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.