Priestess of the Floating Skull

by Edwin Benson

  Jerry eBooks

  No copyright 2015 by Jerry eBooks

  No rights reserved. All parts of this book may be reproduced in any form and by any means for any purpose without any prior written consent of anyone.

  Amazing Stories

  Part 1

  May 1943

  Volume 17, Number 5

  Conclusion

  June 1943

  Volume 17, Number 6

  Custom eBook created by

  Jerry eBooks

  November, 2015

  CHAPTER I

  The Skull In The Sky

  “THE lousy damned skunks! The murdering devils . . .” Pete Vorosh broke off in midimprecation to catch the words coming from the radio:

  “Hitler’s guns thunder tonight at the very gates of Moscow! A giant nation, grim and desperate after two months of the most terrible mechanical warfare ever loosed on the face of the earth, is digging in—old men, women, children—to defend to the last drop of blood the capital city of the Soviet Union. Late today the voice of ‘Papa’ Stalin rang into the ears of his people in a soul-stirring appeal to hold, whatever the cost; to defend Moscow; to die if need be for Russia in her hour of peril.

  “But tonight the fate of Russia seems sealed. Although Hitler is behind the schedule he set for his armies on that morning when his troops launched out toward the Russian border, the Red Army has been unable to do more than delay him.

  “Can Moscow hold? That is the question on the lips of every American today. Can the Red Army, already meriting the admiration of world, take the terrible punishment Hitler’s panzers are handing out—”

  “You bet they can!” Pete roared, pounding a clenched fist on the counter of the little coffee shack. He whirled on his stool to stare at several other grim listeners to the dramatically pitched voice of the newscaster. “Hold? The Red Army will drive Hitler’s panzers right back up . . .!”

  The door of the coffee shack opened. “Hey, Pete! Come on. That P-40’s ready for an altitude test.”

  “Ready, hey? By God, I wish I had her over Moscow right now. I’d show those dirty devils a trick or two. Okay, fella, I’m coming. Be right with you.”

  Pete Vorosh picked up his helmet from the counter and pulled it over his ears. He gathered his heavy gloves into white-knuckled fingers and got off the stool with a swing of his lanky legs. Then he wheeled back, picked up the cup and downed the last of his coffee in one gulp. One bronzed hand buttoned his helmet under his chin as he walked out of the coffee shack. Behind him the radio droned on into the ears of the remaining listeners . . .

  “. . . reports of the wholesale slaughter of inhabitants of small villages are only partly compensated by the grimness of the Russian scorched earth policy . . .”

  He heard no more, but the anger in him seethed on as he strode into the gate leading to the big plant beyond. Even the roar of the machines on the production line that broke around his ears failed to divert his unseeing gaze from the scene that was in his mind’s eye.

  Moscow! He remembered it only vaguely. He’d been a kid then. Now he was an American—a citizen. And the new Moscow must be vastly different from the city he had known; but just the same, there was a certain feeling there. The feeling everyone has for a place that exists in childhood memories. A nice feeling!

  That’s why the thought of shells crashing into it, of Stukas and bombers blasting it, of invading Nazis trampling their brutal way forward, intent on smashing it, was so maddening.

  SUNLIGHT broke over him again outside the door at the other end of the big shop.

  “Hurry it up, Pete,” called a mechanic standing beside a gleaming new job, just off the production line. “This baby’s waiting to be handled!”

  Pete’s practiced eye took in the new gadgets this P-40 had. They were what he was going to test. The army had suggested them, and the company had given all those concerned to understand that they had to be good. That meant Pete’s task was of prime importance. If there was any fault in those new gadgets, Pete was supposed to dig it out up there in the blue.

  “Just from the looks,” he remarked admiringly, “this test’s going to be fun! I’ll fly hell out of this baby!”

  “You’d better,” grinned the mechanic. “The army won’t like it if they fold up when they get good pilots in ’em.”

  “Oh yeah!” Pete swung one mittened hand against the mechanic’s head in a playful punch. “Listen, Joe, when I get in a pilot’s seat, the plane purrs admiringly! I can fly rings around any pilot in or out of the army . . . or at least, fly rings inside his rings.”

