d the pilot stiffly.

"So am I," said Mike the Angel cryptically. "Thanks for the ride."

He pushed open the outer door, pulled his electroparka closer around
him, and stalked off across the walk, through the lashing of the sleety
wind.

He didn't have far to walk--a hundred yards or so--but it was a good
thing that the walk was protected and well within the boundary of
Chilblains Base instead of being out on the Wastelands. Here there were
lights, and the Hotbed equipment of the walk warmed the swirling ice
particles into a sleety rain. On the Wastelands, the utter blackness and
the wind-driven snow would have swallowed him permanently within ten
paces.

He stepped across a curtain of hot air that blew up from a narrow slit
in the deck and found himself in the main foyer of Chilblains Base.

The entrance looked like the entrance to a theater--a big metal and
plastic opening, like a huge room open on one side, with only that sheet
of hot air to protect it from the storm raging outside. The lights and
the small doors leading into the building added to the impression that
this was a theater, not a military base.

But the man who was standing near one of the doors was not by a long
shot dressed as an usher. He wore a sergeant's stripes on his regulation
Space Service parka, which muffled him to the nose, and he came over to
Mike the Angel and said: "Commander Gabriel?"

Mike the Angel nodded as he shook icy drops from his gloved hands, then
fished in his belt pocket for his newly printed ID card.

He handed it to the sergeant, who looked it over, peered at Mike's face,
and saluted. As Mike returned the salute the sergeant said: "Okay, sir;
you can go on in. The security office is past the double door, first
corridor on your right."

Mike the Angel tried his best not to look surprised. "_Security_ office?
Is there a war on or something? What does Chilblains need with a
security office?"

The sergeant shrugged. "Don't ask me, Commander; I just slave away here.
Maybe Lieutenant Nariaki knows something, but I sure don't."

"Thanks, Sergeant."

Mike the Angel went inside, through two insulated and tightly
weather-stripped doors, one right after another, like the air lock on a
spaceship. Once inside the warmth of the corridor, he unzipped his
electroparka, shut off the power, and pushed back the hood with its
fogproof faceplate.

Down the hall, Mike could see an office marked _security officer_ in
small letters