Chapter III

When the blackness vanished, as suddenly as it had come, Steel didn't open his eyes at first, figuring out what had happened. Mike had obviously came to and crept up behind him. Rabbit punch--Mike was a master at that.

When he got this figured out, he started to work on what to do about it. He lay there motionless, listening. Then he realized he wasn't lying on the stage floor. He was lying on a bed of some kind. Somewhere in the distance, he heard the muffled crackling of a video transmitter. They'd moved him! How long had he been out! His eyes snapped open.

"Well!" a familiar voice said. "Sleeping beauty awakes!" It was the tall thin-lipped fellow, his original captor. He stood beside the bunk on which Steel found himself lying. Across the fellow's thin cheek now was a taped bandage, the result of Steel's helmet-wielding. "I guess its time you knew my name," he said. "It's Dirk." And as he introduced himself, his right fist arced across the bunk, contacted Steel's jaw like a spark-gap and Steel's blackness returned once more....

This time however the blackness vanished in a deluge of ice water. Steel sat up on the bunk sputtering, shaking his head dazedly.

Dirk threw the empty bucket in the corner and stood before him, hands on his narrow hips. "If I didn't have orders to take it easy, I'd drown you."

Steel glared up at him. He had to get a few things straight before he stuck his neck out again. He turned from the guy in disgust and glanced about the room.

He was in a small, high-ceilinged place with one door, barred like a cell. The room seemed to be located deep in the cellar region of The Bear's fortress. Across the dim corridor outside, he saw huge boxes and bales stacked against the wall. On the corridor floor, a heavy freight belt creaked sluggishly past the door. Why, this was the same place where he'd been before, at the bottom of the main shaft where he'd left Dirk behind a packing case.

The video transmitter's crackling came from one of the lower rooms on the shaft. It sounded like a long distance set, one used for interplanetary work. It hadn't been operating when he'd passed before. If he'd only known it was there then! A message to Stahl, the coordinates of this place.... He looked back to Dirk. "And what happens next?"

"That's for The Bear to decide. When they found me and brought me to, I just came back to even the score." His thin lips grinned.

Steel looked away again. Who was The Bear? Who was The Bear? The question started beating in his head like a drum. His fingers tightened on the metal frame of the bunk. Just when he had him, just when he was about to find out! He swore to himself that if he got another chance, he certainly wouldn't waste time talking.

Then, suddenly, the chance was there.

The Bear stood at the door, horrid face bent down, eyes glowing through the bars. The mechanical voice rumbled, "What does he have to say, Dirk?"

Dirk eyed Steel with evident anticipation. "Want me to go to work on him?" He took out his pistol--the one Steel had taken away from him before, but with the safety _off_ now. He walked over and leveled it in Steel's face. "Okay," he said, "we know you're working for Hampton Stahl. Does Stahl suspect this place is near the Jersey Ruins?"

"Certainly," Steel said, ignoring the gun in his face, but meeting Dirk's eyes. "And Stahl's going to have the police around here combing every ruin if I'm not back before sundown." If it were only true....

The Bear told Dirk to unlock the door. Dirk unlocked it and the creature ambled in, stooping under the ceiling. Dirk locked the door again.

"And what made you think this was the place to look?" The Bear rumbled.

Okay, get ready. Anytime now. The old business.... "Well," Steel said, bringing his legs in under him, leaning forward slightly on the bunk, "you ought to know a lot about those little visiting cards of yours." He pointed toward The Bear's own claws. "Take a look at those fake claws of yours there...."

The Bear glanced down. Dirk also glanced at The Bear's paws.

Steel sprang at Dirk.

He got his hand on the pistol. At the same time, his knee got in Dirk's belly. His other hand slammed Dirk back against the wall. Good, old-fashioned police work. He snatched the pistol from Dirk's hand and brought it up into Dirk's jaw like a set of brass knuckles.

Then Steel didn't even wait to watch Dirk fall. As he turned from him, he got the pistol right in his hand and fired.

His first shot blasted The Bear's mechanical right arm off. The next one got a leg. The next one got the other leg as the thing toppled over.

As it crashed to the floor, Steel jumped back into a corner of the room, gun on the weird scene on the floor.

Dirk was out cold again. The Bear was a mess. Springs, wires, stuffing, braces, it floundered there a moment till its motors short-circuited. Then inside the great mass of white hair there was a frantic scratching sound.

"Come out of there," Steel said between his teeth.

* * * * *

The door in the bear chest was pushed open. There was coughing like somebody coming out of a stifling closet.

Then Steel's hand went limp on the pistol.

