11

     A Dogfight over Manhattan
     Thieves from the Sky
     Polly's Shortcut

     Inside the map room, Dex unrolled a large chart across the main table. He didn't even flinch as a nearby detonation rocked the Legion's control center. Oily smoke began to fill the hangar, and the lights flickered again.
     Undaunted, Dex unwrapped a wad of bubble gum and popped it into his mouth. Debris sifted from above like a fine rain. Overhead, the Flying Wings continued to bombard the base, while brave Legion fighters mounted their best defense.
     Dex yelled to the communications operators beside him. "I want a full-spectrum sweep of every incoming signal."
     Two men huddled under tables for shelter from falling chunks of the roof, while other grim operators went about their duties, hunched over dials and transmitters. A Legion warplane zoomed overhead, unleashing a crackle of machine gun fire.
     "Amplify any variant frequency cycle and route it to me!" Dex bent over the screen, staring so hard his eyes hurt, willing the answer to come in time to save Sky Captain and drive off the attack on the base.
     Explosions continued outside. Orange-and-black fireballs spewed upward from destroyed planes on the runways. The attacking Wings targeted the tethered observation zeppelins. Though soldiers fired their rifles from the ground and warplanes dove in to protect the lighter-than-air vessels, they could not drive the Flying Wings from the dirigibles.
     Incendiary projectiles tore through the thick fabric hulls, igniting the volatile hydrogen inside. Like the tragic end of the first Hindenburg, the Legion's zeppelins were engulfed in an inferno. Their blackened skeletons collapsed with slow grace to the tarmac as ground personnel fled.
     Legion planes continued to attack the Flying Wings. A volley of vengeful shots sheared off the razor-thin wing of an enemy aircraft, and the quicksilver batlike form scraped across the main hangar's roof, showering sparks. It tumbled into a heap of wreckage on the tarmac outside the tall doors.
     Inside the control hangar, Dex allowed nothing to break his concentration.

     Streaking above the terrain on their way to New York City, Sky Captain kept his P-40 close behind the primary Flying Wing. The enemy craft flapped its powerful metal wings like a hawk swooping in for the kill.
     They sped along the spine of Long Island, covering distance at an insane speed. The flight path of the fleeing attacker took them over Queens and the site of the soon-to-open 1939 World's Fair, billed as the largest international exhibition in history. Sky Captain looked down at the distinctive Trylon, a seven-hundred-foot-tall obelisk pointing toward the sky, and the two-hundred-foot globe of the Perisphere. President Roosevelt himself would give the kickoff speech, "Building the World of Tomorrow."
     First, though, Sky Captain had to save the world of today.
     The speeding aircraft crossed the East River in a flash, diving toward Midtown Manhattan. "If that Flying Wing thinks he can lose me among the skyscrapers, we'll see just who's better in an obstacle course."
     "It's sweet, but you don't have to show off for me, Joe," Polly said from the rear of the cockpit.
     He banked hard, barely keeping his annoyance in check. "I have absolutely no intention of showing off for you."
     Weaving an erratic course, the Flying Wing dipped among the tall buildings, diving to street level, where taxicabs and buses swerved to avoid a collision. Sky Captain clung like glue to the enemy's exhaust.
     Pulling up in a steep climb, they shot above the rooftops. Polly peered out the cockpit canopy, surprised to see six more Flying Wings engaged in furious activity below them. "Joe, there's another half dozen of them!"
     He looked from side to side, but the goggles blocked his peripheral view. "Are they after us?"
     She saw, though, that the six new enemy craft had taken up positions over the yawning crater the robot monsters had blasted the day before. Like a giant open wound, the city's heavy power generators lay exposed to the air.
     "Not after us, Joe. Look what they're doing!"
     The six Flying Wings had lowered giant cables, slowly extending the lines into the crater. Automatic clamps attached to the shafts and supports that held the huge turbines in place. Sparks flew, metal groaned, and finally the machinery was uprooted. Up and down the streets of Manhattan, windows and lighted neon signs went dark.
     "They're taking the city's generators." Polly was genuinely puzzled. "Totenkopf is building something, and whatever it is needs enough power to light up a city."
     Suddenly, three more Flying Wings descended upon Sky Captain's P-40, like owls intent on grabbing field mice. Quad clusters of wing cannons extended from the quicksilver bodies and opened fire. Bullets whizzed by, peppering the Warhawk's fuselage.
     "They're just trying to distract me." Sky Captain hunched over the cockpit controls. He didn't take his eyes from the darting course of the primary Wing. "But it's not going to work."
     "I think they're trying to destroy us, Joe, not distract us."
     He didn't listen to her. The primary Wing plunged low, skimming car tops in its attempt to shake Sky Captain's plane. Pedestrians ducked or dove to the pavement.
     Maintaining his reckless acceleration, Sky Captain roared after his prey. More bullets flew by from the Flying Wings behind them, shattering streetlamps and pocking building walls as the Warhawk soared down the narrow street.
     Sky Captain called back to Polly, "You okay?"
     "Great," she said, barely able to talk.
     "There's a bottle of milk of magnesia under the seat if you need it. Sometimes amateurs get a bit airsick."
     "I'm fine."
     Sky Captain turned around, giving her a skeptical look through his goggles. "You don't look so good."
     "Neither do you," Polly said, then her face froze. "Pull up!"
     Sky Captain whipped his attention forward just in time to see a looming concrete-and-steel skyscraper directly in their path. Reacting instantly, he yanked on the flight stick so hard he feared he might rip it from the yoke.
     Dex had made modifications to the P-40's engines, its flaps, its air rudder, and now the plane responded like a dream. In a tight curve, the nose tilted immediately upward, and Sky Captain shot in a straight vertical so close to the skyscraper's wall that if he'd had his landing gear down, he could have left skid marks on the windows. The plane leaped over the building top, and before Sky Captain could catch his breath, he spotted the primary Wing again and set off after it.
     The fleeing enemy aircraft headed straight for a billboard in a suicidal plunge. As it approached, staccato machine gun fire blasted the billboard's left support post. The wide rectangular sign tipped and slumped, lopsided, in a slow-motion fall. The enemy flyer ducked under the sign, wings pumping, and Sky Captain plunged after it. The billboard fell forward into their path.
     "Joe!" Polly shouted.
     "I see it. Too big not to notice." He yanked the stick, and the plane took a sharp turn, narrowly avoiding the crashing billboard. In the back of the cockpit, Polly hung on for her life as the plane rolled sideways and streaked down a cross street.
     "Sorry to bother you, Cap," Dex said over the radio, "but I lost the signal."
     "I'll find him, Dex. Sit tight."
     Pressing her face to the cockpit window, Polly recognized where they were. "Oh! Turn left!"
     "Sit back, Polly. Let me do the flying."
     "There's a shortcut down Montgomery Street. You can catch him on the Third Street thoroughfare."
     Sky Captain pointedly ignored her, continuing along his own chosen path. Polly leaned forward, shouting in his ear. "Listen to me, Joe. I know these streets like the back of my hand."
     He glanced at her, reluctantly considering. She met his eye, insistent. "Left."
     Sky Captain gritted his teeth and banked the Warhawk hard left, swooping low to avoid cables strung from rooftops. He realized too late that he had turned down a one-way street. The plane hurtled directly toward an oncoming gravel truck. The driver blared his horn, and Sky Captain pulled up, gaining a few feet of altitude to avoid hitting the truck. A stream of cars headed their way, swerving frantically, honking in alarm, smashing bumpers.
     While wrestling to maintain control, he shot Polly an annoyed glance, but she didn't seem to be bothered. "Okay, keep on straight... Wait! Go right."
     "When?"
     Her outstretched finger traced a line on the canopy glass, following the street they were already passing. "Back there."
     He tensed his arms and shoulders, but pulled back on the flight stick, throwing the plane in a tight arc. He narrowly missed the side of a building. A thin clothesline snapped, and white garments fluttered to the ground. "I could use a little warning next time."
     "Left!"
     He yanked the flight stick again, and the Warhawk groaned in protest. Accelerating to make the course adjustment, Sky Captain nearly crashed into an oncoming building, squeaking past an extended flagpole.
     "Damn it, Polly!" He looked behind them as the pursuing Flying Wings dove through the gap between tall buildings, closing in. Sky Captain opened the throttle, and the needle on the speedometer gauge climbed to two hundred miles per hour.
     "Now left again." Polly's voice remained unflustered, as if she were simply giving directions to a garden party.
     Grumbling, Sky Captain followed her instructions, cruising low to the busy street. Straight ahead, two oncoming cars split in a Y around his diving plane, just missing it. He wiped sweat from his forehead above his goggles.
     Peering through the canopy, Polly said, "Left."
     "No, we already crossed Third. We're going in circles."
     "For once in your life, will you trust me? Left!"
     Sky Captain swerved and suddenly found himself flying directly toward an elevated train. He dove at the last moment, avoiding the rattling train, but then he was heading straight into the path of two Flying Wings. Their quad-clustered machine guns opened fire.
     He made a hard turn as the Warhawk arced all the way from the right lane across traffic to a perpendicular street. Strafing fire narrowly missed him, but now the enemy Wings settled close on their tail.
     "Right!" said Polly.
     He twisted the flight stick, veering them into another street.
     "Left."
     The plane scraped the edge of a building. "You're cutting it pretty close, Polly. Do you really know where we're going?"
     They shuttled through a tight alley then emerged like a cannonball. Polly gasped, making a snap decision. "Right! It's here. Turn right!"
     Another swift turn, and Sky Captain's eyes became huge as he realized they were not headed down an open avenue, but straight into the steel skeleton of a high-rise under construction. "It's a dead end. Some shortcut!"
     More Flying Wings descended from above, blocking their path and forcing them toward the steel structure. The city was always growing, always expanding, always under construction. "That's... not supposed to be there," she said.
     "I should strangle you, Polly, but I don't have the time right now."
     Now that the Flying Wings converged closer, bullets hit the plane, some penetrating the special fuselage armor Dex had designed. A stray projectile found the fuel line, and high-octane aircraft fuel - began to spray out.
     "Oh, lovely." Fighting to keep control of the P-40, Sky Captain steered toward a small opening in the patchwork of girders in front of them.
     Hard-hatted steel workers standing on the girders looked up in disbelief as the Warhawk flew straight toward them. They leaped out of the way, jumping for scaffolds, dangling from platforms as Sky Captain's plane entered the building at full speed. His wing glanced the edge of a girder, producing a trail of sparks as he soared forward. "Plenty of room."
     As the pursuers reached the face of the building framework, they scattered in all directions, unable to follow.
     Inside the skeletal building, not daring to slow his speed in the hollow labyrinth, Sky Captain fought to keep the plane steady as his wings nicked support beams that threatened to throw him into a spin.
     He yelped as a swinging girder was slowly lifted into place in front of him, blocking their path. With no time or room to dodge, Sky Captain unleashed a burst from his wing cannons, aiming at the chain support. Sparks flew as the steel links split. The girder fell, clearing a path at the last possible moment, and the plane shot out of the cavernous building and into the open air again.
     But only for an instant. Sky Captain saw the facing building just across the street. He knew he was flying much too fast to make the turn. He had one desperate chance. He grabbed for a newly installed lever in the control panel. He knew full well about the note taped to the lever:

     Don't touch!
     Dex

     He yanked the lever anyway. A panel dropped open in the Warhawk's belly, and a sharp grappling hook shot out, dangling behind them on a reinforced cable.
     With a clang, the hook wrapped around one of the exterior girders of the building framework. Suddenly anchored like a ball on a string, the plane swung about with its own momentum, making an impossible turn. The grappling hook disengaged at the end of the spin, dropping away.
     Sky Captain didn't breathe. Nearly crushed by centrifugal force, he held on as his plane just cleared the building. It nicked a lighted theater marquee, popping a string of decorative bulbs. The sparking explosions ignited the gasoline dripping from the leaky fuel line. Fire began to lick up along the tube.
     Polly stared out the window, too stunned to show any panic or excitement. She observed the burning plane matter-of-factly. "Joe..."
     "I know, Polly. I know."
     Tracking him down from a web of side streets and avenues, the full squadron of Flying Wings suddenly appeared. Gunfire flickered from their wing cannons.
     Sky Captain swerved to avoid another skyscraper, then began to climb to rooftop level as his plane trailed smoke. Time for another crazy plan. Atop the towering buildings, he spotted what he had expected: a pair of mammoth water towers, cisterns stored for emergency consumption.
     "Hang on." He shot at the nearest water tower, splintering its wood-slat side. Water streamed out, and Sky Captain flew straight for the gushing fountain, ducking into the spray. The sudden drenching doused the flames on his fuel line. He soared onward as water splashed away from his windshield and his wings.
     Sharp silver wings pumping in pursuit, the enemy aircraft followed closely behind them. The plane streaked along the contour of the rooftop, past a giant motorized sign, then dipped nose-first back to the street below.
     Polly suddenly saw something. "There!"
     Below them, the primary Wing flew along, thinking it had escaped. Seeing his target, Sky Captain rocketed toward the machine just as the three pursuit Wings descended behind him. Sparks from enemy bullets danced along the Warhawk's fuselage. The leaky fuel line burst into flames again.
     Sky Captain glanced back at the burning wing of his aircraft. "Yeah, right. A shortcut."
     "I got us here, didn't I?"

12

     An X on the Map
     The Mysterious Woman Returns
     A Watery End

     Ducking from the crashing battle that continued in the skies above the Flying Legion base, Dex strained to listen to the chatter from Sky Captain's radio. He could hear the shouts, the chase, the gunfire in the background.
     With charts strewn all over the table, he marked point after point on the world map as the signals came in. His oscilloscope displayed converging patterns. Dex unwrapped another wad of bubble gum and nervously popped it into his mouth, just to calm himself.
     "Tell me you got something, Dex!" Sky Captain's ragged voice came over the loudspeaker. "We're getting clobbered up here."
     Meanwhile, the attacking batlike Wings bombarded the base's power station, and a surge of electricity shot out from the oscilloscope's control panel. Sparks flew, but Dex shunted circuits, trying to get the signal back. Muffled explosions and high-caliber gunfire rattled the main hangar. Gaps of smoke-stained sky shone through holes in the corrugated roof.
     "It's no picnic down here either, Cap," he shouted into the microphone. "Hang in there. We've almost got it."

                                 *       *       *

     Sky Captain and Polly continued down the one-way street after the primary Wing, desperate not to lose its tracking signal. The three pursuing Wings closed in behind the P-40, only a few plane lengths to the rear.
     Unexpectedly, the primary Wing backflapped its metal wings and plunged toward the street, intentionally stalled in the air. Sky Captain's Warhawk swept past, narrowly missing it. "Awww, a kid pilot's trick and I fell for it!"
     Its feint successful, the primary Wing gathered itself and climbed back up, shooting furiously at the Warhawk's tail. Now four of the attacking craft hammered away at Sky Captain.
     "At least we don't have to worry about losing the primary Wing now," Polly said. "He's right on our tail."
     Sky Captain yelled into his microphone. "Dex!"
     "Thirty seconds, Cap. That's all I need."
     "Thirty seconds?" How could the young man sound so calm?
     "Plus or minus..."
     Polly leaned over Sky Captain's shoulder and grabbed the microphone out of his hand. Bullets pinged into the plane, sparking off the rudder and the fuselage. She clicked the transmit button. "Dex hon?"
     "Yeah, Polly?" Dex answered, his voice bright.
     "Hurry!"
     Sky Captain snatched the microphone from her hand. "I'm going to lead them out over the water to try and buy us some time." He turned back to Polly, who looked breathless and overwhelmed in the back of the cockpit. "I tried to warn you. Still glad you came?"
     Sky Captain pulled back on his flight stick as he rocketed through Times Square. The Warhawk shook and groaned as it shot high into the clouds, away from the streets of Manhattan.
     Still firing, the Flying Wings closed in.

     At the Legion's besieged base, searchlights scanned the heavens while shells exploded all around. The entire landing field and most of the hangars were ablaze as more batlike machines descended. The Flying Legion could barely hold its own as their planes circled and charged, guns blazing, in a desperate dogfight over their own turf.
     With all the chaos, Dex had a hard time concentrating on his charts as technicians shouted out coordinates. "Thirty degrees, bearing zero zero five!"
     Dex continued to mark lines on the map with a compass, pressing the point into the paper, sketching careful arcs. With each new coordinate, he drew the circle closer and closer to the vital position of the controlling signal.
     Suddenly, a soot-stained Legion officer raced in, glancing from side to side until his gaze settled on Dex. "We can't hold them off any longer. We have to evacuate the base."
     Dex stood his ground even as the building began to collapse around him. With a groan, a large chunk of the roof bent inward, dangling by a few ragged strips of metal. "Not yet. I'm almost there."
     "There's no time, Dex! We have to go now!"
     "Go ahead without me. I'm right behind you, but I don't intend to let Cap down."
     Some of the technicians fled, while two remained at their stations, shouting out one more coordinate and then another, until Dex had isolated a tiny spot on the map. He drew an X through mountainous, barely charted terrain. "Got you!" Then he shouted into his microphone, "Joe, I found him! Joe!"
     Dex's grin was short-lived as a massive explosion rocked the control room, a direct hit from one of the attacking Wings. He grabbed for the map, crinkling the paper in his fingers as he went flying. Everything spun, tumbled, crashed. He struck the cement floor hard, wincing as his ribs and shoulder absorbed the shock.
     Shaking his head, Dex looked down to see that he still clutched a small piece of map he'd torn from the larger chart as he fell. At least it was the section with the X drawn on it.
     As he listened to the roar of flames and collapsing debris all around him, Dex tried to move, but looked down to see that his leg was pinned under a pile of fallen concrete and steel. He pulled at his leg, but to no avail. Although the pain hadn't kicked in yet, he knew it would probably be a screamer. If only he'd finished building that antigravity generator...
     With a deliberate scraping sound, something large and powerful tore a wider opening in the hangar wall. From outside, a smoky haze obscured details, but Dex could see the ominous shapes form as they strode closer. Unable to run, he propped himself up, staring.
     The trim figure of a dark-robed woman wearing large opaque glasses stepped imperiously over the rubble. She looked around, her impenetrable lenses seeming to scan the hangar's smoky interior. Flanking her were two seven-foot-tall walking robots. Each had a bullet-shaped head, a wasp-thin waist, and a pair of steel tentacles for arms. The tentacle arms twitched and thrashed, throwing off sparks as they touched the fallen debris.
     Though pinned under the collapsed wall, Dex searched the rubble for any way to defend himself. His eyes widened when he spied his new prototype ray gun lying only a few feet away. If the sonic atomizer could melt a hole through a thick plate of steel, he knew it would make short work of those mechanical men.
     The mysterious woman saw him, then strode toward him.
     Caught in the rubble, Dex strained to reach the ray gun, but his fingers only grazed it. Finally hooking a knuckle around one of the decorative fins, he drew the futuristic weapon closer. At last he scooped it into his hand, turned the emission nozzle toward the nearest of the two tentacled robots, and fired a volley of concentric shimmering energy rings.
     The beam from the sonic atomizer slammed into the robot's midsection, and the metal armor of its torso glowed white-hot. Its tentacles flailed, throwing off wild sparks, and the walking robot slumped forward, dropping to the piles of rubble on the hangar floor, as dead as a machine could be.
     "One down!" Dex turned to fire at the second walking robot, but it was too quick for him. Serpentine coils lashed out, wrapping around Dex's wrist, and a flash of pain made him drop the ray gun. Another steel-cable tentacle easily swept the heavy rubble aside, freeing Dex's leg. Then the robot wrapped a tentacle around his waist and lifted him into the air like a doll.
     Dex struggled in vain, unable to wrest himself from the robot's grasp. The tentacles tightened. He looked at the torn map fragment in his hand, desperate. Wheels were turning in his head.