  “Modest, ain’t you!” said Joe. “Okay, big-shot, climb into that hunk of greased lightning and bolt. Then we’ll see who’s who. And I’ll be waiting down here to pick up the pieces . . .” Pete Vorosh grinned.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if I never came down,” he said. “I’ll fly this baby so high the law of gravity will be broken . . .”

  He slung one padded leg over the side, slid down in the seat, and pushed the cover over his head until he was sealed inside. He grinned through the glass at Joe, who was upping his thumbs in encouragement and good luck. He jerked his own thumb up in answer. Then he bent to the controls.

  The roar of the motor was sweet music in his appreciative ears as he taxied down the field, to turn for a take-off.

  “Sweet . . .” he chortled in glee. “Boy what a baby!”

  Reaching the turn, he got the clear signal, poured on the gas. Thunder beat in his ears as the ship leaped forward. The tail lifted, the wheels left the ground, then folded inward at his touch on the controls. The P-40 became a hurtling bullet, streaking over the low-lying shed of the plant, roared up at a steep angle toward the sky. High up there were little lacy clouds—the highest of all clouds.

  “Coming up!” yelled Pete Vorosh. “In a few minutes, you’ll be floating below us, clouds!”

  The city of Buffalo spread out underneath like a map, each tiny square distinct in the sunlight. Pete thought of Moscow, in that same sunlight, thought of himself as a Nazi bomber, and his face grew black with renewed rage.

  “Damned Nazis!” he burst out. “Someday you’ll get it back, right over Berlin. And if I’ve got anything to do with it, I’ll be one of the boys handing it back! If it wasn’t for the fact I know we’ll be in it soon . . .”

  HE BROKE off, watched his instruments closely, and tried to concentrate on the test he was going to put the P-40 through in a few minutes, when he got sufficient altitude. But back in his mind, thoughts roamed; thoughts that would not be downed.

  America was a swell country. Being an American was like having the world by the tail. Maybe that was it—maybe that was why most Americans didn’t realize what naturalized Americans did, that Europe was their business, that what happened over there was bound to affect what happened here!

  Pete knew that America would soon have to fight. If he hadn’t been so sure of that, maybe right now he’d be on the Moscow front, fighting to hold the Nazi hordes back, before it became necessary to fight right here to hold them back. But Pete Vorosh was American now. He had to stick by America. And it was okay, too. Because sooner or later it would come. War would come for America too—and then Pete Vorosh would be in there, backed by the greatest country in the world, using the finest weapons the world has ever seen, fighting with the finest soldiers—and the finest men—the ages have ever produced.

  Yes, Pete Vorosh would get his crack at the Nazis—but all the same, he wished it was now! Now! The enemy was thundering at the very gates of Moscow. Moscow, the city of his boyhood, the city of his memories, and in spite of the time that had passed, a city he yet loved. After all, men were men, and the world was for all men t
o live in, to be equal in, to be free in!

  And if Moscow fell, Russia would not be for free men!

  “If only I could do something . . .!” Pete burst out aloud once more.

  His eyes returned to the instruments, noted his altitude. 15,000—

  “Okay,” he grunted. “I guess right now I got something to do. And by golly, it’ll be done! There’ll be plenty of P-40’s stinging those dirty Nazis in the end . . .”

  He switched on the radio.

  “Pete Vorosh, in P-40, to Joe Hamilton . . . are you getting me?”

  “Clear as a bell, Pete,” came Hamilton’s voice. “How are you making out?”

  “Handles like a baby, so far. The new gadgets seem to have ironed out the trouble. But we’ll see what she does at 300 in a minute. Then I’ll step her up to top speed and give her the works. If she holds up, I’ll go up to ceiling, whatever it is. Did you connect up that oxygen tank okay?”

  “Sure, you dope. Think I want to hasten your inevitable end?” Hamilton’s voice cracked from the receiver into Pete’s ears. “You’ll smash up soon enough . . .”

  “Not this time,” said Vorosh confidently. “I’ve got a hunch there are going to be some P-40 records cracked up here, right now! Here I go, Joe; watch my smoke!”

