They finally made it to the middle of the span, where the bridge drooped and the half-rotted planks were covered with slick moss from the waterfall mist. Then they both froze as they heard the horrible, hungry screech of the giant flying creature again. The mother bird had been circling high, out of sight far above, but now it spotted them.
Polly raised her camera to snap off a shot, but found herself wobbling without holding on to the support ropes. She stopped herself again, convinced she was bound to see something even more spectacular on this island of monsters. "Damn." Besides, she didn't want to risk dropping her camera into the deep river gorge.
The monstrous bird let out another call and began its predatory dive.
Wasting no time, Sky Captain grabbed Polly's hand, practically yanking her arm out of its socket. "Come on! Run!" They bounded across the fragile, splintering planks, racing for the other side.
But the flying creature was too fast. They would never get to the end of the bridge. Sky Captain pulled Polly, and both of them sprawled facedown on the rickety wooden slats, staring with wide eyes at the dizzying plunge below.
Sky Captain held on, then grabbed frantically for his pistol in its holster. His fingers just brushed the weapon before it dropped through a wide crack in the slats and tumbled from the bridge. The blue steel glinted as it dropped, finally splashing into the river far below.
The monster bird slashed with its talons, and Sky Captain protectively covered Polly's back. The bridge's support ropes foiled the attack, and the whole structure thrummed as the claws hit it. The shrieking monster bird flew past the bridge, its enormous wings beating the air. It banked and began to circle around, coming back for them.
After being struck by the talons, one of the ropes nearly snapped. Sky Captain scrambled to his knees, dragging Polly with him. "We've got to get to the other side!"
But Polly pulled her arm free and turned around. "Not yet!" She spied her camera dangling by its leather strap from one of the splintered planks. "Don't you make the bridge bounce, Joe Sullivan, or I'll lose my camera."
The side rope had frayed to a thread, only an instant away from snapping. Sky Captain reddened. "Just leave it!"
The monster bird flapped toward them, its curved beak open wide to snap them up as a single morsel.
He lurched back and grabbed Polly by the hand just as she snagged the camera strap. Grinning with the camera in her hand, she did not resist as Sky Captain pulled her roughly across the bridge. With their last bit of energy, they threw themselves to the solid canyon rim just as the rope snapped. The bridge rotated, dangling by only a single strand now. Dozens of loose planks spilled out, tumbling like autumn leaves into the frothing river far below.
The two sprawled on the ground, covered with mud, but they were still too exposed. Sky Captain dragged Polly into a cluttered thicket, where they huddled under the interlocking branches and vines. The giant bird swooped past them with an angry cry, foiled again.
Polly cradled the camera, smiling, while Sky Captain collapsed in an exhausted heap. He looked at her, apoplectic. "Are you insane? Have you completely lost your mind? You could have gotten us killed, and all for a stupid camera!"
"It's not stupid. This camera is very important to me. So important that — " Then, as she looked at it, Polly's blue eyes filled with tears.
Sky Captain's anger washed away. He had always found it fundamentally impossible to endure a woman crying… especially a woman like Polly Perkins. He heaved a sigh. "It's okay, Polly."
Her expression was totally forlorn as she looked at the camera. "No… it isn't. You can never understand."
"Sorry… really I am. I didn't mean to…"
Polly whirled, blurting out her misery. "I… I shot the ground!"
Now he was even more baffled. "What?"
She held up the camera. "When I was running from the bird! Of all the things we've seen, all the impossible creatures on this island, I shot the ground!" She started to cry harder now. "I wasted a picture!"
Sky Captain couldn't stop himself from breaking into a smile. He tried to hide his amusement by starting forward out of the thicket, but she noticed. "It's not funny, Joe! I have one shot left! One shot!"
Sky Captain didn't answer her, but continued to chuckle quietly as he forged a new path into the uncharted jungle. They still had a long way to go and plenty of work to do until they found the stronghold of Dr. Totenkopf. Sullenly, Polly trudged along after him, stumbling on roots and muttering to herself.
