locked in the embrace of a wild-looking but rather lovely blonde, whose face was frozen in an expression of glee.

Only my eyes could move. I rolled them around and saw a woman in regal panoply stalking majestically toward us. She held a small metal weapon in her hand.

"You've all behaved disgracefully!" she said ringingly. She clicked the weapon at us a second time and the stasis broke. The horde of women picked themselves up and stood staring sheepishly at the floor. The Queen—for her rank seemed obvious—swept imperiously toward me.

"Are you the Sleeper?" she demanded.

"I believe so, your majesty."

"Excellent. Come to my chamber at once. The rest of you remand yourselves to the guardhouse, for punishment. Follow me, male!"

As I followed her up the long corridor, I was struck by the humor of the situation. I had volunteered for the Somno-casket project after the bustup of my engagement; feeling that there was no place for me in the world of the twentieth century and that I wasn't much interested in continuing to live in it. I grabbed at a straw and let myself be tucked away in suspended animation, as a guinea-pig. The scientists of five hundred years from now would revive me, and I would be a living man from the distant past.

So I had awakened. But in the intervening five centuries, while I slumbered under my time-lock, my casket had been shifted from Professor Ostrov's laboratory to this—this madhouse of furious amazons, and I was now apparently playing Adam to a few dozen Eves.

And now the queen bee herself had grabbed me off. Two guards prodded me from behind, and the Queen strutted ahead of me toward her private chambers. What waited for me there, I didn't know.

I wasn't to find out, either. Because as we came to a bend in the corridor, two men stepped out of nowhere. Men—real males.

I was so astonished to see another unshaven face again that I froze and glared at them goggle-eyed. One of the men turned to me and said, "Help us! We're here to rescue you!"

That sounded good to me. So I took the club one of them handed me, and while they grabbed the two guards I clonked them—gently, but efficiently. The Queen finally caught on to what was happening, and turned.

She let out a howl. "Guards! Guards!"

 Prev. P 4/9 next