  PETE VOROSH gunned the motor and the terrific roar drowned out even his own thoughts from then on. He put the P-40 through the test pilot’s book. And with every step, his grin grew broader.

  “Hitler, you bastard,” he yelled at last, “get ready for trouble!”

  His chuckle grew as he sent the P-40 up into a steep climb. The motor roared, its voice pitching ever higher and higher as the air rarefied. Up . . . up . . . up!

  Pete’s eyes glued to the indicator, and widened slowly, minute by minute.

  “Cripes . . .!” he muttered at last. But he kept the plane arrowing into the heavens.

  Down below, the earth was barely visible in a misty haze that almost seemed to be something other than clouds. And it was growing cold—damned cold! Even the heaters made no difference. And his clothes seemed summery and inadequate. The oxygen hissed as he opened the valve wider.

  Vorosh shivered, clenched his chattering teeth and gunned the gas to its limit. Once more his eyes sought the altitude indicator.

  “Gee-sus Kee-ryst!” he said.

  He switched on the radio. A blast of static met his ears. He frowned, toned down the volume. Faintly he heard Joe Hamilton’s voice coming to him.

  “Joe Hamilton, to . . . osh. Come in Pete . . . hell’s the mat . . .”

  “Pete Vorosh, to Joe Hamilton. Hey, Joe, how high is 38,000 feet?”

  Hamilton’s voice came in stronger as the static died.

  “Pete,” you goddamned idiot, why don’t you keep contact? Where the hell are you? And 38,000 feet is high! You ain’t up there!”

  “Then your altitude meter is cockeyed. Thought you said you checked everything, that I wouldn’t have any trouble . . .”

  “I did!” Hamilton’s startled voice broke in. “And if you’re not kidding me . . . but man, it can’t be that tall!”

  Vorosh squinted through the haze his breath was forming, and read the needle of the indicator aloud.

  “41,450 it says now,” he spoke into the transmitter. “So it is cockeyed!”

  “Pete,” came Hamilton’s troubled voice. “What I been trying to reach you to tell you is to come down. There’s a freak storm of some sort brewing. Meterological Bureau just called to warn us of a stratospheric disturbance. From here it looks kind of hazy up there, but it’s still blue . . .”

  Vorosh rubbed the frost from a pane of the cover over his head and peered out. Down below was nothing but grayness, tending toward silver. He couldn’t see the earth.

  “Plenty mucky, Joe,” he informed his ground partner. “Funny clouds, all right. Seem to be almost non-existent, but you can’t see through them? Blue, you say? No blue up here, not even above me.”

  “Well, come on down. No use trying any altitude stuff. Obviously your instrument is way off—what’s it say now . . .?”

  “48,570,” Vorosh read. “And damn it, Joe, it’s cold enough to be true!”

  “Nuts,” Joe’s snort came. “Now I know . . .” static roared in Pete’s ears again “. . . ment’s wrong. Point the nose dow . . . land. Static . . . hear me? Pete . . .”

  His voice was lost entirely, and Vorosh shut off the radio in disgust He sent the P-40 into a steep dive, then frowned as the sensation that should have accompanied the motion failed to register in his stomach. He looked hastily at the altitude meter. Its needle indicated he was still rising!

  HIS numbing fingers sought the radio switch, snapped it on again.

  “Joe,” he yelled into the transmitter. “Something’s wrong. I’m still going up. This storm—if that’s what it is . . .”

  No voice answered in his ears. Even the static was gone. Suddenly it wasn’t cold any more, either. Vorosh sat still, staring. Above him, high in the sky was something that made him blink, even through the lassitude that held him. Was it . . . could it be . . .?

  In his ears a tiny voice was saying something. It was pitched so low that it was almost inaudible, but he could have sworn it was a woman’s voice. It grew louder as he stared hypnotically at the thing that was forming in the stratosphere above him. Or was it in the stratosphere? As he watched, the illusion of vastness became a false illusion, and it seemed that the thing was now close, almost before his eyes, just outside the plane.

  “A skull!” muttered Vorosh. “A skull, floating in the air . . . up here . . .”

