Sky Captain responded with a teasing frown. "I think they burned the wrong clothes."
Polly crossed her arms over her chest. "You told me I couldn't bring anything else."
He continued to inspect the heavy cloth of her garment, pursing his lips. "What is that anyway? Some kind of horse blanket?"
"I think it's beautiful."
"You look like a woolly mammoth."
"You're an idiot."
Smiling, he brushed past her. "It'll have to do, if that's all you've got to wear. Come on. They're waiting for us."
Not knowing if he was teasing or serious, Polly followed him.
Sky Captain, Polly, and Kaji strolled along beside the painted Kalacakra priest through a garden path that cut through the center of the village. The outsiders feasted their eyes on the grandeur of the place, overwhelmed by the strangeness.
Remembering her job as a reporter, Polly withdrew her camera, ready to document the amazing scenery of Shangri-La. "No one in the civilized world has ever seen anything like this." But when she checked the camera's exposure counter, her face went white.
"This can't be happening. I only have two shots left! I used up the rest of the pictures during our flight across the Himalayas, and my spare rolls of film were destroyed in the explosion! Everything I had was in that bag." She glared at Sky Captain. "You should have let me go back for my film!"
"You're right. I should have," he said, annoyed.
Polly stared forlornly at her camera. "We're in Shangri-La, and all I have is two shots!" In a daze, she continued walking behind the priest through the garden path.
Sky Captain whispered to Kaji, "That priest looks even grimmer than usual. Where is he taking us?"
The Sherpa seemed uneasy. "To what remains of Totenkopf's laboratory."
Polly finally caught up. "Totenkopf was here? In Shangri-La?"
"I don't think they liked him very much," Sky Captain said.
The Kalacakra priest stopped and motioned to the steep and narrow steps leading up to an ancient lamasery. Polly, Sky Captain, and Kaji followed him up the marble stairway. Grief and anger filled the priest's painted face.
Polly kept close to Sky Captain as they stepped into what had once been a sacred place. Everywhere she looked around the ancient temple, she saw scars and signs of abuse, defaced carvings, beautiful architecture now augmented with thick cables, heavy equipment, and foreign technology. The holy lamasery had been forcibly converted into a makeshift laboratory.
A steel plate bearing the emblem of the winged skull had been torn from the wall and left to rust on the dusty floor. The priest muttered angrily, and Kaji cocked his ear to listen. "He says this place is now tainted. But eventually, they will make it pure again."
The remnants of the crude lab seemed as frozen in time as the heavy mining operation in the mountains. Glass retorts, burners, specimen chambers, and electrical generators had lain neglected for years. The remains of deformed skeletons were on stained operating tables, still strapped down. Their toothy jaws gaped open, twisted in agony. Rotting creatures hung suspended in oily fluids. Tubes ran from batteries into scum-clogged tanks.
The silence and the musty smell of death made Polly turn away. "What happened here?"
Kaji translated for the priest. "He says Totenkopf enslaved the people of Shangri-La, made them work in his mine outside the valley. It was a terrible time. The workers all became sick, because the rocks in the mine were poisonous." The Sherpa nodded wisely. "Captain Joe showed me on his Geiger counter."
Then he listened as the priest continued his story. "Those workers who did not die from the radiation in the mines were brought here for Totenkopf to study. He used them for his unspeakable experiments."
Sky Captain and Polly looked at the deformed skeletons sprawled on the dissection tables. She moved closer to him.
"Mercifully, they did not live long," Kaji said.
Sky Captain balled his fists in anger. "Where is he? Kaji, ask him where Totenkopf is. What happened to him?" From the dust and silence all around, it was clear the evil genius had not been here for some time.
"The priest does not know — only that Totenkopf has been gone for many years now." He swept his hands to indicate the horrific laboratory. "This tainted lamasery is all that remains of his terrible legacy."
Polly looked sharply at Sky Captain. "Joe, Totenkopf must have led us here on purpose. Even though this place isn't significant to his plans, he knew we'd come after Dex and bring the vials straight to him."