     As he rocketed away from the city and out over the metal gray Atlantic, Sky Captain dodged another volley of machine gun fire. By now the flames from the damaged fuel line had gained strength, engulfing the plane's wing.
     Swallowing hard, Polly looked out the back of the cockpit, then turned forward again. She scribbled furiously on her reporter's pad, mouthing the words out loud as she wrote them. "Six Flying Wings on... our... tail. Escape seemed... impossible. Outmanned. Outgunned. Hopeless..."
     "Do you always have to write out loud?" Sky Captain yelled. "It's already hard enough to think around here!" The Warhawk took another hit and shuddered violently. Any other airplane would have been sky wreckage long before this; however, even with its specially installed systems, the P-40 could not endure such a pounding. "I can't outrun them much longer."
     The Flying Wings continued to bombard their victim, and fire blanketed the entire left wing. Black smoke poured from the exhaust manifold, causing the plane to sputter, choke, and stall. Below, there was no way to escape, no place to land except the deep ocean.
     "Hold on! They'll never expect this." Sky Captain unexpectedly shoved down on his flight stick, sending the Warhawk straight toward the choppy Atlantic. With one engine stalled, he had very little control left.
     "Joe! What are you doing?" Polly peered through the windshield to see the ocean coming fast at them. "We're heading straight down. You'll kill us."
     "I know what I'm doing. Try to relax, would you?"
     "We're going too fast. We're not going to make it. You have to pull up." Polly grabbed the shoulder of his leather jacket, but he did not flinch. "Pull up, Joe! Pull up!"
     Sky Captain struggled with the controls as the Flying Wings regrouped. The Warhawk continued to accelerate downward, assisted by gravity. They hurtled toward the ocean's murky surface... sure to die.

episode 3 "SHADOW OF TOMORROW"

     Dex has located the source of a mysterious radio transmission, but captured by Dr. Totenkopf's deadly machines, he is unable to warn Sky Captain.
     Meanwhile, Sky Captain's Warhawk has been attacked by strange flying machines and is about to crash into the ocean's surface.


     13

     A Remarkable Capability
     Underwater Ace
     A Base in Flames

     Only seconds from crashing into the water, the P-40's engine sputtered, then briefly roared back to life. Sensing the end of the chase, the Flying Wings zoomed after them.
     Polly screamed. Sky Captain kept his stranglehold on the controls, never swerving. The ocean came at them like an endless expanse of blue pavement. Polly closed her eyes, bracing for the crash.
     Moments before impact, Sky Captain shouted through his headset microphone, "Switching to amphibious mode!" His right hand slapped an emergency switch.
     A series of servomechanisms clicked into place. Hull vents and exhaust manifolds sealed shut. Gaskets clamped around the cockpit canopy, and the engine droned at a lower octave. The Warhawk transformed into a sleeker bullet shape, like a flying torpedo.
     Then Sky Captain's plane plunged into the choppy water.
     The sounds became immediately muffled as the diving aircraft submerged in a froth of bubbles. The fire on the wing was instantly extinguished, and the propeller's growl became a more sonorous hum. The Warhawk jetted along underwater.
     Above, the streaking enemy Wings collided with one another, some swerving, some slamming into the ocean. Broken chunks of hulls, wings, and engines splattered like a meteor storm into the Atlantic.
     As the P-40 cruised along beneath the waves, going deeper, Polly kept her face pinned to the window, stunned. "We went... underwater!"
     Sky Captain calmly piloted the plane along. "Yeah, Dex rigged it up. Got the idea from one of his comic books. Good old Dex."
     Barely a month went by without Dex showing him some of his favorite literature, be it the colorful pages of a superhero comic or the black pen-and-ink drawings in Amazing or Astounding. The young man had invented sensors, supercharged engines, electrical armor (which shorted out more often than not), even new prototype weapons, like his "Buck Rogers" sonic atomizer.
     Since the evil geniuses of the world continued to create innovative threats, Sky Captain and the Flying Legion had to develop new ways to counter them. Dex continued to read his science fiction voraciously, purely for research purposes.
     Now, as Polly's terror melted away, angry realization crossed her face. "You knew this, and you let me think we were going to crash?" She shoved the back of his pilot's chair. "Damn it, Joe! I thought we were both going to die! You should have said something!"
     "I was a little busy trying to save our lives. Besides, you wanted to come aboard, adding about a hundred and fifty pounds of extra weight and hampering my maneuverability."
     "A hundred and fifty! Why you -"
     "Just a guess."
     "You still should have told me."
     The currents streamed by, carrying a flow of white bubbles away from the churning propeller. Filtered sunlight provided barely enough illumination for Sky Captain to see by, though he didn't have a particular destination in mind. He sounded exasperated with her. "Look, Polly, if you can't take it, it's not my fault."
     Though she seethed, Polly's natural toughness came through. "I can take it. I can take anything you dish out."
     "Good because this was nothing. Just a practice run." He reengaged the main engines. Yanking on the stick, he guided the Warhawk up toward the bright sunlight.
     As Sky Captain's plane burst through the surface, water sprayed, and the drone of the propeller changed again. He leveled the plane off and banked about, turning toward dry land. "Ready to head back to the base?"
     In the distance, he could see pieces of the destroyed enemy Wings continue to rain down into the water. He couldn't help but look at the dissipating stain without feeling smug pride.
     Sky Captain heaved a sigh and lifted the cockpit microphone. "Dex, come in. Please tell me you got what we needed." He paused, waited, then frowned. "Do you read me? Hello, Dex...?"
     But only the steady hiss of static came back at him. He and Polly exchanged a concerned glance; then he accelerated back toward land, setting course for the Flying Legion's base. On the way, he tried again and again to raise Dex or anyone. The Legion's private frequency remained ominously silent.
     His stomach knotted as they flew overland, crossing the hilly wilderness, approaching the huge complex where his mercenary squad had established their headquarters. The pillars of smoke were visible long before he reached the sheltered valley.
     When the base came into view at last, it seemed everything was in flames. As the scope of the destruction became apparent, Sky Captain could find no words to express his dismay.
     Polly whispered hoarsely, "My God... Joe!"
     The hangars were burning. Dozens of parked fighter aircraft, once neatly lined up and ready for takeoff, smoldered along the runway. The observation zeppelins lay slumped on the ground like blackened whale skeletons. Sky Captain could see many crashed enemy Wings, but he also spotted the wreckage of Legion aircraft that had been defending the base - far too many of them.

14

     A Missing Friend
     A Robot Infestation
     A Secret Message

     The hard part was finding a clear patch of pavement in the disaster zone. Emergency crews were everywhere, dousing flames and pulling victims from the rubble. Sharp wreckage from the explosions and crashes lay scattered all about.
     Sky Captain was numb and sick as he circled for the second time, but he drove back his feelings and focused on the job at hand. He had to get down safely.
     One tire on the P-40's landing gear hit a torn metal plate sticking out of the softened blacktop. The Warhawk slewed, but Sky Captain drove forward, his brakes smoking and screeching. The plane bounced over a shallow crater and finally came to a halt in front of what had been a secondary maintenance hangar.
     Grease-stained, red-eyed crewmen stumbled toward his plane. They rejoiced to see Sky Captain alive, drawing strength and hope from their leader. The crackling sound of fires was a background roar in the air. The task of simply extinguishing all the fires and rescuing the wounded seemed insurmountable, but the members of the Flying Legion remained undaunted.
     Sky Captain climbed from the cockpit and stood on his bullet-riddled wing. Polly came out behind him, and he extended a hand to her, distracted by the chaos around him. She was too shocked to comment on his help.
     Jumping to the ground and brushing himself off, Sky Captain turned toward the control hangar, where a group of men was straining to clear a heavy steel beam that blocked the doorway to the map room. They were trying to rig up a block and tackle, but could not find an intact support beam for the chain.
     Seeing him, one of the crewmen called out urgently. "It's Dex, Cap! They've got Dex."
     Sky Captain's distraught look transformed to rage as he took charge. "No time to mess with a chain and pulley. Unless you men can find one of Dex's disintegrator pistols, let's do this the old-fashioned way." Crouching, he leaned into the solid beam, using all his might to push. "We've got enough muscle around here. Help me."
     Working together, the men pushed the steel girder aside with sheer brute force. The beam finally gave way with a sound of twisting metal, dropping to the ground with a heavy clang. Sky Captain stood up to catch his breath and saw that they had opened a narrow tunnel into the map room.
     Polly squeezed through the small passageway beside Sky Captain to enter the ruined building. The two of them emerged in the map room, which had become a nightmarish scene.
     Walking robots were everywhere. A dozen of the man-sized machines marched about with mechanical precision, whiplike steel tentacles thrashing from their shoulder sockets. The coiled arms picked up furniture and equipment, tossing wreckage aside. The robot walkers moved through the map room like insects, obviously searching for something.
     "They're everywhere," Polly said. "It's an infestation."
     One of the machines detected the intruders and strutted toward them. Sky Captain turned just as the walking robot lashed out with a surprisingly long tentacle. Polly shouted a warning, but the appendage wrapped itself around Sky Captain's right hand, drawing tight like a python. He reached awkwardly with his left hand to pull out his sidearm. The robot tightened its snakelike metal grip as he twisted his body, managed to aim the pistol, and fired off one round. The bullet found its target, shattering the robot's single gleaming optical sensor. The spindle-waisted machine recoiled, rocking backward like a jack-in-the-box. The tentacle released Sky Captain's wrist and flailed about. The robot staggered blindly before it fell in a heap.
     The struggle alerted the rest of the robot swarm, and all of them turned their singular glowing eyes toward Polly and Sky Captain. Marching in an eerily gliding lockstep, the machines closed in from all sides. Polly stepped close as Sky Captain fired his pistol at another machine; the bullet smashed its blunt head, deactivating the robot in a shower of sparks. He knew how many rounds he had in the pistol and saw that there were far too many of the machines.
     "We've got to be a lot more efficient at this," he said. The walking robots stepped closer, raising jointed steel legs to climb over the rubble.
     Then Sky Captain looked up to the collapsed roof. Suspended directly above them, a massive girder dangled by the frayed remnants of two cables. The robots marched under its shadow.
     Sky Captain stepped back to lure the machines closer. Then he raised his pistol, squinted carefully along the sight line, and fired. The bullet clipped the cable holding the heavy beam in place; the remaining line groaned as the released girder swung down like a giant pendulum.
     He yanked Polly to the floor as the twisted beam whistled over them, missing their heads by inches. The battering ram swung into the front row of machines and crushed them with a sound like a truck full of brass musical instruments ramming a brick wall.
     Sky Captain and Polly sprang to their feet, ready to face the rest of the robot swarm, but before the walking machines could form ranks again, a strange alien siren warbled through the air.
     "What's that, Joe? A Legion signal?"
     "Not one of ours," he said.
     The walking robots froze in their tracks, tentacle arms drifting like seaweed in a gentle current. Then, all the remaining machines scattered like cockroaches, escaping through the gaping hole in the hangar wall. One of the machines stumbled on a loose chunk of concrete and collided with a second robot as if it were part of a slapstick comedy routine, but both righted themselves and evacuated through the opening.
     Sky Captain looked down at his sidearm. "That was easy."
     "We can't just let them get away, Joe. They've got Dex."
     Both of them scrambled over the rubble, chasing the walking robots. When they reached the hole in the wall, though, a backwash of exhaust fumes and air currents knocked them backward. Sky Captain kept his balance, squinting into the hot gust to see one of the large Flying Wings rise up. The enemy aircraft took off, stealing away with the remaining tentacled robots.
     "Hey!" Sky Captain waved his pistol and fired repeatedly at the flying machine until all his ammunition was gone. The small-caliber bullets merely bounced off the quicksilver hull.
     "They're getting away, Joe. We have to stop them!"
     She looked wildly around, but Sky Captain stopped her. "It's too late. They're gone."
     "They've got Dex, Joe. We have to try."
     Polly resisted, but he continued to hold her. "They're gone," he said again, "for now."
     She slowly accepted defeat. They stood together, watching in vain, as the last enemy ship arched skyward. Nightfall had darkened the sky, and the batlike Wing flapped upward to join a dozen of the enemy flying machines that converged overhead. Their angular silhouettes crossed the full moon, gaining altitude, remaining impossibly out of reach.
     Sky Captain and Polly stood side by side, sighing and staring at the complete destruction of the Legion's headquarters. Orange flames still smoldered like the bonfires of a primitive army encampment. Some surviving crewmembers worked together to spray water on the blazes; others used flashlights and crowbars to search for wounded men in the collapsed storehouses.
     "Of all the enemies we've faced, this is the worst blow the Flying Legion has ever suffered." Sky Captain couldn't even begin to assess the casualties and the irreparable damage.
     With a loud screeching groan, the last wall of a destroyed shed collapsed.
     Polly shook her head, staring across the blasted runways. "Why would Totenkopf do this, Joe? Why Dex? It doesn't make any sense."
     "I don't know enough about him to make a guess. Usually villains are all too happy to brag about their capabilities and gloat over their plans." Sky Captain turned back to the remains of the map room, peering into the dimness. Dex had stayed at his post until the last minute, trying to triangulate the source of the command transmission for the robot giants and the Flying Wings.
     Stepping back into the hollow-sounding room, he saw a stack of Dex's comic books and pulp magazines scattered across the stained floor. He spotted scuffed footprints, drag marks from robot feet, the signs of a struggle. With a grim frown, he bent over to pick up a torn comic book. A smear of drying blood tracked across the fanciful cover illustration. He pondered for a moment, then looked up at Polly. "Totenkopf was looking for something - something he thinks we have."
     Sky Captain tossed the magazine to the floor and reached down to pick up the prototype ray gun. "Dex said he knew where the transmission was coming from, but I didn't give him enough time to answer me."
     A flash of guilt crossed Polly's face. She knew she had withheld information from Sky Captain, especially the two mysterious vials. What if her secrecy had inadvertently led to Dex's capture? If Sky Captain had known all the details, might he have been better prepared?
     Sky Captain continued to contemplate the Buck Rogers sonic atomizer, not looking at her. "He must have gotten too close to the answer. Dex was trying to tell me -"
     Having second thoughts about her secrecy, Polly reached into her pocket and started to withdraw the two test tubes Dr. Jennings had given her as his last act. She looked at the glass vials. She knew Sky Captain would be furious with her for keeping secrets.
     Before she could make up her mind to tell him, though, Polly spotted something on the floor among the clutter. She slipped the test tubes back into her coat and reached down to brush the rubble aside. A bubble gum wrapper, the brand Dex always chewed. "Joe..."
     Sky Captain turned the ray gun over in his hand, then stuffed it into his pocket. Polly stared at him, holding up the gum wrapper as if it carried extra meaning. He followed her eyes, curious, as she glanced upward. A slow smile spread across her face.
     On a fallen section of the ceiling, Sky Captain saw a torn section of map stuck there, out of reach, with a pink wad of gum. The chart scrap showed pinpricks from a compass, several tentative markings that circled down to a bold X drawn in the center.
     "Good boy, Dex!" Sky Captain let out a relieved laugh. His expression was different now.
     "This changes everything," Polly said, sharing his delight.
     "But it's still personal. We leave right away - while we have a chance. There's a long way to go."
     The word NEPAL was printed plainly across the center of the map.

