"Anderson, K.J. - Sky Captin and the World of Tomorrow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Kevin J)

Without telling Sky Captain what she intended to do, Polly strode directly to the cabinet and pulled open one of the loose doors. She blinked in disbelief, then raised her camera.
The cabinet held shelf upon shelf of glass jars. Tiny skeletons floated in embalming fluid, showing alien body shapes she had never seen before. "Looks like the remnants of aborted experiments."
Then she saw something move, barely more than a shadow at the bottom of the cabinet. On the lowest shelf, Polly found another glass container - that one holding a live specimen. She couldn't believe her eyes: a living, breathing elephant no larger than a bar of soap drank from a miniaturized trough. It lifted its trunk and let out a tinny bellow, like a child tooting a plastic whistle.
Beside her, Sky Captain knelt to stare at the tiny creature. He turned to her as if she was somehow to blame. "All right, Polly - no more games. Tell me what the hell is going on."
She shrugged. "I was hoping you could tell me. Dr. Jennings wasn't very talkative during our brief interview."
As the miniature elephant paced inside its doll-sized cage, Polly's eyes moved upward, hungry for explanations. She screamed and immediately regretted having done it in front of Sky Captain.
A man emerged from a hiding place among the ransacked furniture, staggering forward. He was much more haggard-looking than she had seen him in Radio City Music Hall. "It's Jennings!"
The scientist had a dazed look on his face as he stumbled toward them, his hands outstretched in a wordless plea. Sky Captain reacted quickly as Jennings collapsed into his arms. "Got you!"
He eased the scientist down to the cluttered floor, turning the other man's body to reveal a knife buried deep between his shoulder blades. Thick, fresh blood soaked the woolen fabric of his brown suit. His gold-rimmed glasses were askew on his pasty face.
Dr. Jennings looked up, struggling to speak. With one hand, he clutched the zipper of the pilot's leather jacket. His voice was weak, barely audible. "You must stop him..."
Sky Captain and Polly froze as they heard a stealthy noise in an upstairs room. Letting Polly support the dying scientist's head and shoulders, Sky Captain got back to his feet but remained in a wary crouch. "Stay here. Maybe we're not too late after all."
Someone was moving quickly in the other room. He heard the sound of a window opening, the scrape of a wooden frame moving in the sash. He ran up the staircase and through the door into a smaller office. He arrived just in time to see the blur of a black-garbed figure climbing out the open window.
"Stop!" Sky Captain lunged to grab the shadowy figure by the arm. With a vicious tug on the fabric sleeve, he spun the stranger around and found himself face-to-face with a stunning woman. Her face was perfect, her lips a dark ruby red. Her eyes were covered by large, round glasses with opaque lenses. It didn't seem possible that she could see through them.
She wasn't what Sky Captain had expected at all. He loosed his grip, surprised. "Listen, I don't want to hurt you -"
The dark woman moved with unbelievable speed, striking him with a backhand that had the force of a catapult. The blow knocked him against the wall, cracking plaster. Reeling, he slid to the floor, his legs turning into noodles. Sky Captain grabbed the back of his head and silently mouthed, "Owww."
Before he could scramble to his feet, the strange and murderous woman leaped to the window again. Ignoring the hammers inside his skull, Sky Captain dove after her, managing to catch her wrist just as she jumped. His hand accidentally hit the window latch, which caused the window to drop with a thud. The pane of glass shattered, and he was forced to let go, ducking to avoid the flying shards. "Damn!"
Anxious, he leaned through the empty frame. The black-swathed woman landed with uncanny grace in the alleyway below, bent her knees for the briefest pause, then sprinted with lightning speed around the corner. She was gone in a flash.
With a disappointed sigh, Sky Captain withdrew from the window. "What the hell is going on?" He wondered what excuse he could tell Polly. His head still throbbed, and he could feel a few cuts on his face from the glass splinters.
Before he left the office, he noticed a leather satchel lying on the floor, as if it had been tossed under a writing table. Curious, he picked it up. This could be something...

In the cluttered laboratory room, Polly knelt over Dr. Jennings, trying to comfort him, but she could see he was dying. He had lost too much blood already, and the knife wound was deep. With his failing strength, the scientist struggled to speak. "Miss Perkins..."
"I'm here, Doctor. I tracked you down."
"If Totenkopf finds them... nothing will be able to stop him. Nothing..."
Polly leaned closer to hear his faint words. "Finds what?"
Jennings squirmed to reach inside the pocket of his jacket with a bloodied hand, then removed two small test tubes. "Once he gets these... the countdown will start."
"The countdown for what?"
"This world... will end." Before he could say anything more, before Polly could grasp the magnitude of what he had said, the scientist wheezed out his last rattling breath and died.
"Dr. Jennings!" She tried to revive him, but it was no use. Polly gently pried the two test tubes from the scientist's hand and held them up. "The end of the world? In here?" Dumbfounded, she glanced up as Sky Captain reentered and knelt down beside her. "He's dead." With sluggish movements, Polly covered the body with a jacket.
"Well, the murderer got away... but I think I found something." Sky Captain held out the satchel.
Polly recognized it immediately. "Dr. Jennings had that case with him at the theater yesterday, just before the robots attacked." She took the satchel from him eagerly, even as she discreetly pocketed the test tubes. She decided to keep them hidden. Sky Captain didn't need to know everything - not yet.
As he watched, Polly unfastened the satchel's catch. Inside, she found a stack of papers. Her brows knitted as she leafed through them, understanding only snippets. "They're in German."
"We can translate them. At least five members of the Flying Legion -"
Suddenly the frightening wail of air-raid sirens filled the air for the second time in as many days. The bone-rattling tone echoed off houses and buildings. In the neighborhood, some residents frantically switched on lights, while others did exactly the opposite.
"Not again!" Polly said as she and Sky Captain raced to the laboratory window, looking up as searchlights crisscrossed the cloudy sky. They could both hear an ominous droning sound in the distance. Something powerful was approaching fast.
"I have to get back to the base," Sky Captain said.
Forced to leave the dead scientist behind, Polly grabbed the satchel and stuffed the papers inside. "I'm coming with you, Joe."


10

The Fearful Flying Wings
An Unwelcome Passenger
A Signal Located

Back at the Flying Legion's base in the distant hills, Polly's Packard roared onto the airstrip, covered with mud from skidding along the dirt roads. Before she screeched to a complete stop, Sky Captain had already jumped out of the car.
Receiving the alert signal even before New York's air-raid sirens activated, his flight crew had prepped the P-40 Warhawk. They sprinted along with him to the waiting airplane. "Didn't have time to touch up the paint job on the nose, Cap. Sorry. Looks like one of the painted fangs is chipped."
"At least tell me you fueled her up and reloaded the ammo."
The crewman impatiently rolled his eyes. "Of course we did that, Cap!"
On the airstrips, other planes thrummed, their props spinning, engines warming up. Several members of the Flying Legion had taken off and now patrolled the skies. The surveillance zeppelins lifted higher on their tethers.
Sky Captain shouted questions as he ran, leaving Polly behind. He did not want to be at the tail end of the other mercenary fighters. "So what is it? What's happening up there?"