"He has them now. All we've done is buy him time," Sky Captain grumbled. He was already impatient to go.
"There has to be something more." Polly turned to Kaji. "Isn't there anyone left? There must be someone we can talk to."
The angry priest stared bleakly around the remnants of the lab, then fought back tears in his eyes as he spoke in Nepalese. Kaji relayed the message. "You are right, Miss Perkins. One man lives: the last of Totenkopf's slaves. Perhaps he can help."
Sky Captain looked directly at the priest in the dim chamber of horrors. "Take me to him."
Inside one of the small shelters in the valley, a low fire shed orange light and the aromatic smell of sweet smoke. Perched on a small table, an antique wind-up phonograph played a scratchy recording of a Marlene Dietrich song.
Night had fallen outside, and a glorious panorama of stars looked like a fortune of diamonds in the sky, undimmed by clouds or city lights. After a polite knock on the edge of the door, the Kalacakra priest pushed a cloth hanging aside and gestured the companions inside. A croaking sound from the shadows conveyed a rasping welcome.
Sky Captain ducked as he entered, glancing around in the firelight. In one corner a miserable old man lay stretched on a modest cot. Wrapped in a blanket, he kept himself in the gloom. He shuddered even though the fire warmed the dwelling. When the visitors came into the room, the old man turned to face the wall, hiding his features, as if he was ashamed or afraid.
The intense priest encouraged them to step over to the cot. He bent to touch a swollen, twisted hand resting on the wrinkled blankets covering the old man's chest.
Polly knelt beside the cot, her face full of empathy and concern. Anxious to be after his quarry, Sky Captain turned to Kaji. "Ask him if he knows what happened to Totenkopf. Tell him it's important we find him. If he's the last survivor of the mine, maybe he knows something."
While the priest stood watching, Kaji bent over the huddled old man and spoke. After a moment a faint, weak voice replied. The words sounded watery, as if the man's lungs had dissolved.
The Sherpa seemed ill at ease as he replied. "He wants to know why… why do you seek Totenkopf?"
Sky Captain squared his jaw. "Tell him I've come to make Totenkopf pay for what he's done. To stop him from ever doing this again." Though the old man heard the steely determination in the pilot's voice, he refused to show himself in the orange firelight.
Kaji bent closer to the cot with clear reluctance, but he repeated Sky Captain's promise. After a moment, with a pain-racked wheeze, the gnarled form lifted a crippled hand. He extended a finger that looked like the branch of a wind-bent pine. He pointed toward the corner, where a short walking staff leaned against the wall.
"His cane? Is he asking for his cane?" Sky Captain took a step to retrieve it.
On his cot, the wretch continued to speak in a barely audible wheeze. Kaji translated as best he could. "He says to follow… Rana. That staff will lead you there. It will lead you to Totenkopf."
Sky Captain lifted the cane, turning it under the firelight, but he remained puzzled. Polly leaned close, also curious. The staff was unremarkable, about three feet long and topped with a T-shaped handle. The wood was dark and smooth, polished from years of palm sweat.
He turned to Kaji. "Rana? I don't understand. Tell him I don't understand."
Kaji tried again, but shook his head. "He says the same thing, Captain Joe. 'Follow Rana to the great cliffs of Bajarin. The staff will lead you.'"
"That do
esn't make any sense." Sky Captain sifted through his knowledge, remembering all the terrain maps and nautical charts he had memorized over the years. Even at that time, in the twentieth century, much of the Himalayan plateau remained a question mark of geography. Shangri-La was mysterious and secret, but at least he had heard of it.
But… Rana? The great cliffs of Bajarin? "There's no such place," Sky Captain said.
The old man began to speak again, mumbling something barely audible. He sounded more urgent, desperate. Kaji turned to Sky Captain and Polly. "I can't get him to explain further. However, the man says now that he has helped you, you must do something for him. Something important."
"Of course. Anything." With a determined expression, Sky Captain leaned close to the man on the shadowy cot. "What do you want of me?"
