Kevin Anderson - Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

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?"

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?"