Part 1

EARTH IS MISSING!

By CARL SELWYN

87th Century Earth, entombed in a relentless, mile-thick coat of ice--its buried cities groaning in slow-congealing despair--still dreaded far more a bestial horror, known only as The Bear. For that monster with a human brain was threatening to _steal the world_!

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1947. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

The searchlights playing across the building's dark windows, the police cordon holding back the crowd--the telenews cameras ate it up.

The telenewsmen never seemed to care whether they got in the way of a stray shot or not. They had the video cameras set up right out in the middle of the icy street. The announcer was talking rapidly into his portable mike.

"They've got the building surrounded now, folks! For those who faded in late, this is your teletabloid reporter bringing you an on-the-spot picture...."

The picture was being reproduced on television screens throughout the ice-bound world, in London, Moscow, Singapore, New York--in New York's buried city in particular. It was happening there. New Yorkers crowded around their screens in the bright plastic salons deep in the vita-lamped society levels, in the tidy middle-class apartments several miles nearer the surface, even in a dingy hovel just under the earth's frozen crust, a few blocks from where the scene was being enacted, a sallow-faced tenement family was gathered around an ancient Eightieth Century television set.

"It's one of The Bear's gang, folks! Although the rest of the gang got away after this morning's Radium Bank stick-up, the police wounded one of them. They've trailed him to this vacant building high in the upper levels and--Wait! What's this! A plainclothes man just went in the building! He went in there _alone_...."

* * * * *

... It was dark inside.

Johnny Steel flashed his light on the stairs. There was the same red trail that had brought them here--blood, frozen as it fell. He cut the light off again instantly, pausing till his eyes got used to the darkness again. The heavy pistol was cold in his hand.

Perhaps he _was_ crazy, coming in here alone! The Homicide Squad had certainly thought so when he'd ordered them to wait outside.

The stairs were a vague outline slanting up into the deserted building's gloom. At the top, a corridor cut off to the right.

"Floyd ..." Steel called softly. He'd told no one that he knew the man they were hunting down. "Floyd, this is Johnny Steel. I'm coming up alone...."

His voice echoed through the chill corridor above. There was no answer.

He moved slowly up the stairs. He was a big man, tall and heavy with most of the weight in his arms and shoulders. Near the corner at the top, he paused, listening in the darkness.

"_Afraid to come up, Johnny?_"

Steel jumped. He flattened against the wall. The hoarse voice wasn't three feet from his ear. His finger took up the slack in his pistol's trigger.

"Your boys got in some pretty good target practice on me this afternoon, didn't they, Johnny?" The voice came from just around the corner. Steel felt the sweat trickling down his neck despite the cold. "You wouldn't tell 'em to take it easy, huh--that I was an old chum of yours?"

Steel finally found his voice. "Floyd, you killed two guards in that Radium Bank. I came up here to try to reason with you--because you used to be my best friend. Tell me who The Bear is--and I'll do my best to help you at the trial."

A husky laugh echoed in the dark corridor. "You know I'm no squealer, Johnny." But now there was a faintly preoccupied tone in the voice. Then Steel heard the faintest scrape of a foot on the corridor floor.

"Floyd!" Steel pled. "Listen to reason!" He paused a moment, listening. But only a moment. Then he backed quickly and silently several steps down stairs. He left the right wall and quickly crouched over against the left. The next instant, he saw a hand flick around the corner at the head of the stairs. A volt pistol roared, blasting the spot where he had been standing.

As the building trembled with the explosion, a figure appeared around the corner, looking down the stairs.

"Floyd! For God's sake--!" Steel cried.

Instantly, the pistol in the figure's hand whipped toward Steel's voice. And Steel couldn't take another chance.

He fired.

The figure hung there a moment like a clubbed ox. Then it crumpled to the floor.