A cascade of golden hair tumbled out upon the shaggy bear skin. Steel stared into the furious green eyes of _Lois Harmon_.

Steel couldn't have been more astonished if his own grandmother had crawled out of the bear skin.

He couldn't believe it at first. He shook his head savagely. Then the girl got to her feet, shook her bright hair out of her eyes and stood there with her hands on her trim hips, glaring at him. Smooth as a pedigreed cat, even in a pair of dingy coveralls.

"It took us six months to build that electric bear!" Her eyes sparked green fire. "You--you--" Words seemed inadequate. She stepped over and swung at Steel a baby haymaker.

Steel ducked and caught her hand. And the exertion jarred his brain back to work like a stopped watch. "Listen, you lynx-eyed hussy!" He twisted her arm behind her back and drew her to him, twisting till her struggling stopped. "If I hadn't seen you get out of that bear skin, I wouldn't have believed it. But, if you're The Bear, you're a cold-blooded murderer! I'd just as soon shoot you down as not. In fact I'd rather. I--" Then he heard the racket behind him. He whirled around, jerking the girl around between him and the door.

Over her shoulder, he saw a score of men run up and halt at the cell door. They'd heard the shots of course. They took in the situation instantly. Rifles and pistols leveled on him like a firing squad.

Steel, however, had the girl between him and the guns. He put his own pistol against the girl's back. "Careful," he said, eyes on the men outside, "I can get her before you can get me." He'd never used a woman as a shield before, but to him this yellow-haired witch wasn't even a woman. She was a killer. He was a cop. If he could hold this advantage, force his way out of here with her....

The girl held perfectly still, facing her gang. "Range about ten feet," she said quietly. And there was something in her almost bored tone, Steel didn't like.

"No tricks," he said, eyes fixed on the trigger fingers outside. He tried to get as much of himself behind her as possible, a difficult thing, however, hiding his shoulders behind not too much woman. "I mean business."

"So do we," the girl said to him over her shoulder.

As she spoke, Steel heard an angry buzzing sound, like a rattlesnake's warning. But there was nothing he could do about such a warning. Instantly, the pistol he was pressing against the girl's back was snatched from his hand.

Steel was too astonished to move. The pistol flew up toward the ceiling, halted, and then moved across the room through the bars of the door. There was nothing holding it up. It moved the way the ice balls had moved outside. Standing there with his empty hand at the girl's back, Steel stared at the gun till it was grabbed from the air by one of the men outside. Then the gang was swarming through the door.

Steel shook his head like a fighter struggling up after the ninth count. The things that happened in this place were beyond reason. How could you fight anything in a place like this! Then the girl had jerked away from him, the mob was upon him, and he was lying on the floor fighting blindly.

In a moment however it was all over. There were too many of them.

"That's enough! Get him on his feet!"

It was the girl's voice. Dazed and beaten, Steel was yanked up, somebody holding both arms and an elbow hooked around his neck.

"We've wasted enough time on you now," Lois Harmon said. She stood in front of him, eyes blazing. "But--it might interest you to know that everything you've tried to do here hasn't amounted to a damn thing! You'll have company here shortly. We're kidnapping your fat boss tonight. We're going to bring Hampton Stahl here and hold him for a cool million ransom--enough to bankrupt Vita-Heat completely...."

She turned and stalked from the room, leaving Steel staring after her, the full meaning of her words creeping over him like a chill.

Stahl's ransom--Vita-Heat's bankruptcy! If that happened, the upper levels wouldn't even benefit by that insurance policy....

* * * * *

They gathered up the wrecked mechanical bear. They carried out Dirk who again had slept through the whole proceedings. They left, locking the cell door behind them. Steel sat on the bunk, watched them step on the belt and disappear up the shaft.

_Lois Harmon._ Why, she'd been a plant right under his nose when that Radium Bank was held up while he was in the building! For years, she'd been using her innocent-looking beauty and social position to discover the choicest jobs for her gang.

It all boiled down to this--she was The Bear. The Bear had the most terrible record in police annals. And with the unbelievable equipment and advanced science she had amassed here, not only New York but the whole world was threatened. Those inexplicable balls of ice, the mechanical bear, the magic that had snatched that pistol out of his hand--those laboratories and workshops along the shaft seemed capable of anything. Producing suffo-gas was probably a minor task to them.

And--his own motive for coming here, the reward for the upper levels, that would be canceled entirely by Stahl's kidnapping tonight. The pledge he'd made over his dead friend's body couldn't be kept....

Up the shaft, Steel heard the video transmitter start crackling again. If he could only get to that thing! Stahl's man was still waiting; if he could only get a message to him!

