“Here we are,” Ott announced, foolishly. Chris’s gaze was straight ahead as she guided the car toward the parking space.

“Does Grampa Kennedy know about the Ice Palace?”

“He made the arrangements.”

“You knew.”

“I tell you I didn’t know until this morning. I had a feeling something was stewing, that’s all. Old instinct left over from my newspaper days.”

The warning intake of breath from Bridie. Chris laid a gently restraining hand on her arm. “Let’s not get emotional.”

“Look, Chris,” Ott said, miserably, “I’m Chamber of Commerce Secretary. Right? My job is to go along with the people who run this town. I think the Territory’s being had, but if I’m going to buck the Big Boys, why, I can resign. Czar didn’t want this news around for a lot of reasons and one is that Thor’s weekly went to press last night and Czar counted on a beat for this afternoon’s Lode. He’s got it.”

“Thanks, chum.”

Desperately, “Look, Chris, marry me and we’ll get out of here. I can get the C.C. Secretary job in Topeka any day I want it.”

“Indelicate!” Bridie shouted. “Asking a girl to marry you in front of a third party.”

Ott hugged her as he handed her out of the car. “I’d marry you, too, if I was young enough, Bridie. But I just couldn’t go your pace.”

He rushed around to the other side of the car but Chris was already making for the building. Over her shoulder she said, “I wouldn’t be too sure if I were Grandpa Czar. Paul and Addie have a mukluk grapevine.” A roar rent the blue. “There they are.” A loud-speaker blared. The mountains hurled the sound back into the crystal air. Pan American Number Six Two Nine arriving from Seattle Gate Two … Arctic Clipper Number Three Seven Five for Nome Kotzebue Oogruk …

Ott opened the heavy door that led to the crowded waiting room. He looked at the girl and she at him, her hand touched his arm and rested there a moment. “Thanks, Ott dear.”

“I could be mistaken.”

“No. Grampa’s never forgiven me for not marrying Bay. This is his way of punishing me. Or something. You never know what he’s up to.”

“How scheming can an old man get, anyway?”

“Well, Machiavelli was nearly sixty when he died. That would be, roughly, today’s ninety. He did pretty well, considering that they didn’t have all those steaks and spinach and B₁₂ shots those days.”

“Thor going to be here?”

“You know he doesn’t go in for reception committees.”

“Well, lean on me, will you, Chris?”

“Grandpa Storm taught me to walk alone.”

“You can overdo it.”

Inside the waiting room were warmth, movement, a shimmer of excitement. Modern and adequate when it was built barely six years ago, the airport now was almost obsolete. Baranof was a crossroads between Russia and the United States, between Japan and the United States, between Scandinavia and the United States, between the North Pole and the United States. The main concourse (as the publicity departments grandly phrased it) today and every day and night, V.I.P.s or no V.I.P.s, always was bursting with men and women and children and infants in arms waiting to hurl themselves into the clouds. Slim lads in Air Force uniforms. Stout colonels in mukluks and parkas. Girls with the narrow band on the third left finger, their husbands looming mammoth in wool and fur, both concentrating on a wailing goggling object in her arms. Young fry slid and yelped across the polished floor. In the lunchroom ham and eggs and waffles and steaks and coffee appeared and disappeared like props in a conjurer’s trick. The loud-speaker trumpeted again.