* * * * *

Steel lowered his pistol slowly. Big shoulders sagging, he walked slowly up the steps. There were tears in his eyes as he stood there looking down at the shadowed form on the floor. Around him he felt the familiar walls of the old deserted building in which as small boys they'd played cops and robbers together. They had played together in that very street outside, grown up together in that cold miserable place of eternal twilight that was the slums of New York City in 8646 A.D. What chance did a kid have in that environment! Only by sheer luck had he himself been sent to an orphanage in the warm lower levels instead of to a reformatory. It wasn't Floyd's fault that he lay here dead by a policeman's gun. It was the fault of Ninetieth Century civilization.

Looking down at the friend he'd been forced to kill, Steel knew that somehow, if it took him the rest of his life, he had to brighten that shadowed world in the street outside--and he declared a private war against the gangsters who led its kids astray....

He walked down the steps and called to his men. "Come on up. It's all over."

But he knew it wasn't all over. For Johnny Steel, it had just started.

The morgue men bringing the body out, the District Attorney slapping Detective John Steel on the back--the telenews rehashed the story every hour on the hour. "Definitely slated for the Police Medal, the husky young cop who this afternoon brought down with one shot...."

The leather-faced old man sitting across the desk twirled a knob on the office video screen, turning the announcer's voice down. "Johnny"--his hawk face beamed around his pipe--"with all this publicity you're going to be Commissioner when I retire."

Steel shook his head patiently. "Quit trying to change the subject, Chief," he said. He uncrossed his long legs and leaned forward in his chair. "Listen--you say you'll give me a Patrol. But you've sent Patrols up on the ice before. When they get there they can't find a soul. The Bear's got scouts out. They can spot a large group too easy. I tell you it's a one-man job."

Commissioner Brandt sighed. "Johnny," he said and his eyes stopped smiling. "I tell _you_ I don't intend to lose another one of my best blood-hounds." He took his pipe out of his mouth to point it at the gold-starred plaque on the office wall. "In the last two years I've sent five good men up on the ice after The Bear. None have come back."

It was true. Steel eyed him a moment. Then he got up and paced the length of the office, hands deep in his pockets. Finally, he walked over to the inter-office video and cut it on. A police sergeant's face faded in on the screen. "Put The Bear file on," Steel told him.

"Yes, sir." The sergeant pressed a button and his face faded with his words. It was replaced by a title card, then the complete sound-picture reel of everything police records had on The Bear.

"Go on," Commissioner Brandt said, watching from his desk. "After you find out more about him, maybe you'll forget this damn fool idea of yours."

Steel ignored him, stared thoughtfully at the screen. What he saw was not pretty.

The Consolidated Tungsten Plant, a $500,000 haul. Central Electric, bankrupt after one robbery. Uranium, Inc. had lost a cool million and its vice-president. But the victim topping the list was Vita-Heat. The Bear had pulled five separate jobs there in the last two years. Not only had Vita-Heat lost a fortune in irreplaceable equipment but six faithful employees had disappeared without a trace--no trace except that symbol that struck terror in every insurance executive's heart: An ice-bear's claw, left sticking in the wall like a dagger.

That wasn't all.

Not only had five of Brandt's special investigators vanished when they went after The Bear but sometimes their wives, children, and close friends, too. Often, when The Bear's revenge was through, there was nobody left to receive a police pension. Such was The Bear's long reign of horror--robbery, kidnapping, murder. Worst perhaps was the fact that the body of none of his victims was ever found. But, of course, the endless ice moor up on the earth's desolate crust was a mute and careful sexton....

Steel cut the video off. Commissioner Brandt came around the desk and put a hand on his shoulder. "Johnny," he said, "We've proved there's no sense trying to find The Bear's hideout in umpty billion ice caves on the surface. The only thing we can do is keep on setting traps for him--try to figure out where he's going to strike next. We did it today and we got one of them. Next time maybe we'll get The Bear himself."

"Next time!" Steel turned away disgustedly. "While we're waiting, The Bear's recruiting more kids in the upper levels to do his dirty work. We won't get The Bear. We'll keep on killing these poor kids he gets to work for him." He walked over to the glass case standing in the corner, stared down at the ivory saber-like ice-bear's claw inside, a sample of The Bear's visiting card. Then suddenly he turned back to the Commissioner. "Chief," he said, "will you let me go after him alone or won't you?"

