snow, shattered walls, a bleached skeleton perhaps. Now,
however, Steel had time for only a glance at the familiar scene when
the pistol moved him on through another door, then another, and this
one, he saw, only faked its weathered appearance. As he went through,
a metal panel slid silently shut behind them and he had his first
look at the tremendous organization he'd been fool enough to tackle
single-handed.
A bright warming glow drifted down from the luminous ceiling. Vent
slits in the floor whispered softly, oxygen pouring in. At the other
end of the room, a split traveling walk slid noiselessly up and down
a shaft past hundreds of offices, workshops, barracks. The place was
as big as the Terminal, as lavishly furnished as Stahl's Vita-Heat
Building. This place explained why The Bear had stolen as much
equipment as money.
He was given little time to marvel here however.
"_Take off your helmet_," the radioed voice behind him ordered. Steel
took it off. When he turned, facing the man and the gun, the man had
removed his own helmet. He was smiling, a thin tight-lipped smile with
no humor in his eyes. "You seem surprised," he said. "You really didn't
expect a bear's den, did you?"
"This is your show," Steel said quietly. "What comes next?" The man
held his helmet in one hand, his pistol in the other--both hands full.
Steel thought of his own helmet, a mighty handy weapon. If he got a
chance--Then suddenly he noticed something else, something that gave
him a chance cops dreamed about. The guy's pistol--the safety was _on_!
"Okay," the man said, "if this deer hunting trip of yours turns out to
be faked, you'll soon learn what's next." A quick motion of the pistol
ordered Steel around on the belt that led down the shaft.
Steel went. As he went, he shot quick glances into the rooms they
passed, waiting for the right moment to whirl around and knock that
pistol away.
The rooms they passed were filled with workers. There were drafting
stalls where scores of men--and women--bent over blueprint tables
and charts. There were plastic workshops where people operated
compression molds and lathes. Where did The Bear get all these
workers! They all couldn't have come from the upper levels! There were
glittering laboratories where white-aproned technicians huddled around
distillation vats and rows of test tubes. Steel thought of that stolen
cargo of tungsoid. Suffo-gas...?
A few yards ahead, on the left, he saw they were approaching an empty
room. On the right, a deserted tunnel branched off into whatever
labyrinth the place possessed. Okay, this was as good as anywhere else!
Wherever he was being taken, they'd be there shortly. Then it might be
too late.
Steel crouched slightly, ready to whirl on the fellow behind him.