The main deterrent to swift action was the bitter, bitter cold that stabbed at their faces and hands which were not enclosed in the electrically heated suite—of which each one of them wore three against this ultraviolent chill.
"There should be a door here," objected Don, reading a blueprint from the large roll he carried under his arm. "Fact is, this series of rooms seems to have been sealed off entirely though the blueprint calls for a door, about here!"
"How could anybody re-seal a doorway?" asked Barney.
"Duplicator," said Don thoughtfully. "And I smell rats!"
"So. And how do we get in?" demanded Arden.
"We break in," said Channing harshly. "Come on, gang. We're going back downstairs and get us a cutter!"
The cutter consisted of a single-focus scanner beam that Don wielded like an acetylene torch. Clean and silently it cut through the metal wall and the section fell inward with a slight crash.
They stepped in through the opening.
"Someone has been homesteading," said Channing in a gritty voice. "Nice prefab home, hey? Let's add house-breaking to our other crimes. I'd like to singe the heels offa the character that did this. And I think I'll let the main one simmer."
"Who?" asked Arden.