"Johnny, I just can't let you risk--"

"Okay," Steel said. His hand slipped inside his coat, came out with his little silver detective shield. He laid it on the Commissioner's desk. "Vita-Heat, Inc. is offering $100,000 reward for The Bear. It looks like I'm going into the private detective business."

* * * * *

The dome of vita-lamps high above the glistening canyons of the lower level bathed the creamy streets in a golden shower as Steel's tunnel car shot out of the midtown exit. He swerved through the traffic on the mirrored boulevard and drew up before a smooth plastic structure that soared above the other buildings on the level. Letters six feet high on the building's face read VITA-HEAT, INC. He got out, strode into the building and took the express chute up.

When the chute door opened, he stepped out into the luminous paneled reception room and went over to the blonde receptionist. "John Steel," he said. "I called Mr. Stahl. He's expecting me."

The blonde charged up a smile for him; then she realized he wasn't staring at her well-filled tunic but at his own thoughts. She repeated his words into her desk microphone, a green light flashed, and she said coldly, "All right. Go on in." Across the room, a panel in the wall slid back.

Steel walked in. The panel closed again quickly behind him.

A fluorescent ceiling's blue-white glow burnished the carved cave-tree wood of an office befitting Vita-Heat's President. Behind a gleaming desk, Hampton Stahl's great bulk rose, pink cheeks smiling. Then Steel saw with some surprise the young woman who reclined in a pillowy chair beside the desk. With more surprise, he recognized her from telenews glimpses of society. It was Miss Lois Harmon, emerald-eyed queen of last season's debutantes, and Steel frowned slightly; he had come here strictly on business. Then Stahl was shaking his hand, introducing him.

Stahl was a big man, tall as well as fat, but his bulk wasn't that with which middle age often covers a big man. His weight was that of a blue ribbon pig, a great white pig swilled on the 90th Century's greatest private fortune. And, Steel thought, the girl was also an expensive looking animal, lean, golden tan, smooth. Her hair was the same golden hue of her cheeks.

"Miss Harmon, you know, is the daughter of my late partner," Stahl said when his visitor was seated. "I'm trying to persuade her to sell me her stock in the company."

"It's because I always argue with him at directors' meetings," the girl laughed. She was as smooth all over as a pedigreed cat. She'd inherited a fortune when her father, one of Vita-Heat's founders, had been killed in a laboratory explosion many years ago. "Now go right ahead with your business," she said, rising. "I've got to go downstairs to the Bank. When you're through," she told Stahl, "you can pick me up there for cocktails." She smiled at Steel, gave him her exquisitely manicured hand and departed. Twenty-four karat, Steel thought. He wondered if she'd have turned out as well however if she'd been brought up in a tenement in the upper levels....

When the panel closed behind her, Stahl turned back to his visitor. "So," he said, "we have another who thinks the risk worth the reward?"

"That," Steel said, "is what I came here to talk about. Mr. Stahl, your corporation has a standing offer of $100,000 for anybody who gets The Bear. I want a million."

The brows shot up over Stahl's piggish eyes. "_What!_"

"Here's my proposition," Steel said, smiling. "Instead of rewarding me--if I get The Bear--I want Vita-Heat to go into partnership with me. A sort of partnership in philanthropy. As my reward, I want Vita-Heat to go to work in the upper levels."

Hampton Stahl adjusted a long cigarette into a silver holder. "I must say, this is--"

"It shouldn't run into much," Steel continued. "You'd be using your own material and labor at cost prices. It would just be a matter of installing enough vita-lamps up there for people to live by--there's only one to a street corner up there now."

"But--a million dollars!"

"Mr. Stahl," Steel said, "your company's already lost five million and, the way I see it, you're going to lose a lot more if The Bear isn't stopped. I think this partnership business of mine is pretty sound. We both have good reason to want The Bear brought to justice."

Suddenly a cunning look came into Stahl's eyes. "Just what makes you so anxious to get The Bear, Mr. Steel?"

