He arose to his full height and carefully adjusted the cables around his neck. I noticed that his fingers fumbled awkwardly, and that he staggered slightly. Then he spoke once more.
"I cannot cross Atlantic. Only route for Buddha is Siberia, Bering Straight, Alaska. But this not take long. You better hurry or I get to Washington first!"
He turned on his heel and walked a few steps to the end of the runway.
"Now get in plane. I give little help in takeoff!"
We climbed into the familiar interior of the big American transport. A moment later it arose silently, vertically like an elevator. Chamberlin, in the pilot's seat, hurriedly started the engines. He leaned from a window and waved his arm, and we shot forward and upward. For a moment the plane wavered and dipped, taking all of Walt's ability to recover. Then with a powerful roar, the big DC8 zoomed over the flames of Moscow toward the west.
THE FLIGHT to London and the Atlantic crossing seemed unreal. We lived beside the radio. War and revolt against the Soviets had broken out everywhere. With the directing power in the Kremlin gone, the top-heavy Soviet bureaucracy was paralyzed. The Yugoslavs marched into the Ukraine, Chinese armies occupied Irkutsk and were pressing across Siberia. Internal revolution broke out at a hundred points once it was learned that Moscow was no more.
Eagerly we listened to every report for word of Kazu. At first there was nothing, and then a Chinese plane reported seeing him crossing the Ob River, near the Arctic Circle. They said that he carried a box in his hand and appeared to be talking to it. Then news from the tiny river settlement of Zhigansk on the Lena that he had passed, but that he limped and staggered as he climbed the mountains beyond.
After that, silence.
Planes swarmed over eastern Siberia, the Arctic Coast and Alaska, but found nothing. Five hundred tons of C ration were rushed to Fairbanks, and tons of medical supplies for burns and possible illness were readied, but no patient appeared. At first we were hopeful, knowing Kazu's powers. Perhaps he had lost his way, without Baker and the maps, but surely he could not vanish. As the days passed Baker became more worried.