As he chopped through the thick jungle brush and plowed into another rough thicket, he glanced back to see if Polly was all right. She was carefully nursing her camera. "What is it with you and that stupid camera anyway?"
Polly looked at him with quiet sincerity. She didn't seem to want to answer, then finally said in a small voice, "You gave it to me."
Sky Captain felt a warm flush creep up his cheeks. At the moment it seemed very important to continue clearing their trail. With great gusto, he whacked at a particularly tough tangle of vines.
"You don't even remember, do you?" Polly asked. "You were flying for the American volunteers in Nanjing. I was covering the evacuation of Shanghai."
"I remember," Sky Captain said quietly. "Tojo Hideki in his bathrobe."
There was more silence between them as he continued to find weeds and vines to chop, even when they weren't necessarily in the way.
"Joe, just tell me the truth. I don't care either way, I swear. I just want to know. The girl in Nanjing… it was Franky Cook, wasn't it?"
Sky Captain stopped and turned around. His expression had a hangdog, defeated look. "Polly…"
"How long were you seeing her? Just tell me. It really doesn't matter to me."
Sky Captain thrust the machete into the soft ground so that he could put both of his hands on her shoulders. He leaned close and put all the sincerity he could force into his voice. "Polly, look into my eyes. I never fooled around on you. Never."
Polly paused, then relinquished the secret she had held for so long. "I sabotaged your plane," she said defiantly.
The statement received the reaction she'd anticipated. "Three months," Sky Captain blurted, furious.
Instantly, she turned on him. "I knew it! You lousy — "
He grabbed her and clapped his hand over her mouth, muffling her rant. "Shhh! Look." His eyes flashed as he became all business again. "He's here."
Polly's expression fell, and her indignant anger disappeared as swiftly as it had come. In the yellow light of afternoon sun, she saw a hazy construction in the distance, a giant stony fortress carved into the face of a volcanic mountain.
Totenkopf.
30
A Sinister Fortress. A Grand Construction Site. Totenkopf's Ark
Dusk had fallen by the time Sky Captain and Polly made their way through the primeval jungles to Totenkopf's fortress. Together, they moved through ferns and thorny scrub to reach the gate of the ominous stronghold. Sky Captain kept watching the skies for other giant prehistoric birds, but the jungle provided sufficient cover. The only large creatures they heard nearby fled crashing through the foliage.
"It must be instinct that they've learned to fear humans," Polly said, watching the scaly back of a large reptile as it lumbered away in a panic.
"Not just any humans," Sky Captain said. "Dr. Totenkopf."
The terrain leveled off closer to the looming fortress, and they picked up the pace. Polly tripped, sprawling into a shallow trench that had been scooped out of the ground. Sky Captain extended his hand for her, then froze.
Polly picked herself up and tried to regain her composure. "No, thanks. I don't need any help," she said. "Why would Totenkopf have slaves dig useless ditches out here in the middle of nowhere?"
"Not a ditch, Polly." Sky Captain continued to stare in disbelief. "It's a claw mark, gouged into the earth."
She followed his gaze to the nearby skeleton of a giant creature looming over them. Its yellowed bones were the size of logs, a
nd curved fangs from a long skull implied how ferocious the thing must have been in life. She saw a spiked collar and enormous shackles that had chained the monster to the front gate. "It must have been some sort of guard dog."
"Well, somebody forgot to feed him." He picked his way past the slumped skeleton. "Lucky for us." He saw the dark entrance that the monster had once guarded. "Through there."
Polly stopped. "Look, there's a second chain, leading… over…" Her words faltered as she watched the heavy shackles begin to move. The chain curled around behind a mound of boulders deeper inside the entry passage. The links clanked together, and something large snorted and growled as it moved toward the two.
For just an instant, Polly and Sky Captain held their breath. "If there's a second one, it's probably hungry," Sky Captain pointed out.
They exchanged an apprehensive glance. Then Sky Captain saw a trail of steam escaping from a narrow crevice in the mountain wall, not far from the entry tunnel. "Through here. It probably leads inside, too."