For a moment, Steel hesitated. But he couldn't forget that picture in his mind--Floyd, lying in that deserted building, cornered, hunted down like a mad dog. Sure it was justice--but what had made him a mad dog! His smile faded. "All right," he said quietly, "I'll tell you why I want to get The Bear. It's the same reason I want to get _you_, Mr. Stahl--or your money rather. Those poor souls in the upper levels have two enemies--the gangsters and the big corporations. The gangsters find a young kid up there, give him a gun and make a criminal out of him. And your corporations force him into a career of crime just as much as the gangsters do. You own the tenements. You make those people live in conditions that are so bad you won't even go up there and look at them. You pay $2.00 a day in your mercury mines while you get $4.00 a day rent for your vita-lamps." Steel had to hang on to his temper. "If the upper levels are given a _chance_ to live decently, they will live decently!"

Stahl's thick lips curled in amusement. "A pretty speech, Mr. Steel. I admire your philosophy." He sank back in his chair, toying with his silver cigarette holder. "But business, you know, is business...."

Steel stared at him, wondering what was holding him back. He wasn't a member of the Force anymore. Reach across that desk and push his fat face in! Instead, he said, "Okay, I guess that's all then. I'll have to do what I can with just the reward money."

As he stood up an intercom box on Stahl's desk buzzed urgently. Stahl's plump finger touched a button.

"_Mr. Stahl!_" a voice shrieked from the box. "_A gang of masked men--they just held up the radium vault in the bank downstairs again!_"

The pink color drained from Stahl's fat cheeks. His thick lips fell open.

Steel's hand darted into his coat pocket and came out with his gun. He started for the door. "Come on!" he said. "If that's The Bear it's the second time he's struck today!"

* * * * *

It was. Sticking in the vaults lead wall was a gleaming white ice bear's claw. That was all--except the chattering crowd, a small army of Stahl's embarrassed guards, and Miss Lois Harmon who had seen the whole thing.

A masked gloved man had suddenly appeared at the teller's cage and at each alarm button--they'd seemed to know the layout perfectly, she told Steel. There were seven of them; four held pistols on the crowd while the other three emptied the contents of the vault into leadex bags. Then they'd marched out, stepped into a waiting tunnel car and streaked into the upper level tunnel. The girl's green eyes were bright with excitement. She seemed to be enjoying this like a telemovie.

"It was wonderful! I only wish they'd kidnapped me and taken me with them."

Steel looked at her with open disgust. Poor bored little rich girl--he felt like turning her across his knee and spanking that $200 girdle. "It was just sheer luck somebody wasn't killed here," he said. "Now you stick around. I hope the police lock you up as a material witness."

The cop on the corner had called the station and the squad was on the way. The gun in Steel's hand was all the authority he needed however. He cleared the crowd away from the vault and walked in. Hampton Stahl followed him, wringing his pudgy hands. "The second time today!" he moaned. "They're trying to ruin me!"

The vault was perfectly safe from radiation now. It was empty, every drawer cleaned out. Steel braced his knee against the wall and pulled out the claw. "We've never found fingerprints on one of these yet." The claw was about eight inches long, white with a faint tinge of pink. He looked at it thoughtfully for a moment. Suddenly he held it up to the light and examined it carefully. He glanced from the claw to Stahl. Then he reached out, dropped the claw in the fat man's vest pocket. "Well," he said, "have you changed your mind about my proposition now?"

Stahl lifted the thing from his pocket as if it were a spider and threw it on a table. "Anything," he murmured, "They may try to kill me next!"

"Fine!" Steel grinned at him. "But since you were so slow making up your mind, I want an additional clause in my contract now--a little life insurance policy with the upper levels as the beneficiary. You pay off if I get The Bear or if The Bear gets me."

Stahl looked at him in silence. It was hard to tell whom he was cursing, The Bear or Steel. "What makes you think you can even find The Bear's hideout?"

Steel picked up the claw again. "I just noticed there is a tinge of pink in this thing," he said, "and it's only eight inches long. This claw came from an ice-bear cub that was born only a few months ago and the only place they're born this time of the year is near that warm comet crater up on the surface near the Jersey Ruins." He dropped the claw back on the table. "Now, if you won't let anyone know I'm working for you," he said, "I'm going up there on a little hunting trip...."

