Sky Captain and the World 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 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.