15

     Off to Nepal
     A Satchel Full of Secrets
     The Mark of Unit Eleven

     The Warhawk soared into the night, heading east across the Atlantic. After the robotic mayhem in recent days, Polly thought the long journey might almost seem relaxing. The droning sound of the engine would have made a good lullaby, if both she and Sky Captain hadn't been so tense.
     The P-40 had been refueled, its machine guns reloaded, its burned fuel line repaired. Three of the Legion's best engineers and mechanics had given the plane a rushed inspection, patching up the worst bullet holes in the fuselage and pronouncing the craft ready to launch.
     Without much celebration, the crewmen waved the Warhawk onto the base's only intact runway. "Go get them, Cap!"
     Even in the best of times, a journey halfway around the world would have been arduous. They'd need to refuel in London and probably Istanbul or Samarkand before making a final run to the Himalayas. Thanks to their prior adventures, the Flying Legion had allies everywhere. Sky Captain didn't doubt that the Warhawk would perform admirably, as it always did.
     They had to rescue Dex - and stop Totenkopf.
     Once again, Polly sat in the back of the tight cockpit. It was going to be a long ride, but she wouldn't give Sky Captain the satisfaction of complaining. If he could put up with the arduous journey, so could she. Intent on the cockpit controls, he didn't seem to mind her silence. Polly could sense he wanted to talk to her, but she decided to let him make the next move. Maybe he wanted to apologize...
     In the cramped confines of the rear seat, lit only by glowing green cockpit gauges and indicators, Polly set Dr. Jennings' scuffed satchel on her lap. Until now she hadn't had a quiet moment to look through the documents inside. She scanned page after page of scientific notations, numbers, and graphs. She saw scrawled journal entries written in German and wished she had brought her translation dictionary with her. But it was at her desk in the Chronicle offices, along with her typewriter.
     Nevertheless, she had her reporter's pad and could take copious notes. Her camera had plenty of film, extra rolls were in her pack. When she saw Editor Paley again, she would have a great story for him...
     The largest and most impressive documents in the satchel were blueprints of numerous strange machines. Many of the designs looked familiar to her - the tentacled robot walkers, the Flying Wings, the towering mechanical monsters that had invaded Manhattan. She saw other design sketches of ominous devices, all of which looked as if they had sprung from the wild nightmares of Leonardo da Vinci.
     After making sure that the pilot couldn't see what she was doing, Polly shifted the satchel and reached into her coat pocket to withdraw the two mysterious test tubes. With his dying breath, Jennings had warned that these vials would be the end of the world if they fell into the hands of Dr. Totenkopf. She studied them, then scribbled a series of notes in the margin of her pad: Virus? Explosive? Poison? Finding no answers, only guesses, Polly carefully wrapped the test tubes in a piece of cloth and returned them to her pocket.
     By now she was starting to find Sky Captain's stubborn silence oppressive. She rummaged loudly, rustling more papers in the satchel, and finally spoke. "It looks like these journals belonged to Dr. Jorge Vargas. He must have passed them on to Dr. Jennings before his disappearance."
     "Vargas? Wasn't he the man who vanished right after the Hindenburg III docked?"
     She brightened. "Why, Joe, you read my newspaper article."
     "I heard it on the radio."
     Polly didn't rise to the bait, pointedly looking back at the satchel's contents.
     Sky Captain continued. "Vargas must have considered those papers important then. Jennings certainly did." He turned around to see her shaking her head in wonder. "What did you find?"
     "Just some amazing background information." Polly lifted one of the typed dossier pages. "Totenkopf was awarded his first patent when he was only twelve years old." She flipped to another page and continued reading, deciphering the German as best she could. "By seventeen he had already received two doctorates and was one of the most highly regarded minds of his day. All of that was before the start of the Great War."
     She paused. "Then a darker side began to emerge. First, animals started disappearing in his village - only to be found later, dead and mutilated, victims of unthinkable experiments. Then children..." Polly looked up, her expression sickened in the wan cockpit light. "Reports of missing children."
     She found a loose folder inside the satchel and opened it to reveal curling old photographs. "One year after Totenkopf's disappearance, ominous rumors began circulating in the German Parliament, whispers that he had begun work on what was darkly hinted to be a" - she struggled with the translation - "a doomsday device. For decades, all efforts to locate Totenkopf have consistently failed. To this day, his whereabouts remain a mystery."
     "How long has it been?"
     "No one has seen him for more than thirty years."
     "Judging from all those robots striking cities around the world, he seems to have been busy in the meantime." He glimpsed Polly opening a ledger. "What's that?"
     Polly answered in a monotone. "Nothing that makes any sense." She flipped back and forth, comparing pages. "These are Unit Eleven's supply logs. One section lists page after page of plant and animal life. Two of every species. Thousands of them." She rummaged in the satchel again, puzzled. "Stockpiles of enough food and supplies to last a decade. Reserves of steel, oil, coal."
     "Quite the wish list."
     Suddenly, Polly recognized what she was reading. She remembered what Dex and Sky Captain had told her in the warehouse of odd prototype robots. "This is everything he's used his machines to collect over the last three years, plus other items he still needs! And here at the bottom, the ledger even includes the power generators from Manhattan. It reads like a shopping list from all over the world." Polly's voice grew hushed with awe. "What have you been up to, Dr. Totenkopf?"
     Though she continued to study the documents, she made no further connections, reached no remarkable conclusions. After a moment, she realized that Sky Captain had fallen into his sullen silence again. He stared intently out the window while dawn began to break over the British coast, as if he could make them arrive at their destination faster by the sheer force of his will.
     A thoughtful look crossed Polly's face, and her heart went out to him. "He'll be okay, Joe. Dex can take care of himself."
     Sky Captain slowly turned to look over his shoulder. He didn't seem to know what to say.
     "We'll find him," Polly reassured him.
     The Warhawk flew onward.

