The premise of the story involves the meeting of Iorek Byrnison and Lee Scoresby: I've just finished a short book which will be coming out next spring, probably March or April in this country.

[4] Lee Scoresby, a 24-year-old young Texan aeronaut, and his dæmon, the jackrabbit Hester, make a rough landing in Novy Odense, a harbour town on an island in the White Sea, in Muscovy.

He enters a bar to get something to eat and drink, and falls into conversation with a local journalist, Oskar Siggurdson, who explains that an election for Mayor of Novy Odense will take place later in the week.

Siggurdson tells Lee that the overwhelming favourite — not the incumbent mayor, but a man called Ivan Dimitrovich Poliakov — has as a central policy a campaign to deal with the bears which hang around the town.

At this point Lee intervenes in a conflict elsewhere in the bar, preventing the barkeeper from beating a drunk Dutch captain called van Breda, who has a ship tied up in the harbour but does not have permission to load his cargo and leave.

Vassiliev corrects him, explaining that they are security men from Larsen Manganese, a large mining company that are in league with Poliakov.

In the middle of the night, back at the boarding-house, Lee hears Miss Lund crying and asks the cause.

During their conversation, Lee realises that the situation that Poliakov wanted him to deal with is most likely connected to Captain van Breda.

Lee learns that van Breda's cargo, mining equipment and rock samples, is being held on a legal technicality, and will be impounded and sold at auction unless he loads it by the next day.

Lee, disgusted by Poliakov's behaviour, offers to help break into the warehouse and stand guard while van Breda loads his cargo.

Iorek puts on the only piece of armour he currently has – a battered helmet – and the group set off, attracting a large crowd of onlookers as they near the harbour.

At that point the Larsen Manganese men deploy the riot gun mentioned by Vassilev earlier, but before they can do anything with it Iorek overturns it and pushes it into the harbour.

Van Breda gives him the Winchester rifle kept on-board his boat, and Lee heads up the floors to deal with the two gunmen positioned up there.

Before they can do anything, a group of Customs officers led by Lieutenant Haugland arrive, disperse the soldiers and crowd, and arrest Lee.

Vassiliev comes running into the depot, warning them that Larsen Manganese men are on the way with orders to kill Lee and Iorek.

The book ends with Lee remarking that he was amazed to learn Hester is a hare, to which she replies, "I always knew I had more class than a rabbit."