  Somehow it didn’t seem as incredible as it actually was. He found himself accepting it as almost a natural phenomenon. Only in the back of his mind was there any objection to its reality, any protest against its existence.

  “A skull, floating . . .”

  His voice died away, to be replaced by the woman’s voice he had heard before.

  “Who are you?”

  Vorosh started.

  That had been plain enough!

  With an effort he reached out and snapped the radio off. But the voice still came to him, questioningly.

  Who are you? What is your name? Who . . .”

  Even over the lassitude of his body, Pete’s mind flashed alertly awake.

  “Russian!” he gasped. “Somebody speaking Russian!”

  A thought sneaked into his mind, a thought he had not considered until now. It really wasn’t warm in the P-40. It was still as cold. It was just his body, himself, that was numb—from cold. He couldn’t feel it any more.

  “I’m freezing to death!” he thought. “I’m hearing crazy things, imagining . . .”

  The voice in his ear—no, in his head!—suddenly grew concerned. It began speaking in a compelling, persuasive, soothing tone.

  “You are not dying, you arc warm, warm and comfortable. You are warm. Everything is warm about you. Your feet are warm, your hands, your whole body. You are not freezing . . . it is warm . . . warm . . . warm. You are sleepy, too. You can sleep now . . . Turn off your motor. Time enough to wake when the plane comes down . . . before you near the ground. Then you can land . . . you are warm. . . warm . . . and sleepy . . .”

  Pete Vorosh smiled up at the human skull floating before his eyes; then it was gone as his eyelids flickered down. He settled back more comfortably in the cockpit of the P-40 and drifted off into warm slumber . . .

  Pete Vorosh was asleep! Asleep, high in the stratosphere, while the P-40 in which he rode hurtled through the sky in the grip of an amazing storm, silent, yet inexorable, 48,000 feet above the surface of a heaving ocean, at a speed greater than any plane ever flew.

  CHAPTER II

  Battle Over Moscow

  PETE VOROSH had to wake. He knew he had to. If he didn’t, he’d crash. He knew that. So he fought to open his eyes. It was a tough job, and he stopped trying for a moment. It was hard . . .

  “Quick! Wake up, wake up! You will crash if you do not
wake up! Wake up!”

  The woman’s voice rang in his ears now. It was strong and clear.

  Groggily Pete Vorosh struggled erect in the cockpit of the P-40. He opened his eyes and blinked. In his stomach was the woozy sensation of falling. The P-40 was spinning violently, dizzily, in a terrific tailspin. It slipped out of that, dove swiftly, nose down. The motor was silent.

  Pete’s head cleared rapidly. He looked down.

  “Gee—sus!” he exclaimed. “Close!”

  He turned on the motor, fought with the controls, leaned far back in the seat, his face reddening, his eyes popping as he put P-40 into a terrific pull-out of its suicidal plunge earthward.

  The wind screamed around the ship, the bottom seemed about to fall out. The prop roared thunderously. Below the hurtling plane the tops of trees snatched up at its belly, and missed—by inches!

  Vorosh came erect again, face white.

  “Whew! I always forget that I get ingrown hairs from close shaves! I wonder if my hair will ever grow outward again . . .”

  “Who are you?”

  Pete Vorosh sat as though stung in the cockpit of the racing P-40. That voice again!

  “I’m Pete Vorosh,” he began automatically, “testing for Curtis . . .”

  Abruptly the strangeness of it all burst upon him.

  “Kee-ryst!” he muttered. “I’m going nuts! Hearing voices, women’s voices—with my radio shut off! And where the hell am I?”

  The P-40 was higher now, a thousand feet, and Vorosh stared down with eyes that suddenly grew wider than they had ever been before. They almost popped out of his head.

  “Moscow!” he screamed. “Moscow! My God, I’m over Moscow!”

  “Peter Vorosh!” came the weird voice in his head. “Land at the airport. Land at the . . .”

  A row of holes suddenly marched across the wing of the P-40 right beside the cockpit, and a shadowy shape slipped past not a hundred yards away. Pete’s eyes sought the shape, found it.

  “Messerschmitt!” he gasped. “I’m being attacked!”