With a surprisingly swift motion, the old wretch reached out and grabbed the pilot's leather jacket, desperately pulling Sky Captain closer. The last survivor of Totenkopf's mines held on to him and raised himself into the light.
Polly gasped, and Sky Captain could only stare. The old man no longer looked human. His face had been twisted like a mask made of melted wax. His eyelids sagged. His lips hung open and he drooled thick greenish spittle. The monster's forehead was sunken as if his skull had half-dissolved, and breath whistled in and out of three craterlike nostrils. On the horribly disfigured face, Sky Captain saw an unending nightmare of pain and suffering.
With an inhuman warbling voice, the man gasped urgently in Sky Captain's ear. He didn't need Kaji to translate the old man's morbid plea: "Kill me."
22
A Star to Steer By. A Destination Revealed. The Point of No Return
Leaving Shangri-La behind, Sky Captain took to the air again. As his P-40 raced across the frozen lake at the base camp, gaining takeoff speed, the landing gear kissed the ice one last time and then the plane rose into the sky.
From the ground, Kaji waved good-bye with his mittened hands, and Sky Captain signaled back by tilting the plane's wings. In the rear of the cockpit, Polly hung on.
The Warhawk soared over the snowy peaks of the Himalayas. Sunlight glinted off the breathtaking landscape. Polly and Sky Captain sat quietly, surrounded by the low hum of the engine. Despite the awesome view, neither of them was interested in sightseeing.
In the back, Polly held the wooden staff the hideous wretch had given them. She turned it in her hands, feeling the polished surface and looking for clues. Despite their urgings, the old man had not been able to give them any useful information. The unusual staff seemed a futile tool for finding Totenkopf — or for rescuing Dex.
Polly brought the staff closer, trying to decipher strange markings. "Joe, did you look at this?"
"I looked at it, Polly. It's a stick."
"Not if you look closely." She ran her index finger along the staff, touching the little notches with her nail. "It's got marks on it. Very precise. Like a ruler." She inspected the T-shaped top of the staff and discovered two faint engraved pictures. "And there's a moon carved here and a picture of a star. The symbols must mean something. Can they guide us to this place he called Rana?"
Sky Captain drew a quick breath and clapped a hand to his forehead. "Rana, of course! I was so focused on maps and destinations that I didn't think of the obvious!" He grinned as he remembered the line from a John Masefield poem: And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by…
Sky Captain was suddenly all business. "A star! The old man wasn't describing a place. He was describing a star. In their mythology and astronomy, Rana is a star. That's it."
Polly leaned forward, affected by his excitement and hope. After their bickering and the hurtful things they had said to each other, she was glad to feel this shared moment of closeness.
As he casually monitored the cockpit controls, he remained oblivious to her, working out the puzzle in his mind. "Ancient sailors used to navigate by the night sky. They could determine their position by the moon and the stars." He reached over his shoulder to take the staff from Polly. There was barely room for her to hand him the stick in the crowded cockpit.
Guiding the plane with one hand, he studied the staff with newfound interest. "The Vikings were known to create maps for certain stars, latitude tables that required a key to decipher them. They called the key a Jacob's Staff." He lifted the old man's cane, looking over his shoulder to show Polly. "This has to be the key. That's why it was so important to him."
Sky Captain shifted his legs to gain more room in the front of the cockpit so that he could manage to hold the staff up to one eye like a wooden telescope. When he pulled the T-shaped handle toward him, an inner shaft extended from the main stick, moving freely like a trombone slide. "Very sophisticated! Why didn't we notice this before?" He made a scornful noise at himself. "Because I thought those people were just primitives in an uncivilized land — that's why."
As he studied the symbols and graduated markings, Polly also grew excited. "You mean this can really work? We can find Totenkopf — and Dex — with that thing?"
The plane flew along, drifting only slightly in the high air currents. The entire vault of the sky was empty, all theirs to explore. After glancing up to make sure their heading was steady, Sky Captain rummaged through the document pouches beside his left leg. He pulled out his navigation charts and a copy of The Nautical Almanac. "Ah, here's what I need."
Polly was surprised it would be so easy. "You can just look up the position of Rana?"
