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the remnant of a door. Something had taken it apart. An axe protruded from the center, its head buried deeply in the wood.
    Macready put the gun aside, grabbed hold with both hands, and yanked until it came loose. The cutting edge was stained dark. He studied it briefly, looking to Copper for confirmation.
    The doctor said nothing, which was confirmation enough for Macready. There wasn't much blood on the axe, and what remained was frozen to a maroon crust.
    Putting down the axe he retrieved the gun, holding it a little tighter now as he tried the doorknob. It rotated and the door opened inward, but halted after moving only a few inches. The pilot put his shoulder against it and shoved, but it refused to budge further.
    "Blocked from the other side," he said quietly to Copper. He put his face to the slight opening. "Anybody in there?"
    There was no reply. Copper moved up against Macready's side and shouted past him. "We're Americans!"
    "Come to help you!" Macready added. His tongue moved against the inside of his mouth and he added, "We're alone!" Still no response. He steadied himself and leaned harder against the door.
    There was a creak. "I think it moved a little," he told the doctor. "Give me a hand."
    Copper added his own bulk to Macready's and pushed. The frozen floor of the passageway gave poor purchase to their boots. But by alternately hammering and pressing hard they managed to edge the door inward an inch at a time.
    Eventually they'd widened it enough for Macready to stick his head inside.
    "Give me the light." Copper handed it over and the pilot directed its beam inward. The static was loud now.
    "See anything, Mac?"
    "Yeah." The flashlight revealed banks of electronic instrumentation, most of it shattered. One console appeared to be the source of the steady humming. "Communications," he told the doctor; "Looks a lot like Sanders's bailiwick, anyway." He gave the light back to Copper, wedged himself into the opening, and pushed. The door gave another couple of inches.
    Copper followed him through, shining the light around the little room. Wind kissed their faces, unexpectedly brisk. He leaned back and picked out the holes in the ceiling.
    A Ganz lantern rested on a corner table. Macready dug out a match, struck it carefully and applied the flame to the lantern as he turned the control knob. The butane caught with a rush, forming a little circle of light.
    Lifting the lantern, he turned in a slow circle. The soft light picked out the top of a man's head, showing just above the back of a swivel chair.
    "Hey, Sweden," he called to the figure, "you okay?"
    The chair rocked slightly in the breeze from the ceiling. Both men moved slowly toward it. Macready put out an arm and halted the doctor a yard short of the chair, then poked at it with the shotgun.
    "Sweden?"
    Copper's gaze moved to the arm resting on one arm of the chair. A thin red line fell from it, a frozen crimson thread that ended in a pool of coagulated blood on the wooden floor.
    Macready poked the chair again, stepping around it. Copper moved around the other side.
    The man in the chair was lightly dressed, too lightly for the subfreezing temperature in the room. His eyes were open, fixed on something beyond their range of vision. His mouth was frozen agape. He seemed to have been petrified in the act of screaming.
    Macready's gaze traveled down the stiff body. The throat had been slit from ear to ear; both wrists were also slit. An old-fashioned straight razor lay in the man's lap. It was stained the same color as the axe that had been buried in the door. The razor seemed out of place in the communications room, an antique among solid-state technology. It had done its job, however.
    Macready reached past the wide-eyed corpse and flicked a switch. The radio's steady hiss died.
    There was a door in the far wall, which also turned out to be blocked from the opposite side. Macready rammed his shoulder angrily against it, banging it inward. He paused to catch