Steel halted, puzzled this time. The tunnel curved on off ahead but
here there was only the red tapestry walls. He felt the pistol again
on his backbone. Then he saw the man's hand reaching out beside him,
lifting the corner of one of the tapestries.
The cloth had covered a window. It looked down into a tremendous
auditorium where hundreds of teen-age boys and girls sat in curved rows
of seats facing a wide curtained stage.
The scene might have been that of any world-wide juvenile delinquency
court. Steel frowned. Dressed in rags, their pinched faces unwashed,
the crowd was a cross-section of undernourished kids from the slum
levels of every underground city on Earth. They were all sizes and
colors and there was excitement in every eye. Steel could hardly
believe it. A prep school for crime.... Steel felt hot rage creeping
over him.
Then on the auditorium's stage, the curtain went up and what he saw
there hit him like a bucket of ice water.
Ten feet high, its shaggy white hair stark against the stage's black
backdrop, Earth's most terrifying creature stood there--an _ice-bear_.
The man behind him dropped the tapestry.
"New recruits." Steel heard him, dazedly. "The Bear's busy now. I hope
you don't mind waiting." The fellow laughed. "Okay, get moving."
* * * * *
Steel turned from the covered window as if waking from a nightmare.
He retraced his steps back through the tunnel to the belt as the man
behind him directed. He got on the belt again, the man behind him.
But it didn't make sense! It couldn't be! There was some trick to it!
But, the proof of his own eyes argued, it must have been an ice-bear.
It had been the whole works--red eyes, saber fangs, razor claws.
Rearing up on its hind legs....
Steel shook his head. He couldn't figure this out any more than he'd
been able to figure out the balls of ice that captured him. Then,
suddenly, he remembered something he had been about to do.
He looked ahead down the belt. Nobody there. They had just passed the
last of the rooms alongside. Do it now! If he could get back to that
auditorium--get within gunshot of that bear--
Suddenly he shifted one foot to the belt beside them that was traveling
in the opposite direction. Touching it, his foot stopped him like a
brake and whirled him around rapidly.
The fellow didn't even have time to be surprised. Steel's helmet caught
him in the face. He went down without a sound.
Quickly, Steel snatched up his pistol. Crouching over the man,
he glanced back up the belt. Still nobody in sight. In the other
direction, he saw the belt was carrying them down into some dim-lit
place, a dungeon, perhaps, where the fellow had been taking him. Nobody
in sight there, either. Steel grabbed the man's collar and dragged
him--unconscious or corpse, he neither knew nor cared which--down the
belt into the shadows.
The floor was level here, undoubtedly the very bottom of The Bear's
vast retreat. In the dim light, he saw packing cases stacked along the
wall, a heavy freight belt creaking laboriously down the middle of the
floor. He dragged his ex-guard behind a packing case and then stepped
on the belt that slid back up the shaft. His hand closed fondly upon
the pistol in his pocket. He snapped the safety _off_.
Now, if he could get to that auditorium, get to The Bear....
He didn't run. He forced himself to stand on the belt and let it carry
him up past the crowded workshops and laboratories. He didn't turn his
head. He only glanced into the rooms out of the corner of his eye as
he passed. It was the worst ordeal he could remember in ten years of
detective work. Standing there. Alone. Thousands all around him. His
hand grew sweaty on the pistol in his pocket. Then he was at the tunnel
and nobody had noticed him.
He stepped in with a gasp of relief. The tunnel was also still
deserted. He jumped to the tapestry.
For a moment, he couldn't find the one that hid the window. Then he
found it, lifted it with nervous fingers, and stared once more down
into the auditorium. The kids were just leaving the auditorium, filing
out a door at the rear. The Bear was just leaving the stage.
How was he to get down there? He eyed the wall encircling the
auditorium. It curved, just as the tunnel curved. The tunnel seemed to
be a closed balcony surrounding the place. Somewhere ahead there must
be an exit leading down to the stage. Steel dropped the tapestry and
went down the tunnel, running now.
Sure it was quick! Much quicker than he'd ever hoped! Three hours since
he'd left the Terminal and he'd found The Bear! His fingers curled
around the pistol like a caress.
When he judged he'd half-circled the hall, he slowed down, moving
swiftly but cautiously. Then he came to a belt that cut down to the
left. It must lead to the stage. He stepped on it.
It did. It carried him swiftly to the wings and peering out across the
stage, he saw it standing there in the opposite wings. Still reared
ten feet high on its hind legs, eyes like red-filmed lights. And with
The Bear now was a bull-necked giant whom Steel remembered from police
photographs, a boxer of "fixed match" notoriety--Mike Doyle.
The kids were still straggling from the hall. Steel waited behind the
curtain till the last one left. Then he stepped out and strode quickly
across the stage.
"Don't move, Mike," he ordered the boxer.
The big fellow whirled. The Bear turned.
Steel stopped six feet from them, pistol leveled. "I don't know whether
you're real or not," he said, eyeing the huge animal, "but there's
a good way to find out. If that's just some kind of trick get-up,
whoever's in it better get out fast. I'm going to blast a hole through
it."
"It's Johnny Steel!" The fighter's battered face sagged in
astonishment. "It's the cops!"
The Bear's neon eyes blazed down at Steel, its huge chest rising and
falling slowly, breath hissing in its black nostrils. It was a sight
that few people lived long enough to see close up. An ice-bear could
take a man's head off with one claw. If this one was a fake, Steel
thought, it was a whopping good one. Its dark lips curled back from a
jagged row of yellowed six-inch fangs. From each hairy paw, a rake of
white claws slowly unsheathed. Then something happened that almost made
Steel drop his gun.
"_Yes, I know Mr. Steel_," The Bear said.
It was a terrifying sound, guttural, deep in the great animal's
throat--but it proved something to Steel after its first shock. He'd
heard sound-blending devices before. That was a human voice set in the
growl of a bear. The disguise was perfect but it _was a_ disguise.
This however did nothing to answer the two big questions. How did The
Bear know him? And who was in that disguise? Well, he wasn't going to
be long finding out. "Whoever _you_ are," Steel said, "I'm giving you
five seconds to get out of there." He raised the pistol a fraction of
an inch, years of police training, perfect aim from the hip.
Then suddenly--insanely--the powerful Mike Doyle was diving toward him.
Two thoughts flashed in Steel's head as he saw him coming--Mike had
picked up a mighty strange loyalty lately to risk his life for his
boss--and, Steel knew he couldn't shoot. It would bring the whole gang
here instantly.
He jumped aside. He smashed Mike across the head with his pistol. Mike
sprawled and slid across the stage, to lay still.