Steel got up, slamming a heavy fist into his hand. He went over to the door and grasped the bars, testing their strength. They were solid, thick as his wrist. The door wouldn't even rattle. He surveyed the room again. Collapsible bunk, empty bucket, bare walls.

Since The Bear had run riot during the last few years, how many men had she killed? Bank guards, watchmen, company executives, and Jim, Dick, Harlan, Bill--he'd known those cops well. And the reprisals against their families--not one body ever found. It was inconceivable that such horror had stained Lois Harmon's hands. He thought of those hands--strong, artistic, neatly manicured. But it wasn't nail polish that tipped those pretty fingers. It was blood.

Steel sat down heavily on the bunk again. It swayed and threatened to fold up under him and he got up again to kick its slab-metal headboard back into place. Even the State Prison gave its condemned men a decent bunk! He sat down, staring through the barred door at the freight belt that slid slowly, monotonously along the corridor outside. Probably stolen from some warehouse, it was a yard-wide belt of heavy plates none too closely joined together. It creaked mournfully, incessantly. How could he think with that racket going on! He wondered if he could stop it--poke something through the door--wedge it between the plates....

Suddenly this idle thought was a spark that touched off a TNT idea.

He sprang to the door and looked out. As far as he could see up the shaft, nobody was in sight. There was no sound but the belt's creaking.

He ran back to the bed. Quickly, he yanked the removable headboard off the frame and then took the footboard off. He lugged the bed frame over to the door.

Still nobody was in sight. He stared at the belt outside, excitement burning in his eyes. If it only worked! He lifted the bed frame, stuck it through the door's bars and held it poised a moment over the moving freight belt. Then, just at the right moment, as a space between two of the plates passed, he shoved it home.

He jumped back. Something had to give--belt, bed or door. He barely breathed. The belt slowed. What if it stopped? But it didn't stop. It slowed, but still moved inexorably on. What if the frame bent? But it didn't bend. Its tough metal twisted between the bars, wedging itself more tightly. Then inch by screeching inch, the bars in the door bent.

With a sound like a pistol shot, one snapped.

Steel shot toward the door like a loosened spring. He squeezed between the bars and jumped out on the belt. Then he was running up the belt, ignoring its snail's pace, racing up the shaft toward that video room.

In seconds, he was at the door. He halted, paused there, listening.

"Any contact yet?"

"Not yet...."

Two different voices--there were at least two men in the room. How many more? But he couldn't risk waiting to find out. Any moment somebody might appear on the shaft. He threw open the door and stepped in quickly, ready to tear his way to that video transmitter.

The room was dark, with only a small light in one corner, the glow of a video screen. In front of it were silhouetted two heads. One had close-cropped hair; the other wore a skull cap. Chairs pulled up close to the video, they were so engrossed in their work they didn't even turn around.

"Shhh!" said the black skull cap.

"We're about to make contact, Mike," said the short haircut.

Steel stood motionless in the darkness. They thought he was Mike, the boxer! And there were only two men in the room. Marvelous! Just walk up behind them and bang their heads together. He stepped silently forward.

He was within arm's reach of the two shadowed figures when the video screen's light suddenly flared. He halted.

"Here she is!" The skull cap bent low over the panel under the screen. Dim-lit hands played the video's controls like a piano.

Slowly fading in on the screen, Steel saw the familiar green sphere that was Venus. The picture was swelling in from a video camera on a space ship somewhere close in the Venusian sector. The picture was closing up, each ice peak gleaming. Behind the planet was a blurred background of white lines--he couldn't figure out what they were. And they certainly didn't matter now. His hands started out for those two necks in front of him.

Then the video screen stopped him again. Stopped him cold this time. He stared at the screen incredulously.

The distant camera had turned from the green planet, turning in from the space ship's window through which it had been shooting, and had focussed upon the cameraman. It was Dirk. Dirk--tall and thin-lipped, with bandages on his face--Dirk, _that_ far out in space when not twenty minutes ago he'd been with Steel in that cell below.

How had he gotten out there? How could any space ship have gotten him to Venus that fast?

The other watchers in the room seemed to take it for granted, however. "How'd it go?" the fellow with the skull cap asked.

"No trouble at all," Dirk said from the screen. "Having trouble with this headache of mine though." He grinned faintly through his bandages. "Second one that guy's given me today. I must be slipping."

"Well, come on in and have a drink," the short-haired one said. "Looks like you did a good job on Venus anyhow."

Steel was so bewildered he completely forgot that video worked both ways. If he could see Dirk, Dirk could see him. This didn't occur to him till Dirk's grin faded abruptly and he squinted into the room's darkness from the screen.