16

     A Camp in the Himalayas
     A Sherpa Friend
     Destination: Shangri-La

     Sky Captain's battered and reliable P-40 descended through a dense patch of cumulus, revealing the wrinkled and rugged contours of the earth, very close to the height of the clouds. High rocky peaks protruded from the cottony white ocean like jagged islands in an uncharted sea. Polly looked through the frost-etched cockpit canopy as the epic slopes of the Himalayas came into view.
     "Those icy peaks are the Kanchenjunga Range," Sky Captain said like a tour guide. "We're crossing over the Tibetan Plateau."
     "How close are we to Nepal?" She had tried not to ask the question too often during their lengthy flight, in which they had circled half of the globe.
     "Right down there. If this were an atlas, you could see the letters on the ground." He took the Warhawk in a steep dive, plunging into the thick clouds. Polly didn't know how he could see the hazards, the treacherous peaks, the snowfields. But he flew on anyway, blind and confident.
     Beneath the cloud layer, Sky Captain leveled them off, cruising along toward the base of the massive mountains. Polly saw windswept tundra, glaciers, naked boulders - and then a cluster of meager shelters and fur-lined tents spread out over a frozen lake bed.
     "That's the base camp." He smiled. "All the comforts of home. We'll start there."
     "We're a long way from Manhattan," Polly said.
     As the P-40 circled overhead, a stout Nepalese Sherpa stepped out of a small shelter. He lifted his mittened hands to wave up at Sky Captain's plane.
     "Ah, there's Kaji. He's expecting us." Two more men stepped out beside Kaji, gazing warily at the plane. All three were dressed alike in thick sheepskins, fur hats, and fleece-lined boots. The other two Sherpas did not wave.
     The Warhawk glided to a smooth landing on the expansive white lake, kicking up crusty snow. Sky Captain taxied back along the icy surface until he rolled to a stop. Kaji and the other two Sherpas ran out onto the frozen lake to greet them as the pilot cut his engine.
     When Sky Captain slid open the canopy, Polly gasped at the biting cold, but she bundled herself as well as she could. Sky Captain climbed out onto the plane's battle-scarred wing, then offered her a gloved hand. The lake's iron-hard ice was rough enough not to be slippery. As she stood there, Polly concentrated on not shivering.
     Kaji came up to greet them, a ball of energy. He was in his late forties, but his weathered face had been etched by a lifetime of cold wind and blowing snow. "Captain Joe, my friend! I'm so glad to see you again."
     "Good to see you, too, Kaji. I just wish it was under better circumstances." He gestured to Polly. "This is Polly Perkins. She's coming with us."
     "How do you do?" she said, remembering her manners.
     Kaji greeted her warmly, shaking her hand. "If Captain Joe has brought you along, then I am sure you can handle the rigors of the journey."
     "She will," Sky Captain answered. It sounded like an ultimatum. He climbed back into the cockpit. "Let's get these supplies stowed."
     Bellowing in Nepalese, Kaji spouted orders to his fellow Sherpas. One of them had a heavy brow, and the other sported a narrow hooked nose; both moved furtively, even in the open daylight. The two Sherpas took heavy boxes from Sky Captain as he unloaded them and set them on the wing. While Polly stood with her arms wrapped around herself to conserve warmth, the three Sherpas rapidly made an impressive pile of small crates and boxes.
     "No wonder the cockpit was cramped," Polly muttered, looking at all the material.
     Sky Captain handed a crate to the hook-nosed Sherpa as he spoke to Kaji. "Did you get the maps I needed? Detailed local surveys?"
     "Yes, all of them drawn by native guides. Guaranteed accurate. They are inside the main tent." Kaji grinned, showing several missing teeth; then he hesitated in a long, coy pause. "Did you, perhaps, remember... something for me, Captain Joe?"
     With a proudly satisfied expression, Sky Captain ducked down into the cockpit for the last time, searching under the main seat. He withdrew a trio of large, flat boxes. "Three cases, just like you asked."
     Kaji took the boxes with a reverence reserved for holy relics. "A most incredible reward." The older Sherpa eagerly tore open the flap of the top box and reached inside. He pulled out a small round canister, grinning as he held it out for Polly to see. "Vienna sausages." He was misty-eyed. "By the gods, it has been so long!"
     Balancing the three cases on his broad shoulder, Kaji stumped off across the frozen lake toward the makeshift base camp. "Come, I will show you the maps. You will be impressed, I think."
     Her teeth chattering in the high-altitude chill, Polly looked at the two reticent Sherpas standing at the pile of supplies. As Kaji waddled off, she gave Sky Captain a meaningful glance. "How well do you know that Sherpa?"
     "Kaji? He's an old friend. Why?"
     "Something about him... and these other two. Call it intuition. I don't trust him."
     Sky Captain lifted a heavy duffel bag and carried it around the side of the plane. "That's funny. He said the same thing about you." He hefted the duffel, then tossed it to Polly. "Here, make yourself useful."
     Polly caught the bag, but didn't have time to brace herself, so she stumbled backward. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the surly-looking Sherpas standing beside the piled supplies. She was sure the two Himalayan men exchanged an ominous glance.

     Inside the main tent, which was lit by a hanging kerosene lantern, Kaji, Sky Captain, and Polly sat around a small wooden table. The cold wind whistled outside, flapping the loose fabric of the shelter. Grains of snow stole through the poorly sealed entrance flap, but Polly had changed into warmer clothes and donned a pair of men's large gloves. A steaming teapot hung from a tripod over a small fire of dried yak dung. She was warm enough now to concentrate on the detailed hand-drawn map spread on top of the wooden table.
     Sky Captain rested his elbow on the corner of the chart. "Dex tracked the signal to this valley here, north of Karakal." He produced the torn piece of map Dex had stuck to the hangar ceiling with bubble gum. Smoothing the map fragment, then rotating it, he lined it up with Kaji's chart. The scale was similar.
     He pointed to the spot where Dex had triangulated the robots' command signal. "This is where the transmission originated."
     But even on Kaji's detailed local maps, the area indicated showed no markings, no name. It was like a blank spot on an old nautical chart. Terra incognita. "Why is there no writing here? What is this?"
     When the older Sherpa saw the X Dex had marked on the scrap, his face became troubled. He spoke the word with hushed reverence. "Shambhala."
     Polly had never heard of the place, but she brightened. "Oh? You know it?"
     "It is forbidden." Kaji turned away from the chart, obviously unsettled. "It is believed to be the source of the Kalacakra - Tibetan magic. Those who live there are said to have supernatural powers."
     Polly looked at Sky Captain, and both of them knew the answer. If Dex had been taken to that place, they had no choice but to go. "Can you take us there?" Sky Captain asked.
     Kaji grew quiet. He studied the map, considering the idea, then looked at the three cases of Vienna sausages. He let out a resigned sigh. "No one has ever ventured so far, Captain Joe. It will be dangerous."
     "Naturally. And?"
     "Shambhala is said to be protected by the priests of the Kalacakra Lamasery." The weathered Sherpa raked his rheumy eyes from Sky Captain to Polly, then to his Vienna sausages, as if weighing his obligations. "If they find us there, they will kill us."
     "Why?" Sky Captain rolled his eyes. "What's so special about this place?"
     "Shambhala is known by many names, my friends," Kaji said. "To the Hebrew it is called Eden. To the ancient Greek, it was Empurios. You, however, may know it as... Shangri-La."
     The flap of the tent suddenly flew open with an icy gust of wind as one of the two sullen Sherpa helpers pushed his head inside. Ignoring the two guests, the heavy-browed Sherpa spoke in Nepalese directly to Kaji.
     The old man gave a brisk, incomprehensible answer, then turned back to Sky Captain and Polly. "There is a storm coming, and the way will grow dangerous. If you still wish to go, we must depart now."
     Neither of them knew what dangers might lie ahead, but Sky Captain turned to Polly. They stared down at the unmarked region on the map, thinking of Dex and Totenkopf, then answered in unison, "Let's go."

