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

A Secret Message

The hard part was finding a clear patch of pavement in the disaster zone. Emergency crews were everywhere, dousing flames and pulling victims from the rubble. Sharp wreckage from the explosions and crashes lay scattered all about.
Sky Captain was numb and sick as he circled for the second time, but he drove back his feelings and focused on the job at hand. He had to get down safely.
One tire on the P-40's landing gear hit a torn metal plate sticking out of the softened blacktop. The Warhawk slewed, but Sky Captain drove forward, his brakes smoking and screeching. The plane bounced over a shallow crater and finally came to a halt in front of what had been a secondary maintenance hangar.
Grease-stained, red-eyed crewmen stumbled toward his plane. They rejoiced to see Sky Captain alive, drawing strength and hope from their leader. The crackling sound of fires was a background roar in the air. The task of simply extinguishing all the fires and rescuing the wounded seemed insurmountable, but the members of the Flying Legion remained undaunted.
Sky Captain climbed from the cockpit and stood on his bullet-riddled wing. Polly came out behind him, and he extended a hand to her, distracted by the chaos around him. She was too shocked to comment on his help.
Jumping to the ground and brushing himself off, Sky Captain turned toward the control hangar, where a group of men was straining to clear a heavy steel beam that blocked the doorway to the map room. They were trying to rig up a block and tackle, but could not find an intact support beam for the chain.
Seeing him, one of the crewmen called out urgently. "It's Dex, Cap! They've got Dex."
Sky Captain's distraught look transformed to rage as he took charge. "No time to mess with a chain and pulley. Unless you men can find one of Dex's disintegrator pistols, let's do this the old-fashioned way." Crouching, he leaned into the solid beam, using all his might to push. "We've got enough muscle around here. Help me."
Working together, the men pushed the steel girder aside with sheer brute force. The beam finally gave way with a sound of twisting metal, dropping to the ground with a heavy clang. Sky Captain stood up to catch his breath and saw that they had opened a narrow tunnel into the map room.
Polly squeezed through the small passageway beside Sky Captain to enter the ruined building. The two of them emerged in the map room, which had become a nightmarish scene.
Walking robots were everywhere. A dozen of the man-sized machines marched about with mechanical precision, whiplike steel tentacles thrashing from their shoulder sockets. The coiled arms picked up furniture and equipment, tossing wreckage aside. The robot walkers moved through the map room like insects, obviously searching for something.
"They're everywhere," Polly said. "It's an infestation."
One of the machines detected the intruders and strutted toward them. Sky Captain turned just as the walking robot lashed out with a surprisingly long tentacle. Polly shouted a warning, but the appendage wrapped itself around Sky Captain's right hand, drawing tight like a python. He reached awkwardly with his left hand to pull out his sidearm. The robot tightened its snakelike metal grip as he twisted his body, managed to aim the pistol, and fired off one round. The bullet found its target, shattering the robot's single gleaming optical sensor. The spindle-waisted machine recoiled, rocking backward like a jack-in-the-box. The tentacle released Sky Captain's wrist and flailed about. The robot staggered blindly before it fell in a heap.
The struggle alerted the rest of the robot swarm, and all of them turned their singular glowing eyes toward Polly and Sky Captain. Marching in an eerily gliding lockstep, the machines closed in from all sides. Polly stepped close as Sky Captain fired his pistol at another machine; the bullet smashed its blunt head, deactivating the robot in a shower of sparks. He knew how many rounds he had in the pistol and saw that there were far too many of the machines.
"We've got to be a lot more efficient at this," he said. The walking robots stepped closer, raising jointed steel legs to climb over the rubble.
Then Sky Captain looked up to the collapsed roof. Suspended directly above them, a massive girder dangled by the frayed remnants of two cables. The robots marched under its shadow.
Sky Captain stepped back to lure the machines closer. Then he raised his pistol, squinted carefully along the sight line, and fired. The bullet clipped the cable holding the heavy beam in place; the remaining line groaned as the released girder swung down like a giant pendulum.
He yanked Polly to the floor as the twisted beam whistled over them, missing their heads by inches. The battering ram swung into the front row of machines and crushed them with a sound like a truck full of brass musical instruments ramming a brick wall.
Sky Captain and Polly sprang to their feet, ready to face the rest of the robot swarm, but before the walking machines could form ranks again, a strange alien siren warbled through the air.
"What's that, Joe? A Legion signal?"
"Not one of ours," he said.
