Kevin Anderson - Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

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 doesn'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."

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?"