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technician’s neck told him there was no hope there. Hearing a growl of pain to the left, Penley scrambled through the churned-up snow and found Storr struggling to dig himself free. His left arm hung ominously limp and twisted.
    ‘Storr!’ gasped Penley. ‘Are you all right?’
    ‘My damned arm…’ groaned the hunter. ‘It’s broken.’
    Penley strapped the shattered arm as tight as he could against Storr’s body.
    ‘You’re lucky,’ he gasped. ‘There’s one over there who’ll be staying on the mountain for good.’
    Storr shook Penley off, and lurched to his feet. ‘Come on,’ he gritted through the haze of pain, ‘they’ll be here any minute, looking for him. Let’s get away from here!’
    Penley hesitated, wondering whether Storr was capable of the effort. Storr glowered back at him, sneering bitterly.
    ‘Unless you fancy turning me over to your friends?’
    Penley met his gaze squarely and replied without hesitation. ‘Six months ago, they were my friends – but not now.’ Uncertain how to best help his surly companion, he stepped back and frowned. ‘Can you walk…?’
    ‘Just make sure you keep up!’ grunted Storr, and strode off, calling back over his shoulder, ‘Come on!’
    With a last sad glance at the dead man in the snow, Penley hurried after Storr beneath the ominous shadow of the glacier.
    Walters had struggled to his feet, and was now helping Arden up. There was no sign of Davis.
    ‘I’ll go and look for him, sir,’ Walters said curtly, to Arden’s unspoken question. He wasn’t going to waste his breath offering unnecessary hope. Arden watched him go, sensing his despair. If Davis was lost, Clent would tolerate no excuses – least of all an archaeological find. While he busied himself completing the job of lashing the block of ice to the airsled, Arden’s mind raged with self-doubt: if they had ignored the Ice Warrior; if they hadn’t used the heavy drill; if they’d left when Davis had indicated… Would he have still been with them? Arden wasn’t a superstitious man, but he paused and stared into the ice block at the ominous, helmeted figure, and wondered…
    Abruptly, he dismissed from his mind the ridiculous thought that there might have been some ancient curse attached to disturbing this ice-bound giant from his deathly sleep. But when he heard Walters’ dejected call, and saw him point miserably at the snow some two hundred yards away, the chilling thought needled his mind again. Had the Ice Warrior claimed his first victim?
    The laboratory had been established in the part of the house that had once been called the gun room. It was, in fact, a complex series of small rooms, each of which served a purpose related to the laboratory central unit: storerooms for expedition equipment, weapons, geological analysis; and a medicare centre that had proved invaluable to the mental and physical well-being of the Base scientists.
    The tensions created by the importance of their mission, and the conflict of personalities under continuous pressure of work, had brought several of the staff near to breaking point. Only Clent had seemed impervious to strain so far.
    But now he willingly relaxed in the vibro-chair. Its effect was to relax the mind and tone up the body cells. The expression on Clent’s face also showed that it was extremely enjoyable into the bargain. Even so, although reclining and at ease, he lost none of his authority as Leader. If anything, the quiet hum of the electronic chair seemed to give an added keenness to the questions he threw at the Doctor who, like Jamie and Victoria, was immensely intrigued by the compact technology of the medicare unit.
    ‘You call yourself “Doctor”,’ continued Clent, ‘yet you have no proof of your qualifications. Why’s that?’
    ‘Aren’t we wasting time?’ replied the Doctor evasively. ‘If you really want my help, hadn’t you better explain the whole situation?’
    ‘Explain the situation?’ Clent raised his