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.