Polly nodded. "And it has the advantage of being too narrow for one of those guard things." As the growls grew louder and chuffing breath came toward them, they quickly disappeared into the crevice.
They pushed forward into the blackness. Sky Captain reached into his pocket and pulled out his trusty lighter. He held up the small flame to shine light into the cramped passage.
As they crept onward, a reddish glow came from ahead. Polly put her hand on Sky Captain's shoulder.
"Do you hear that?" In the distance, deeper inside the mountain, powerful machinery thrummed and pounded faintly.
"It's coming from that chamber." The glow grew brighter, and the walls and floor vibrated from the industrial din. A ruddy haze rose from a ventilation shaft drilled through the cave floor.
"Only one way in." He kicked off the grate covering the ventilation shaft and lowered himself until he could drop below to the next level. He lifted his hands to help Polly down. "Come on, I'll catch you."
She looked at his outstretched arms, wondering just how safe she felt around this man, and then let herself drop. He swung Polly to the stone floor without holding her for a second longer than was absolutely necessary. As she straightened her clothes, Sky Captain was already edging his way to a rocky ledge that opened into a massive cavern. Polly caught up with him and stopped to stare at the incredible panorama. Once again, she wished she had more film. A lot more.
Though it was dazzlingly illuminated with harsh lightbulbs, the interior of Totenkopf's industrial fortress stretched on into vague dimness in all directions. The sloping, rocky ceiling rose at least six hundred feet above their heads.
"There it is," Sky Captain said. "I never would have believed…"
The center of the huge cavern was filled with a towering rocket ship under construction. The enormous cylinder rose from one stage to the next to the next, surrounded by catwalks, lift platforms, and scaffolding. The heavy rivets of the rocket's hull plating looked like tiny specks, conveying the enormity of the construction. Prominent on the side of the rocket, Totenkopf's winged skull emblem leered out at them.
"It must be at least as tall as the Empire State Building," Polly said.
"I've never seen the like. No one has."
Polly had expected to see slave workers like the hideously deformed man from the Shangri-La uranium mines. Instead, every aspect of the construction process was automated. Robots in jet packs buzzed like insects around the structure. Machines of every size and description operated heavy equipment. Hovering freight transports passed below, loading the storage chambers of the immense missile with crates, supplies, fuel.
Totenkopf had built a vast automated facility for ship construction and maintenance. Its scale and complexity staggered the imagination — a place for the manufacture of the enormous robot monsters that had terrorized Manhattan and other cities around the world, as well as the squadrons of Flying Wings and the undersea crabwalker robots.
Giant gears turned in synchronized harmony, like the precision works of a massive clock. Stamping presses turned sheet metal into specialized components. Sparks flew from armies of robotic arc welders. More and more of the mechanical titans were assembled, hour after hour, day after day, without stop.
Down on the floor of the chamber, boxcars on rails delivered row after row of caged animals. Even from so far away, Sky Captain and Polly could discern elephants, horses, camels, lions. Robots removed the animal cages from the railcars, and heavy lifting machines methodically loaded the specimens inside the rocket ship. The train looped around to pick up another load of cages.
Sky Captain's brow furrowed. "What is he doing with all those animals? Does Totenkopf want a private zoo?"
Polly studied the cages more closely. Two by two. Thousands of them. A look of realization crossed her face. "My God, Joe, it's an ark! He's building an ark."
On impulse, she raised the camera. She tried to frame the best photograph to could show the awe-inspiring complex. Everything was so huge, so breathtaking. Even with her own eyes and her imagination, she couldn't encompass it all, and it certainly wouldn't fit in a single frame. She stared through the viewfinder, but when she was about to snap the picture, she slowly lowered the camera with a sigh.
Sky Captain looked at her and then to the towering rocket in disbelief. "What are you doing?" The robot laborers continued their diligent work. Railcars delivered another load of animal breeding pairs. "You honestly think you're going to find something more important than Earth creatures being led two by two inside a giant rocket ship?"
