He found himself five hundred years into the future, a man eagerly sought and he didn't know why. Then he found out. The future was a— Woman's World By Robert Silverberg [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy June 1957 Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Coming up out of five centuries of sleep was like fighting my way up from the bottom of the sea. I was blind, I was choking, I was mangled by the pressure. All I could think was that I had to get up and out, up and out. My sleep-cramped brain battled toward consciousness. The blackness around me gave way to deep violet, then gray, then a vague colorless dinginess as I rose to wakefulness. I moved my arms, tentatively, feeling the centuries-old numbness starting to give way. This is what it feels like to be born, my mind said. Then, voices. Loud, strident, horribly painful to nerves that hadn't felt the impact of sound in five hundred years. A kind of terror ran through me; I cringed at the thought of the unknown future into which I had so boldly plunged. It had seemed like a joke, once—but I had slept away half a millennium, and time for awakening was here. Voices. Someone shouting, "He's mine! I got here before you did, Sam!" Another voice: "The hell you did, Phil. I was here. You get out of here." I shook my head foggily and stirred. Sam and Phil, whoever they were, were making much too much noise. I wanted them to go away; I was terribly tired, wanting nothing but another few hundred years of sleep. I yawned and sat up. And gasped. For as I opened my eyes and gradually focussed them, I saw Sam and Phil. They were having a knockdown tussle, and it was hard to tell which one was on top. But there was one thing I could tell: they were both female. One seemed to be a magnificent brunette, wide-shouldered and fiery-eyed; the other, a redhead, lithe and wiry. They wore only skin-tight blue trunks; as they rolled over and over on the floor, I caught occasional glimpses of bare breasts and lovely flashing thighs. I climbed out of my somno-casket and lowered myself to the floor of the chamber, wobbling unsteadily.
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