"Hey!" Dirk yelled. "Who's that behind you--!" Then, as the two heads before Steel twisted around, "Look out! It's Steel! He's loose again!"

Steel went into action. His fist drove into the face nearest him--the short-haired one's. He knocked him over into the video with a punch that would have knocked out a horse. His left hand caught the other man's collar. His fist started in again.

But this was a blow that never landed.

* * * * *

Steel's arm froze in mid-swing. He stared at the face above the collar he was holding as if he'd caught a ghost.

He had.

He was staring into the bespectacled eyes of a man who was supposed to have been dead fifteen long years--Hampton Stahl's dead partner, Lois Harmon's dead father--_Dr. Albert Harmon_....

Steel stood there holding Dr. Harmon's collar, fist poised, for a long crazy moment. The skull cap had fallen off, revealing the scientist's shaggy white hair. From his lined face, his gray eyes looked up at Steel, troubled but without fear.

"Well?" he said, as if the next move were entirely up to Steel. His voice was remarkably clear for a man of his age.

"Dr. Harmon...." Steel turned him loose and lowered his hand. "Maybe you'd better explain a few things, Doctor," he said shakily.

Instead of explaining, however, the old man shot a hand toward the video table--toward an alarm button.

Steel saw it just in time. He caught the hand and shoved the old man back into his chair. Then he scooped the volt gun from the other man's holster. "Dr. Harmon," he said, "finding you here when you're supposed to have been dead fifteen years explains a lot about this place. The police are going to be mighty interested." Moving around where he could keep his eye on the door as well as on the old man, he reached out and switched the video into the Earth frequency band. Dirk's face had already disappeared. "The police'll be here in about one hour," Steel said.

He twirled a dial to the frequency he'd arranged with Stahl's listener at the Vita-Heat Building. It was hard to believe that a man who had been so well loved as Dr. Harmon could have traded his reputation for a criminal career--but here he was. Obviously, he'd faked his own death and hidden here ever since--another brilliant mind that had followed pure science too far.

A sleepy-eyed guard's face appeared on the video screen. "Get this message to Stahl quick!" Steel told him. "Tell him The Bear is his chum Lois Harmon. Tell him her old man, Dr. Harmon, isn't dead--he's _here_!"

"Wait!" Dr. Harmon jumped up. There was real fear in his eyes now. "You mustn't do that!"

"Hate your ex-partner to be the first to know?" Steel shoved him back in his seat. "And write this down," he told the guard. "Coordinates X-26.9-18.7!" He repeated them as the guard, excited now, raced with his pencil. "Tell Stahl to get the police up here quick!"

On the screen, the guard's eyes were popping. Steel switched the video off. The face faded away. "Now," he told the old man, "I guess that not only gums up your plans to kidnap Hampton Stahl tonight but gums up all of your plans for a long time to come."

"_I'm not so sure about that, Mr. Steel._"

At the same instant Steel heard these words, he heard an angry buzzing noise. The pistol in his hand was snatched away.

He whirled to see a hidden panel open in the wall opposite. In the door stood Lois Harmon. In her hand was the same queer kind of gun that had taken the pistol away from him in the cell. An ordinary volt rifle with tiny electrotubes lining the barrel. Behind the girl, a small army of men filled the passage.

"You're a very bothersome person, Mr. Steel," she said. "We should quit using a magnoray on you--a volt gun would be better."

Steel stood there holding his numb hand with ice in his heart. The girl stepped into the room, the men moving in behind her. Then to Steel's stark staring confusion, he saw that the thin-faced Dirk led them. Somehow, Dirk had come back from Venus--in _four minutes_.

"Surprised to see me back so soon?" Dirk caught the look on his face. He laughed. "You didn't know I could get back from Venus even faster than I could radio a warning back, did you? That's why nobody ever sees us come and go from here, Flatfoot. We come and go too fast for anybody to see us. Maybe when you learn more about this outfit, you'll quit trying to buck it. Let me take care of him," he told the girl. "Our score's gotten a little uneven again."

"No," she said. "You better take a group up to hold off the police, Dirk. Just in case they get here before we can get underway."

Dirk frowned and then said, "Okay." Glumly, he led some of the men toward the shaft.

The girl motioned for one of the others to take Steel. "Bring him along with us. Come on, Dad." She took her father's arm. "We've got one hour to make our getaway."

Steel's appointed guardian, built like a bear with the hair shaved off, took his arm, twisted it behind him and dug a thumb into his elbow--torturous stop-and-go button. Another had finally brought the short-haired victim of Steel's punch back on duty. They all followed the Harmon family through the panel and down a long passageway.