The walking robots froze in their tracks, tentacle arms drifting like seaweed in a gentle current. Then, all the remaining machines scattered like cockroaches, escaping through the gaping hole in the hangar wall. One of the machines stumbled on a loose chunk of concrete and collided with a second robot as if it were part of a slapstick comedy routine, but both righted themselves and evacuated through the opening.
Sky Captain looked down at his sidearm. "That was easy."
"We can't just let them get away, Joe. They've got Dex."
Both of them scrambled over the rubble, chasing the walking robots. When they reached the hole in the wall, though, a backwash of exhaust fumes and air currents knocked them backward. Sky Captain kept his balance, squinting into the hot gust to see one of the large Flying Wings rise up. The enemy aircraft took off, stealing away with the remaining tentacled robots.
"Hey!" Sky Captain waved his pistol and fired repeatedly at the flying machine until all his ammunition was gone. The small-caliber bullets merely bounced off the quicksilver hull.
"They're getting away, Joe. We have to stop them!"
She looked wildly around, but Sky Captain stopped her. "It's too late. They're gone."
"They've got Dex, Joe. We have to try."
Polly resisted, but he continued to hold her. "They're gone," he said again, "for now."
She slowly accepted defeat. They stood together, watching in vain, as the last enemy ship arched skyward. Nightfall had darkened the sky, and the batlike Wing flapped upward to join a dozen of the enemy flying machines that converged overhead. Their angular silhouettes crossed the full moon, gaining altitude, remaining impossibly out of reach.
Sky Captain and Polly stood side by side, sighing and staring at the complete destruction of the Legion's headquarters. Orange flames still smoldered like the bonfires of a primitive army encampment. Some surviving crewmembers worked together to spray water on the blazes; others used flashlights and crowbars to search for wounded men in the collapsed storehouses.
"Of all the enemies we've faced, this is the worst blow the Flying Legion has ever suffered." Sky Captain couldn't even begin to assess the casualties and the irreparable damage.
With a loud screeching groan, the last wall of a destroyed shed collapsed.
Polly shook her head, staring across the blasted runways. "Why would Totenkopf do this, Joe? Why Dex? It doesn't make any sense."
"I don't know enough about him to make a guess. Usually villains are all too happy to brag about their capabilities and gloat over their plans." Sky Captain turned back to the remains of the map room, peering into the dimness. Dex had stayed at his post until the last minute, trying to triangulate the source of the command transmission for the robot giants and the Flying Wings.
Stepping back into the hollow-sounding room, he saw a stack of Dex's comic books and pulp magazines scattered across the stained floor. He spotted scuffed footprints, drag marks from robot feet, the signs of a struggle. With a grim frown, he bent over to pick up a torn comic book. A smear of drying blood tracked across the fanciful cover illustration. He pondered for a moment, then looked up at Polly. "Totenkopf was looking for something - something he thinks we have."
Sky Captain tossed the magazine to the floor and reached down to pick up the prototype ray gun. "Dex said he knew where the transmission was coming from, but I didn't give him enough time to answer me."
A flash of guilt crossed Polly's face. She knew she had withheld information from Sky Captain, especially the two mysterious vials. What if her secrecy had inadvertently led to Dex's capture? If Sky Captain had known all the details, might he have been better prepared?
Sky Captain continued to contemplate the Buck Rogers sonic atomizer, not looking at her. "He must have gotten too close to the answer. Dex was trying to tell me -"
Having second thoughts about her secrecy, Polly reached into her pocket and started to withdraw the two test tubes Dr. Jennings had given her as his last act. She looked at the glass vials. She knew Sky Captain would be furious with her for keeping secrets.
Before she could make up her mind to tell him, though, Polly spotted something on the floor among the clutter. She slipped the test tubes back into her coat and reached down to brush the rubble aside. A bubble gum wrapper, the brand Dex always chewed. "Joe..."
Sky Captain turned the ray gun over in his hand, then stuffed it into his pocket. Polly stared at him, holding up the gum wrapper as if it carried extra meaning. He followed her eyes, curious, as she glanced upward. A slow smile spread across her face.
On a fallen section of the ceiling, Sky Captain saw a torn section of map stuck there, out of reach, with a pink wad of gum. The chart scrap showed pinpricks from a compass, several tentative markings that circled down to a bold X drawn in the center.
"Good boy, Dex!" Sky Captain let out a relieved laugh. His expression was different now.
"This changes everything," Polly said, sharing his delight.
"But it's still personal. We leave right away - while we have a chance. There's a long way to go."
The word NEPAL was printed plainly across the center of the map.