He held up the book. "We do it a little different now. All we needed to know was where to look."
The Warhawk soared along, guided by the new autopilot system Dex had installed. During the long journey from the Flying Legion base to the Himalayas, Sky Captain had made good use of the system. Now, the autopilot allowed him the time and concentration to figure out his navigation problem.
He unfolded a map and spread it on the cockpit gauges in front of him. He rested a small notebook on his knee, scribbling calculations in pencil." Using the Karakal Plateau as our assumed position" — he paused to consult the Almanac — "Rena is at latitude twenty degrees forty minutes. Right ascension zero three hours, forty-three minutes. Declination ten degrees six seconds." Using his fingers and a straight edge, Sky Captain drew a line across the center of the map. He double-checked his calculations, then smiled as he circled the end point of the line. "There it is."
Polly leaned close to see, but the line did not cross any land. The chart showed only an endless expanse of water. "There's nothing there, Joe. Are you sure you did it right?"
"Yes, I'm sure." He stared at the map. "If the old man was right, then Totenkopf is here. Dead center in the middle of nowhere."
"Sounds appropriate, I guess."
Neither of them wanted to suggest that the disfigured old wretch, poisoned and tormented after years of slavery inside the radiation-contaminated mines, might have been delirious, misguided… or just wrong.
Sky Captain drew a second line parallel to the first, only half the length of the other line. His shoulders slumped. "Remember, you were worried about running out of film for your camera?" He circled the end point of the shorter line. "It seems we've got a worse problem."
"Why?" Polly looked at the chart, curious. "What's that point mean?"
"That's where we run out of fuel." He began to sort through a series of charts. "The point of no return."
"The point of crashing into the ocean, you mean." She couldn't see the fuel gauge behind the scattered charts and maps. "And where are we now?"
"Almost on empty."
Alarmed, Polly sat back. "So what do we do? How do we get all the way to Totenkopf's base?"
Sky Captain's face remained an expressionless mask as he studied his charts, trying to think of a solution. Then a smile blossomed on his face. "Ah! Franky."
"Who?" Polly said.
"Franky Cook, an old buddy of mine." From the pouch at his feet, Sky Captain selected another map and spread it out on top of the first. "Runs a mobi
le reconnaissance outpost for the Royal Navy. Top secret, but it can't be more than a few hundred miles from here."
Polly tried not to show her relief. She still couldn't see the P-40's fuel gauge, though she thought the droning engines had begun to sound the slightest bit unsteady. "That'll do the trick."
Sky Captain shuffled the charts away from his cockpit controls and flipped open a small metal covering that hid a telegraph key. "If I can get a message to them, I might be able to arrange a rendezvous at those coordinates." Briskly, he tapped the key, sending out the clear and familiar tones of Morse code. When he finished his brief transmission, he flexed his fingers, then began the rapid-fire signaling again.
"What if they don't get the message?" Polly asked. "You're cutting it awfully close."
Briefly, Sky Captain thought about commenting that the extra weight of a certain uninvited female reporter had cut down on the distance the Warhawk could fly, but he kept his words to himself.
"Franky's never let me down. They'll be there." He could feel Polly looking at him with deep skepticism, so he repeated, "They'll be there."
23
Running on Empty. Manta Station. An Attack in the Clouds
An hour later, Sky Captain consulted the map that filled the small cockpit. He remained calm and brusque, but he couldn't hide his anxiety. Luckily, the paper charts obscured the warning indicator light on his fuel gauge. He checked his bearings, verified the plane's position, and peered into the cloud-studded expanse, searching. He did not see what he was looking for.
So close that he could feel her warm breath on his neck, Polly leaned forward to see the cockpit controls. One of the maps slid askew in the bumpy turbulence, and she spotted the warning indicator light. The gas-level needle had dipped far into the red. "Is that light supposed to be on?"
"Now you're worried about fuel?" he muttered. "Why didn't you think of that in Nanjing before cutting my line?"
She didn't hear him over the sputtering drone of the engine. "What did you say?"
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