17

     A Treacherous Route
     A Blank on the Map
     A Frozen Base

     At first the snowfall was deceptively light, though it thickened as the wind picked up and the clouds clustered more tightly around the peaks of the Kanchenjunga Range. Sky Captain, Polly, Kaji, and the other two Sherpas started up the mountain in a slow-moving caravan, dressed in warm clothes and carrying supply-laden backpacks. Clumped snow and slippery rocks made each step treacherous. The temperature seemed to drop every minute.
     "Is there really supposed to be a trail here?" Polly asked, her head bowed into the wind.
     "Not a trail," Kaji said. "It is a route."
     "Not many people build blacktop roads into a forbidden land," Sky Captain pointed out, drawing a long breath of the thin, icy air. "Not even Dr. Totenkopf."
     Kaji plodded ahead in his fleece-lined boots, not complaining. Behind them, the sinister pair of Sherpas followed, muttering to each other in Nepalese over the howling wind.
     During the course of the day, as the storm settled over them and gave the party no respite, the climbers accomplished what seemed to be a humanly impossible journey. First they walked and then they climbed against the white vastness of the isolated mountain range. Taking it upon himself to watch out for Polly, Sky Captain had to save her life only three or four times: dodging avalanches, rescuing her from collapsing ice bridges, catching her gloved hand as she slipped off a precipice. He decided he would have been embarrassed if she'd showered him with too much gratitude.
     As the snow piled up like frozen quicksand, the air grew more and more rare in the cliffs high above the base camp. Like solid workhorses, the three Sherpas did not slow despite the treacherous terrain, but Sky Captain and Polly found their feet dragging as they slogged along. A flurry of wind and sleet blanketed the party. He could barely see Kaji's white-crusted back and shoulders directly in front of him.
     Halfway up the mountainside, the weathered Sherpa led the procession around a narrow ledge overlooking a deep ravine. Polly clung against the rough icy sides and glanced apprehensively into the abyss below. The yawning fissure seemed to split the Himalayas from India to Tibet. One misstep and she had no idea in which country her battered and frozen body would come to rest.
     As if the very thought made the path more dangerous, brittle rock gave way under her foot, and Polly slipped. She windmilled her arms as a gust of wind pushed her over the edge, but Sky Captain's quickness saved her. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to safety. "That's five times today," he quipped.
     "Four. Don't exaggerate."
     Behind them, watching Polly's near fall, the two suspicious Sherpas moved up behind Sky Captain, seeing their chance. The hook-nosed one gave a silent but meaningful nod to his companion as he began to draw a curved dagger from within the warm folds of his sheepskin covering. The heavy-browed Sherpa, though, made a gesture that stayed his hand. In Nepalese, he quickly said, "Be patient." Both men knew there would be plenty of opportunities along the dangerous path to Shangri-La.
     When the members of the party finally pulled themselves to the top of a narrow, exposed ridge, the mountain wind jabbed at them like swords. Polly and Sky Captain had to hold on to each other just to keep their balance.
     The snow cleared, and scudding storm clouds moved about below, giving the travelers a bright view of icy peaks that stood high and remote in the distance. The two Sherpas pushed ahead, not wanting to rest next to their three companions. With a frown, Polly watched them go.
     Sky Captain sidled up next to Kaji, who gazed into the sprawling Himalayan wilderness, undaunted by the frigid temperature. Extending a mittened hand, the Sherpa pointed toward the craggy peaks. "This is where civilization stops, Captain Joe. Ahead of us is only a blank on the map." He tightened his hat and his mittens. "We must be very careful from here."
     Polly looked at Kaji, shivering. "I thought we needed to be careful back there, too."
     "For all the good it did," Sky Captain said.
     From the distant outcropping where they had stopped, the two other Sherpas began to shout excitedly. Kaji cocked his ears, listening to the Nepalese words, and then motioned for Sky Captain to follow him. "Come! Hurry!"
     Summoning her last shreds of energy, Polly hurried after their guide as he climbed effortlessly up the final few feet of the mountain peak. The higher vantage let them see beyond the intervening ridge.
     The last thing she expected to see was the impossibly huge shape of a transmitting tower rising from the deep mountain valley. The steel structure protruded above the tallest of the nearby crags, but its lower half was buried in snow.
     Sky Captain stared, knowing the only person who could have built such a facility. "Totenkopf."
     Polly came up next to him, panting. "From here at the top of the world, he could send commands to his robots anywhere!"
     "He probably did. This is where Dex traced the signal."
     When the wind died briefly, they could hear a low, electrical hum emanating from the gargantuan tower. A dim light blinked intermittently at its peak, though Sky Captain knew no aircraft would attempt to fly over the dangerous Kanchenjunga Range. He pushed ahead with renewed enthusiasm, scrambling down the steep and rocky path. "Come on. We're close now."
     "Maybe they'll have hot coffee down there," Polly muttered to herself as she started after him.
     "Tea, perhaps, but I do not think so," Kaji said.
     When they reached the base of the massive tower, they stood knee-deep in snow. Sky Captain stopped in astonishment as the extent of the madman's Himalayan base became apparent. The high transmitting tower was merely the tip of Totenkopf's operations.
     The transmitting structure was utterly dwarfed by the staggering vastness of an expansive subterranean excavation spreading out ahead of them. Immense blocky power stations stood like geometrical sentinels on either side of a gaping shaft entrance large enough for several of Sky Captain's Warhawks to fly inside. Transformers, ringed conical boosters, and thrumming storage banks created a technological storage dump around the barren rock. Spearlike icicles dripped from the exposed metal.
     Sky Captain withdrew a pair of binoculars from his backpack and scanned the area, squinting against the bright snow. He could make out a shimmering maze of ice tunnels bored deep into a glacial mass and reinforced with steel beams. Other shafts in the mountain rock led to dark side chambers. Abandoned ore cars sat waiting on rails.
     "What is it?" Polly looked on in awe, anxious to use the binoculars for herself. "Let me see."
     But Sky Captain would not relinquish them. "It looks like a mining outpost." From the weathered appearance of the generators caked with ice and snow, the frozen ore cars, the drifts piling up on the fringes of the main shaft, he guessed that the mine had long since been uninhabited. Brute-force machinery had been left uncovered and unmaintained, ravaged by the effects of time.
     Squinting, Kaji put his hands on his broad hips and stared at the distant forbidding sight. "Something bad happened here."
     With his binoculars, Sky Captain followed the steel shape of a rail bridge that led into the mouth of the fantastic mine. Even with the mountain breezes, an eerie stillness cloaked the base. "It looks abandoned." He turned to Kaji. "Tell your men we're heading down there. I want to get a closer look."
     Kaji nodded nervously. "Yes, Captain Joe. But this is... not a good place."
     "It certainly isn't how I pictured Shangri-La," Polly said.
     The older Sherpa turned to her. "No, not Shangri-La. Not here."
     When they reached the huge generators that flanked the entrance to the gaping mine shaft, the five companions moved slowly inside the massive cave. The chilling moan of arctic winds echoed off the gorge walls behind them.
     "At least inside here, we're sheltered," Sky Captain said.
     "It's still not my idea of cozy," Polly said.
     Wide-eyed, she stepped deeper into the fantastic cave. Suspended high above her, enormous stalactites of ice dangled from iron girders that crisscrossed the labyrinth. Giant drilling machines, heavy excavators, rail tracks, and ore cars cluttered the main chamber, all of them motionless.
     Polly was the first to spot the emblem of a grinning iron-winged skull on all the equipment. "It's Totenkopf, all right."
     Amid the clutter, Kaji found several old lanterns, which he managed to light. He handed one to Polly and another to Sky Captain, who led the way, driven by his own curiosity. "Dex!" he called once. The echoes shattering the frozen silence made him cringe.
     As they walked slowly through the massive ice cave, reflected lights splashed against rugged glacial walls. Polly could see only dark shadows of strange shapes embedded deep within the thick ice - prehistoric creatures, fossilized remains from the last ice age, unearthed by Totenkopf's mining operation.
     Accompanying them, Kaji seemed uninterested in the surreal exhibit. He wrinkled his wide nose. "The air smells like death, Captain Joe."
     The five members of the group began to fan out, exploring. Polly walked along the base of one of the enormous but silent drilling machines. She wiped off a thick layer of sediment and dust. "Where is everyone?" The sound of her own voice spooked her.
     Trying to hold her hands steady in the oppressive cold, she lifted her camera to snap a photo of the gargantuan machine. Before she clicked the picture, though, Polly noticed that the hook-nosed Sherpa had moved away from the others. Thinking he was unobserved, the man disappeared furtively down a dim side tunnel...

                                 *       *       *

     Sky Captain and Kaji found an elaborate control panel set against a bank of diagnostic machinery on a far wall. They passed an abandoned screen that served as a communication terminal. All the lights were dark on the controls, though. Sky Captain flicked a few switches, but got no response. Looking down at a shelf behind the workstation, the Captain discovered a bound log.
     "Maybe Totenkopf did some things the old-fashioned way." Removing his gloves, he opened the book and began flipping through the brittle pages covered with handwriting. "Curious. The last entry was made... twenty-five years ago."
     The Sherpa poked among a row of glass specimen jars that contained ore samples. He lifted one of the dusty jars, rattled it, and pressed his face close to the glass to study the contents. "Rocks. What was your enemy looking for?"
     Troubled by what he read, Sky Captain closed the old logbook in alarm. "Uranium. A very rich and pure vein." Then he saw Kaji holding the specimen jar. "I wouldn't touch that."
     The Sherpa's eyes widened as he looked at the jar in his hand, then quickly set it back on the shelf with all the others. He wiped his hand on his sheepskin jacket.
     Sky Captain turned from the log and the communications screen and found an equipment locker beside him. Rattling the latch, he forced the old handle on the locker, and the door creaked open. Inside, he found bulky white suits with glass helmets. "Radiation suits. It seems Totenkopf didn't take any chances."
     On a shelf above the thick suits, Sky Captain found a small boxy device with a gauge on its face. Lifting the device by the handle on its top, he flipped a switch, then watched the needle on the gauge immediately swing over into the ominously marked red zone. A familiar raspy crackle emanated from a tiny speaker.
     Kaji turned apprehensively toward him. "What is it, Captain Joe? What's that noise?"
     "This is a Geiger counter." Sky Captain swung the device, pointing the detector end in another direction, but the speaker only squawked louder, becoming a staticky roar. "And that noise indicates radiation. A lot of it. This whole mine is contaminated." He continued to scan the room, but the Geiger counter found no place that wasn't saturated. "We can't stay here."
     Concerned, he looked up, suddenly noticing that the others were missing. He couldn't see or hear any of them. He turned to Kaji. "Where's Polly?"

18

     A Shadow in the Tunnel
     Lies and Exaggerations
     A Lit Fuse

     Sensing that the hook-nosed Sherpa's mysterious behavior would lead to some answers - or at least to an interesting news story - Polly crept along the twisting passageway.
     Though Kaji's two companions had pretended to be surprised at the discovery of Totenkopf's frozen mining complex, this man knew exactly where he was going and what he was doing. Forgetting the chill in the air, she moved tentatively forward, holding the sputtering kerosene lantern to light her way. Confident in his furtiveness, the sinister Sherpa did not notice her sneaking after him.
     As she followed the hook-nosed Sherpa's shadow, Polly rounded a bend in the tunnel. Up ahead, the corridor widened into a dead-end chamber blocked by a great metal door with a wheel lock in its center. Surrounded by iron reinforcement strips and heavy rivets, the barricade looked like the hatch to an enormous German U-Boat. Her lamplight spilled across a warning sign hung over the hatch VERBOTEN.
     "I don't suppose this is the lunch-break room." Then she frowned, realizing that she could no longer see the furtive Sherpa, though he had nowhere to go except inside.
     Curious, Polly stepped up to the heavy steel door, set her lantern on the stone floor, and used both hands to tug the locking wheel. Despite the abandoned appearance of the Himalayan facility, the mechanism was well oiled and maintained. The metal hatch swung wide.
     After adjusting her backpack, she retrieved her lantern and held it in front of her as she entered the chamber. The rock-walled room was too large for the weak pool of light to do much good. Polly worked her way slowly into the pitch-black room, sweeping her lantern across the tunnel walls. She tried to be as quiet as she could. The place seemed cavernous, a huge storeroom of some sort. What had Totenkopf been doing in here? She saw stacked crates, wooden barrels -
     Suddenly, her circle of lantern light fell upon the evil, grinning face of the hook-nosed Sherpa. He stood only inches from her, waiting with an outstretched knife. He pounced.
     Polly reeled backward and let out a scream.

