The Early Pohl by Frederik Pohl Read Free Book Online Page B

trees. Wing and Henderson stared at it intently. It was a metal building, as unlike those of the town behind them as the Coliseum is unlike a Twentieth-Century baseball grandstand. The degenerate Venusian architecture with which the two were familiar, stacked up against this new building, would have seemed unbearably shoddy.
    The building was metal, some sort of steel, apparently, but obviously rust-proof. The corners of it were weathered to soft curves, they saw as they slipped closer. It was old .
    Octagonal, it had no windows at all, as far as the two explorers could see. The structure was thirty feet or more in diameter, about the same in height.
    "This is no place for us, Chet," whispered Henderson. "That place is probably crawling with Venusians. Let's go!" Wing nodded agreement and turned.
    But didn't go far. He spied a flicker of motion in the underbrush not far away. He rugged at Henderson's sleeve, pointing silently.
    Henderson looked first at Wing's face, then at the indicated spot. Fern-trees, he saw, and the toad-stool growths, and the vines and sinkholes.
    And something else. He couldn't quite . . . yes! He saw it clearly and grabbed Wing's shoulder. "It's a snake !" he whispered hoarsely, panic in his voice.
    Whig nodded, silently pointed toward the tower. A "snake"—really a lizard, fast and deadly poisonous—was nothing to play around with. Their only hope of life was to get away before it spied them.
    The snake, it seemed, wasn't especially hungry, though there was never a time at all when a Venusian snake wasn't willing to take just a little bit more food. But it wasn't actively looking for a meal. Consequently, it didn't see them right away.
    But eventually it had to—and did. When they were less than fifty feet from the tower, having progressed a hundred away from the snake, there was a sudden commotion in the undergrowth and it came slithering with immense speed toward them, its great, cone-shaped head waving from side to side, the horizontal jaws opening and closing as the rudimentary, clawed hands flailed the air.
    The two adventurers caught sight of the monster coming at them and rapidly decided what to do. Together they broke for the building, then dashed around it, searching for a door. Luckily, there was one, and it was unlocked. They flung themselves inside, slammed the door and braced their backs against it just as the snake rammed it.
    A glance around made them wonder if they had done right. The Tribune tortured, agonizingly, before it killed; the snake, at the worst, would eat them alive, a matter over with in a few minutes. For, though no living thing was visible, there was no dust or rust—and the place was lighted with several burning torches.
    Wing headed silently for the only visible doorway, Henderson following.
    They emerged into a huge room. What they had been in before, they realized, had been only an anteroom. This new auditorium comprised almost the entire structure. They had entered at the very front: just before them, on a dais, was a sheeted recumbent figure. The dead king, Wing thought swiftly, but thought no more about it.
    For occupying the room with them, their heads bowed in mourning, were half a hundred armed Venusian natives!
     
    The confusion that followed was terrific. They were seen immediately, and a babel of voices arose.
    Wing thought with frantic speed, and evolved a plan. Before the Venusians could recover from their shock, he stepped quickly to the side of the dais, and screamed at Henderson:
    "Snap on your perceptor! Tell them to stay back! If they take one step forward, I'll turn the table over and dump his immortal majesty on the ground!"
    Henderson shouted joyously as he comprehended the plan; and immediately did as he was bid. There was sudden consternation among the Venusians as his sacrilegious words smote them to a standstill. The person of the King was inviolate! Never was he allowed even to walk on the bare ground or floor, was carried from place to