II

The Interlevel Limited left the lower warmth and streaked up the great winding tunnel through the neat residential suburbs, through the squalid upper levels, through the ice-locked roots of ancient Manhattan. But Steel barely noticed when the windows in his compartment frosted over. He was studying his glacier maps.

The comet crater was located near the frozen ruins of what was once a surface city named Jersey. He'd been on a snow-deer hunt up there once; an old guide had told him about the ice-bear cubs.

Steel plotted his course from the Surface Terminal to the Ruins, then checked his equipment list--electrosuit, oxygen helmet, volt rifle, rations. He'd charter a little ski plane at the Terminal.

When he finished, he leaned back in his seat and glanced at his watch. Almost there. Had he forgotten anything? Fitted into the oxygen helmet was a little radio unit so he could keep in touch with Stahl. He'd set up a receiver in a vacant room in the Vita-Heat Building and arranged for one of Stahl's guards to be there at all times. He'd also arranged for Stahl to send a copy of their contract--reward or insurance--to Commissioner Brandt. Not that he didn't trust Stahl.... Well, it looked as if he was all set. He'd buy a hunting license to put on the ski plane--for all anybody'd know he was out for snow-deer. He'd spend the night at the Terminal Hotel, leave first thing in the morning....

When the Limited's whirring ceased, he put away the maps and picked up his bag. As the outer door slid open, he stepped out into the vast Terminal and headed for the viewway that would take him to the hotel.

The Terminal was a heavily insulated cavern in the ice crust. The landing and departure stalls encircled the huge room where the motley thousands of hurrying travelers bought tickets, waved goodbyes or greetings, or waited sleepily around Dr. Albert Harmon's chrome statue. As Steel passed the statue of the shaggy-haired bespectacled old man, he eyed it thoughtfully. Dr. Harmon's experiments with household and jet propulsion heat had done a lot of good but it looked as if his green-eyed daughter wasn't good for anything but a cocktail party.... Then he was on the viewway. His spine tingled at the sight outside.

Standing on the crowded belt as it slid past the Terminal's long window, he had a perfect view of the glacier. Glistening in the starlight, the great ice waste stretched to the horizon like a sheet of silver. Tiny varicolored lights swept across the jet backdrop of outer space--freight planes bound for Earth's other buried city-states, for the frozen mines of Neptune, Venus, Mars, or for the nebulous worlds of other suns. Those other suns, pinpoints of light in infinity--when the Solar System had cooled, they had been a beckoning hope. Then their planets had been found even less inhabitable than Earth. Poisoned atmospheres, molten lands, boiling seas--habitation was impossible. It was undoubtedly mankind's greatest tragedy, Steel thought, that it was doomed to call a frozen Earth home forever.

"Look! A liner's coming in!"

A group of tourists ahead of Steel stepped off the belt to the walkway alongside and stared through the plexiglass window at a fish-like space ship that was drifting down to a landing stall nearby. Steel also stepped off to watch.

"It's all automatic," one of the tourists explained to his wife. "A radio beam brings 'em here and lands 'em. The pilots don't have much to do."

Steel watched the great ship settle to the stall's roof, the roof slid open, the ship sank in out of sight, the roof slide closed again.

"Let's go down and watch 'em unload." The tourists moved to a belt nearby that led to the landing stall. And, because he had nothing better to do till morning--Steel followed them.

The moment he got there he knew something was wrong.

"Get back!" A Terminal guard stepped in front of the group of onlookers. "Nobody's allowed near the ship!"

Beyond the quickly formed line of guards, Steel saw an excited group of Terminal executives gathered at the ship's open door. What was up? The ship appeared to be okay. It had come in all right.

"What's the trouble?" somebody asked.

The guard was staring anxiously at the ship himself. "Don't know," he said. "When that ship came in, _there wasn't nobody on it_...."

Steel shouldered his way to the front of the crowd to stare across at the ship's open door. Around him, the crowd buzzed with the news. A woman who had been waiting to meet somebody on the ship started screaming. The ship had come in on the radar beam, on time, but with pilots, stewardesses, twenty passengers, and cargo--missing!