     Sky Captain and Kaji moved cautiously down the tunnel. "Miss Perkins!" the Sherpa called.
     "Polly!" Sky Captain's voice held more annoyance than concern. She was always wandering off, getting herself - or him - into trouble, or just losing her way. Back there in plain sight, the complex's main chamber was filled with giant drilling machines, deactivated robots, radioactive specimens, and a log full of information about Totenkopf's purpose here.
     How much more did she want? Wasn't that enough to keep her interested?
     The two men came to a fork in the tunnel, which led off in two divergent paths. He sighed. "Looks like we'll have to split up, Kaji. I'll meet you back outside, whether or not we find Polly. With the background radiation, don't stay here any longer than you have to."
     Kaji nodded nervously. "Did you bring a Geiger counter, Captain Joe?"
     "We don't need one anymore. Just assume the radiation is bad. Everywhere."
     They each turned and proceeded down a different tunnel, calling out for Polly. Sky Captain strode along, grumbling, when he heard a woman's shrill scream coming from straight ahead of him. "Polly!" He raced down the tunnel, nearly slipping on the ice. His bobbing lantern threw weird patterns of light and shadow on the rough walls.
     A moment later, he skidded to a stop at the storage chamber's open metal hatch. From inside Polly cried out again, a scream more angry than terrified, and he heard the sounds of a scuffle.
     Sky Captain plunged into the room, waved his lantern around, and saw the Sherpa holding a knife to Polly's throat. She squirmed against the man's grip, but he pressed the blade against her soft flesh.
     "Joe!" she cried.
     Squaring his shoulders, Sky Captain stepped menacingly forward. A low growl came from his throat. "Let her go." He was ready to take the man apart with his bare hands.
     Then, behind him, the heavy-browed Sherpa emerged from the shadows. He gripped a long curved knife of his own, poised to strike. "Give me the vials, and the girl will live." The man's intense eyes glittered in the lamplight.
     "Vials?" Sky Captain's angry expression dissolved into one of confusion. "What vials?" He glanced a question at Polly, then turned back to the Sherpa with the heavy brow. "What are you talking about?"
     "Do not play me for a fool, Sky Captain. I will not ask a second time." He nodded to his hook-nosed companion, whose thin lips twitched in a smile as he pressed the blade harder against Polly's skin and she squeaked.
     Exasperated, Sky Captain put his gloved hands on his hips. "Look, I told you, I don't know what you're talking about." He lifted his chin. "You'll just have to kill us."
     The Sherpa with the heavy brow shrugged. "As you wish. We can always search your corpses afterward." He nodded again, and his hook-nosed companion prepared to slit Polly's throat.
     "Wait!" All eyes turned to Polly. The two Sherpas looked eager and hungry; Sky Captain, suspecting what she was up to, glared at her in exasperation.
     Shrugging to loosen the hook-nosed Sherpa's suspicious grip, Polly worked her hand into her backpack, dug through the spare rolls of film, packets of food, and extra mittens, and hesitantly withdrew a small bundle of cloth she had tucked at the bottom. The dying words of Dr. Jennings ran through her head. If Totenkopf got his hands on these vials, it would be the end of the world.
     But at the moment she didn't have a choice. Sooner or later, Sky Captain would figure out something... or she would have to do it for him.
     Polly carefully unrolled the cloth to reveal the pair of sealed test tubes. The two Sherpas looked down, and their faces lit with evil expressions. She swallowed hard - at least the sharp knife was no longer cutting into her throat - and guiltily averted her gaze from the silent questions in Sky Captain's eyes. "I'm sorry, Joe."
     The Sherpa with the hook nose snatched the tubes from Polly's hand. "This is most excellent. Now we have what we came for." Holding their knives ready, the two Sherpas slowly backed out of the room. "Good-bye, my friends. Your journey ends here."
     The iron door swung closed behind them with a groan and a clang. By the light thrown off from the lanterns, they watched as the wheel lock clicked and spun shut. It was followed by the sound of a massive bolt sliding into place, like a gunshot echoing in the chamber. They were locked in.
     Sky Captain turned to Polly, glaring. "Now... about those vials?"
     She avoided him, more intimidated by his anger than she had been by the evil Sherpas. "I was going to tell you, Joe. You have to believe me."
     "What was in them? Why are they so important?"
     "I don't know. Really, I don't -"
     He could not mask his contempt. "More lies." Frustrated, he paced over to the sealed metal hatch, yanked on the locking wheel, then kicked ineffectively against the door. Even with his thick boot, he hurt his toes.
     "I'm telling the truth, Joe," she said, following him. "Dr. Jennings gave them to me just before he died. I don't know any of the details, but he said the countdown would begin and the world would end if Totenkopf got his hands on them. They were the last words he spoke."
     Sky Captain found all this too incredible for words. "You expect me to believe that? You've done nothing but lie to me from the beginning." He kicked the door with his heel this time.
     "Okay, I'm a liar, Joe, but I don't exaggerate. That's what Jennings said, back in his lab." Polly sniffed. "Wouldn't you tell the truth with your dying breath?"
     "Unfortunately, you just might have a chance to find out." After straining against the locking wheel again, Sky Captain withdrew from the door. Then a realization formed in his mind. "So that's what Totenkopf was looking for all along: two test tubes. And he thought we had them? That's why he took Dex, and you didn't even tell me?"
     "I'm sorry, Joe. I never meant for any of this to happen."
     Fuming, he did not know what to say. Exhausted after all he had been through in the past couple of days, he squatted on the floor and leaned against the wall. Every step just got worse and worse. "Oh, did I tell you about the radiation? We've got to get out of here."
     "No kidding."
     With a frown, he turned away from Polly, listening intently. "Shhh." A faint hissing sound whispered through the air of the sealed room. "Do you hear that?"
     For the first time since he had charged into the chamber, Sky Captain took the time to look around them. Standing again, he picked up one of the kerosene lanterns and held it high. "Where are we anyway?"
     "I didn't have time to do much exploring, Joe. I had a knife to my throat."
     Hundreds of wooden crates, reinforced barrels, and riveted metal boxes were stacked to the ceiling of the cavernous room. He stepped toward one of the crates and Polly helped him pry open the lid. With a gloved hand, Sky Captain pushed packing straw aside to reveal neatly layered sticks of dynamite packed like sardines in a can.
     His eyes slowly panned the room with a look of dread at the sight of the hundreds of containers that surrounded them. Now he read the bold stenciled German words: SPRENGMITTEL and GEFAHR: DYNAMIT.
     "Does that say what I think it does?"
     Polly nodded. "This room is full of explosives."
     "Well, that's a little more immediate than back ground radiation." He let out another weary sigh. One of these days, he was going to have a lucky break.
     All around them, the hissing sound grew louder. The two of them scanned the large chamber. At the same time, they both saw a dozen lit fuses lining the wall, out of reach. Sparks rapidly climbed the strands and moved across the high ceiling toward the crates of explosives that filled the room.

episode 4 "THE FLYING FORTRESS"

     Sky Captain and Polly have tracked the mysterious radio signal to the treacherous mountains of Nepal...
     Trapped inside an ice cave filled with dynamite, Polly and Sky Captain have only seconds before the cave explodes.


     19

     A Final Confession
     Outrunning a Fireball
     A Reward for Treachery

     Even if they climbed the stacks of crates and barrels, and if Polly stood on his shoulders, Sky Captain knew they could never reach the fuses - certainly not in time. The crackling trail of flame raced along, eating up the fuse, sizzling toward the stored dynamite. Totenkopf had enough explosives here to blast away half the mountain... as they were sure to find out in a few minutes.
     Sky Captain and Polly ran to the thick metal door, hammering on it with their fists. "Kaji!"
     Among the equipment piled next to the gunpowder barrels, Sky Captain spotted a rusty pickax with a weathered handle. He grabbed it, hefting the tool in a heavy arc. "Move!"
     Polly ducked, and the pickax came down to strike the door with a bone-reverberating clang. Sky Captain shook his head to clear the ringing in his skull, then raised the tool and drove it down again and again. The sharp blade scored only a few shallow scratches on the armored hatch, nothing that qualified as so much as a dent. The tip of the rusty pickax bent upward, useless.
     In disgust, Sky Captain dropped the pickax and knelt to feel along the sides of the hatch, probing for some gap in the frame. He couldn't pry with his fingertips, but maybe he could cram his own knife into a crack and use it like a crowbar. Nothing. Frustrated, he pounded his fist against the metal.
     Polly lifted the lantern, swinging it around so she could search the walls, the floor, the ceiling. She hoped to find a ventilation shaft, a trapdoor, any means of escape, but quickly came to the realization that it was futile. "Joe? Just tell me something."
     Sky Captain spotted a stray stick of dynamite lying at the base of the gunpowder barrels. He ran over to grab it. Overhead, the fuses continued their inexorable burning.
     "In Nanjing" - she swallowed, not sure she wanted to know the answer - "You were running around on me with someone, weren't you?"
     "No, Polly." Sky Captain's voice was firm, though his attention was focused on the loose stick of dynamite and the knife he drew from his belt. "And this isn't really the time to talk about hurt feelings."
     Polly smiled, relieved. She seemed to forget about their danger. She would have given him a hug, but he was hammering and chipping at the floor with the blade tip.
     Sky Captain succeeded in boring a small hole into the ice near the doorjamb. "There, that should be deep enough." He wedged and twisted the dynamite into place, then thought better of using the whole stick. He broke the dynamite in half and screwed the partial stick into the hole again. Then he used his knife to shorten the fuse. He stepped back, pushed Polly behind him, and withdrew his trusty lighter.
     Coming out of her reverie, Polly saw what he meant to do. "Wait! What are you doing? As if there aren't enough -"
     With the small blue flame from the lighter, Sky Captain ignited the stubby fuse. "I'll explain later. We've got only a few seconds right now." He grabbed her, and the two of them dove for cover behind a stack of wooden crates.
     Polly saw that they had taken shelter behind more boxes of dynamite. "Oh good, we're safe."
     Against his better judgment, he put his arm around her, and a calm came over both of them. Unspoken words stuck in his throat, and at last he blurted, "Polly, listen, this may be our last moment together. Remember what you said about telling the truth with your final words? There's something I need to know."
     Polly leaned in closer, glad to be close to him. Like a nest of snakes, the fuses sputtered and burned closer to the tremendous detonation. "Yes?"
     "Did you... did you cut my fuel line?"
     Polly's face turned to rage. "Goddamn it, Joe! Why would you worry about something stupid at a time like this? I didn't sabotage your lousy airplane!"
     "Fine." He still didn't sound as if he believed her.
     "Our last moments in life, and this is all you have to say to me?" Polly shrugged away from him, suddenly seeming as cold as any glacier in the Himalayas.
     He heaved a huge sigh. "Could we just for once die without all the bickering?"
     Peeping around opposite sides of the piled crates, they watched as the fuse in the dynamite stick in the doorway burned down. Less than an inch remained. Despite themselves, Polly and Sky Captain looked at each other, then reluctantly drew together again to huddle for comfort.
     "I'm not sure this is going to work," he said. "But at least it's a plan."
     "At least it's a plan."
     They were resigned to their imminent death as the fuses burned down. When all seemed lost, they both heard a sound at the thick metal door. The locking wheel rotated with a rapid series of clicks, and the heavy hatch swung open.
     Kaji stood in the doorway, holding his lamp and grinning at them. "Ah, there you are, Captain Joe. And Miss Perkins. I have looked everywhere for you." He leaned inside. "Why have you locked this door?"
     Its fuse almost completely burned, the half stick of dynamite dislodged and rolled at his booted feet. The Sherpa looked down at the explosive, then at the other sparkling fuses, the boxes of dynamite everywhere. "Oh, my!"
     Bounding to their feet and racing for their lives Polly and Sky Captain almost knocked Kaji over as they exited. "Run!" Sky Captain grabbed the other man, and the three scrambled down the tunnel.
     Polly suddenly lurched to a stop and spun around. "Wait, my film! It's in the backpack!" She started back toward the chamber. Her pack lay against one of the dynamite crates.
     Sky Captain grabbed her by the arm and roughly pulled her back as if he were reeling in a fish. "Leave it! There's no time." He shoved her in front of him as all three of them sprinted toward the wide exit. They passed the drilling machines, the shadowy frozen prehistoric forms, the communication screens, and the uranium samples. Sky Captain had never run so fast in his entire life, and he was pleased to see Polly and Kaji keeping pace. Blue sky and cold air lay just in front of them.
     Inside the chamber, the first of the fuses finally reached the crates of explosives. It sputtered, fell silent for a brief moment, then erupted, the explosion igniting all the boxes nearby. Within fractions of a second, the flame front consumed and detonated the barrels of gunpowder. The chain reaction magnified the blast. The mine shaft did not merely explode; the ice and stone walls actually vaporized. Rock structures and ceilings collapsed. The mammoth mountainside began to sag under its own unsupported weight.
     A tremendous ball of fire rushed down the tunnels, incinerating everything in its path. Like a stampeding beast, the blast shot down the shaft, devouring walls, steel rails, and tilted ore cars.
     Sky Captain, Polly, and Kaji found themselves flung through the air by the outbound shockwave. As if they had been shot from a cannon, they flew until they dropped side by side into a deep snowdrift. Half buried in snow, the three companions ducked as a great wall of flame passed overhead.
     Roaring echoes from the explosion ricocheted around the Himalayan crags, triggering distant avalanches that tumbled into deep, uninhabited gorges far below. The long shadows of twilight began to blanket the barricaded mountain valley.
     Sky Captain could barely see in the dimness... or maybe his eyes or his head had been damaged. He sat up in the cold snow, his ears ringing. Was he half blinded? The angry rumbles continued as smoke and fire gushed into the thin air, and the worst noise subsided.
     With a gloved hand, he wiped a smear of blood and soot from his face, trying to orient himself again. Beside him, he saw a woman's shape sprawled on the drift, not moving. He feared the worst. "Polly!" His voice sounded strange and distant in his own ears.
     Dizzy, feeling the pulse pound inside his skull, he squinted into the white haze. The daylight seemed to be fading fast. He kept blinking.
     A faint glow of flickering torches came out of the murk, bobbing flames carried in a winding procession. As his vision grew even fuzzier, Sky Captain saw a line of strange-looking natives approaching from the windswept horizon. They were dressed in thick black garments embroidered with odd symbols. Sagging hoods concealed their faces. He thought it might be a hallucination brought about by hitting his head.
     As he began to pass out, Sky Captain reached weakly toward where Polly lay. He croaked out her name, but his voice was barely audible. He struggled in the soft snow, trying to move closer, but he finally dropped into unconsciousness...
     Holding up their torches, the natives gathered around the prone forms of Sky Captain, Polly, and Kaji. Without a word, they lifted the three figures, placed them on makeshift stretchers, then hoisted them up. Turning about in a smooth movement, the procession marched away into the frozen wilderness.