"I just might."
"Like what?"
"I'll know it when I see it," Polly said. "After what we've been through so far, you shouldn't be so skeptical."
A harsh voice blared over a loudspeaker system in German. The words themselves sounded metallic. Sky Captain turned to Polly. "Do you understand any of what it's saying?"
A look of grim realization crossed her face. "Sounds like they've started a countdown."
They exchanged an ominous glance. "We're not a moment too soon." Then Sky Captain spied a catwalk just below their ledge. It appeared to lead deeper inside the labyrinth. "We've got to find Totenkopf. Follow me."
"All right, Joe. But we have to be quiet. We don't want any of those robots to hear us." As Polly moved behind him, her foot kicked a small rock, which dropped off the side of the ledge. It clanged loudly as it bounced off, falling for what seemed like an eternity, careening against catwalks and ductwork. The echoes continued to ring out until the loose stone hit the steel-plated floor with a final resonating boom.
Sky Captain looked at her, stunned. "You've got a gift. An absolute gift."
Polly swallowed hard and looked at him, apologetic. Her shoulders gave the briefest shrug.
Below them, all the machines stopped. Robot workers hovered in their jet packs, turning toward the distant ledge. The construction around the rocket became eerily quiet. Only the impatient trumpeting of a caged elephant broke the tense moment.
"Don't move," whispered Sky Captain. "Maybe they won't see us."
When they heard a noise from behind, the two of them spun around to see the mysterious woman they had encountered in Dr. Jennings' laboratory. The dark-clad woman stepped forward, pointing a strange weapon at them.
Sky Captain could barely react before the woman clobbered him on the chin. He was knocked sprawling backward to the ground, stunned. He gripped his ribs and muttered, "That… hurt."
Polly dropped next to him on the ledge, then stood indignantly to protect him. "What did you do to him? You leave him alone! You — "
The mysterious woman did not utter a word as she calmly stepped closer. She raised a small device and depressed a button. Then a brilliant flash of electrical discharge enveloped Sky Captain and Polly.
31
Treated like Garbage. A Happy Reunion. A New Utopia
When Sky Captain awoke with a groan, he found Polly next to him, her body pressed intimately close. H
e smiled briefly, but then he noticed that his hands were tied above his head. So were hers. Sky Captain struggled to swivel his shoulders, turning his face so that it was only inches from Polly's.
Her eyes were already wide and blinking at him. "Why does this keep happening to us, Joe?"
"At least you managed to keep your pants on this time," Sky Captain said.
"Not funny."
"Neither is the end of the world." Around them, echoing through the walls and reverberating through the floor, came the sounds of heavy machinery and hissing steam. Dr. Totenkopf's diabolical plans continued without rest.
Sky Captain recalled the cages of animals they had seen from their high vantage: male and female, two by two. He was struck with a horrible thought, but didn't dare speak it aloud, knowing what Polly would say. What if the mad genius intended the two of them to be breeding specimens as well? Sky Captain squirmed, pulling at the chains that bound his hands.
His body ached, his head pounded, and he found it difficult to focus his eyes. He wondered what kind of stun ray the mysterious woman had used. If they ever managed to rescue Dex, he would probably want one of them for his lab.
Sky Captain yanked hard, hoping to tear the iron manacles loose or to slip his hands through the clamps, but he succeeded only in scraping his wrists raw. Exhausted, he sagged.
Polly looked around her in the small chamber that held them. The metal walls continued to vibrate. "Where are we?"
"You'd think with the grand scale of everything he does, Totenkopf could have given us a larger prison cell." He kicked at the wall. "This place is barely larger than a closet!"
"Or your cockpit."
Sky Captain strained his head to catch a glimpse through a narrow opening. The walls lurched as if in a powerful, localized earthquake, swinging Polly against him.
"We're moving." He could see the tall rocket framed in the distance. They were on the floor of the vast construction room, lurching along, being taken somewhere. "This isn't a cell, it's some kind of container."
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow Page 16