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....