     On a perch overlooking the devastated mine, the mysterious woman stood hidden from view. Turning her opaque goggles toward the fading smoke and flames, she observed the group of black-robed strangers take their captives and march away into the isolated mountain fastness.
     They no longer concerned her.
     She looked down to her black-gloved hand, where she held the pair of stolen test tubes. She clinched them in her fist, then turned back to the Flying Wing that rested precariously on a mountain ledge. It was time to go.
     Without a downward glance, she stepped over the sprawled bodies of the two treacherous Sherpas, who lay facedown in a bloody patch of snow. Daggers had been driven through the men's backs with such force that they pierced their hearts and protruded from their chests. Soon, the frigid elements would destroy their bodies or scavengers would pick their bones clean.
     The mysterious woman boarded the Flying Wing, activated the whistling engines, and glided away, leaving the Himalayas behind.

20

     A Strange Procession
     An Awkward Awakening
     A Priest in Shangri-La

     Night set in on the cold mountain passes. Hidden valleys lay surrounded by imposing rock walls and impenetrable cornices of snow, gendarmes of stone.
     Though the black-robed natives carried torches, they did not need guidance. They picked their way down the winding slopes, carrying stretchers that bore Sky Captain, Polly, and Kaji.
     The silent natives followed a secret, instinctive path. As they neared the crest of a saddle, crossing through a keyhole notch of sharply angled stone, the hooded leader paused to stare down into the newly revealed valley. Dense and frosty mists formed a veritable smoke screen, but the swirling shroud began to clear, revealing an image not unlike a desert mirage.
     A surprisingly lush valley lay in the hazy distance. Sheltered on all sides by forbidding peaks, the secret valley was a feast of strange and heavenly beauty filled with flowing streams and orchards, stone monasteries and small huts adorned with colorful pennants. Beribboned prayer wheels on poles clacked in the breezes.
     "Shangri-La," the hooded leader muttered, as he always did when he returned to his secret home. The black-robed natives moved forward. Incredibly, as they entered the valley, the wind and snow did not follow them.
     Groaning on his stretcher, Sky Captain strained to open his eyes, trying to focus. He felt suddenly warm, calm, rested. He propped himself on one elbow and glanced behind him to the rear of the torch-carrying procession. Only a few feet away, a howling blizzard raged, but here the air was completely calm.
     In front of him lay a tranquil valley, mysterious and inviting. He strained, mumbling. "Shangri-La..." But then he fell into a deeper, more restful sleep.

     Golden sunlight bathed Polly's sleeping face in a warm glow. As she began to stir, languid and entirely at peace, she looked contented and beautiful. A smile inspired by gentle dreams curled her lips. She made a quiet, purring sound in her throat and snuggled deeper into the embroidered coverlet. With a sigh, she slowly fluttered her eyes open.
     Disoriented but not troubled, she stared at a ceiling made of interlocking tiles, colored with hypnotic designs unlike anything she had ever seen before. After a moment, an odd expression came over her face like the shadow of a thundercloud. She shifted her body underneath the coverings again, and she lifted the embroidered blanket to peek beneath them. Suddenly, her eyes grew large and she yanked the blanket tight against her body.
     "My clothes..."
     Wide-awake now, Polly pulled the blanket up to her neck as she scanned the room. She had no idea where she was, and she recognized none of her surroundings, she turned her head in the opposite direction, to the other side of the bed, where she found herself face-to-face with Sky Captain.
     From his bare shoulders - and especially from his mischievous grin - she guessed he was also naked. "Good morning, Polly."
     She yelped. "What are you doing? Get out of here! Get out!"
     He didn't move from the bed. Instead, he crossed his arms behind his head and lay back on the pillow. "Not unless you've got a pair of pants hidden under there. But I doubt it." His eyes twinkled. "Trust me, I already checked... thoroughly."
     Polly's eyes moved down Sky Captain's concealed body, mortified. She tried to figure out some way to escape. "You're not...?"
     "Naked? You can say it, Polly. For a plucky reporter, you seem to have trouble with certain words."
     "This isn't funny, Joe! What happened to us? Where are we? Who took our clothes?" Those were only the first few questions, but she could think of plenty more.
     Sky Captain smiled impishly. Self-conscious, Polly pulled the blanket closer against her own bare skin. "You're enjoying this! Stop looking at me like that."
     "Like what?"
     "Turn around, Joe. I'm not kidding. Turn around. Look the other way."
     Rolling his eyes, Sky Captain gave in. "Fine, fine."
     With a weary noise, he rolled over to the other side of the bed, where he found himself staring at Kaji. The burly Sherpa was also naked and staring back at him. "Hi, Captain Joe."
     Sky Captain barely had time to huddle under the covering again when the room's carved wooden door swung open. Sky Captain, Polly, and Kaji spun about, each holding the edge of the blanket tight to the neck.
     An imposing Kalacakra priest with a painted face stood over them. He wore jewelry of beaten gold and polished stones, and his expression was both implacable and beatific. Polly didn't know if they were going to get more answers now... or just more questions.
     Kaji moved his hands up to touch his forehead in silent greeting. As Sky Captain and Polly looked at him, the Sherpa nudged Sky Captain, who in turn elbowed Polly. Then Sky Captain and Polly touched their foreheads. The Himalayan priest looked at Sky Captain's bewildered face and smiled faintly.
     Polly turned to Kaji, whispering past Sky Captain on the bed, "Ask him what they did with our clothes."
     When the priest responded to Kaji's query, Kaji translated the other man's answer. "He says our clothes were burned."
     "Burned? Why?" Polly cried.
     "And that was my best leather jacket!" Sky Captain said.
     After another incomprehensible exchange, Kaji said, "He says the mine is poisonous, that our clothes were infected. Even his magic could not purify them."
     Sky Captain muttered, "The background radiation."
     Three more priests entered the room, carrying new clothes in neatly folded piles and plates of fresh, colorful food from the orchards and gardens of Shangri-La.
     Kaji continued. "He says they have arranged for a special porter to lead us back down the mountain, to where we belong. He will take us there once we have dressed."
     Sky Captain acknowledged the priest, but spoke to Kaji. "Tell him we appreciate his offer, and everything he's done so far, but explain to him that we're looking for a man. That's what brought us here."
     Kaji spoke to the priest, who gave a brusque answer before turning to the carved wooden door. The Sherpa looked sadly at Sky Captain. "He insists that we must leave before dark, that there is nothing more he can do for us."
     The Kalacakra priest stepped through the door, not interested in looking at the three outsiders again, but Sky Captain sat up in the bed. "Tell that priest it's very important we find him."
     Kaji translated quickly, but the priest continued through the door and started to swing it shut.
     "Tell him the man's name is Totenkopf."
     The painted priest froze in his tracks, reacting to the word. "Totenkopf?" Slowly, he fixed an ominous gaze on Sky Captain.
     The priest spoke sharply, and Kaji translated. "He asks what you want with this man."
     Sky Captain leaned forward, not caring that the blanket fell down to his waist. He looked at the priest, intense. "I've come to kill him."
     The Kalacakra priest looked at Sky Captain, but his painted face betrayed no emotion. Kaji translated again when the man finally spoke. "Then he says he will help you."