Woman's World

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. They ignored me, and continued to battle it out.

"Hold on, girls," I said finally. "This is no way to welcome a man from the distant past."

At my words they cut out the wrestling instantly. They clambered to their feet, glaring bitterly at each other, and turned to look at me.

They were really stacked. To my astonishment I discovered that they stood nearly six feet tall, both of them, with high, proud breasts and tapering, well-muscled bodies. What a pair of amazons, I thought admiringly.

But they seemed to be doing some admiring too. The redhead emitted a most feminine sigh and said, "Isn't he lovely!"

"He certainly is," the brunette agreed. "Worth waiting five hundred years for."

With sudden dismay I realized I was naked. I reddened and grabbed for a cloth that had been draped over the somno-casket, and wrapped it around myself. I felt a little bewildered by things; I hadn't expected to be greeted by a pair of half-naked amazons when I woke.

The brunette nudged the other and said, "Let's get out of here with him now, Phil. We won't fight over him."

"Good idea," the redhead responded. "If we keep on fighting over who gets him, Her Majesty'll find out he's awake and take him away from both of us. Let's go!"

They approached me and grabbed me firmly, one on each side. "Come on, muscles," the one named Phil said. "Let's travel."

"Just a second," I said. "Who are you? Where are you taking me?" I didn't feel like trusting myself to these two till I had my bearings.

"Don't worry about that, honey," Sam said. "We'll take good care of you." She winked broadly and said, "Won't we, Phil?"

They started to propel me out the door of the chamber. I was still a little too woozy to put up much of an argument, and they were both substantial specimens who knew how to swing their weight around. Weak as I was, I had no choice but to let them push me into the corridor.

"Where to?" Sam asked.

"To the Lower Quarters," Phil said. "There's a copter there, and we—oh, oh! Here comes trouble!"

I glanced over my shoulder and saw a truly gigantic woman coming down the corridor towards us. She looked about seven feet tall, a real monster. She was wearing the usual trunks, plus some sort of jeweled diadem dangling between at her bosom.

"Hold up there!" she bellowed. "Where are you three going? Where's the guard on the Sleep Chamber?"

Phil and Sam didn't stop to make conversation. They tightened their grips on my arm and started to run. I dragged helplessly for a couple of steps, then got straightened away and began to run with them.

"Stop! Come back!" the big woman yelled—and she came roaring after us. The floor seemed to shake as she thundered along the corridor.

We fled. I allowed myself to be dragged along by my two amazon captors, with the third pounding away behind us. The corridor seemed to be endless.

And suddenly it stopped being endless. There was a horde of women coming up toward us from the other direction.

"The old cow's called the guards," Sam muttered. "We're caught, now!"

We were. The tide of female guards swept over us like a herd of cattle, and abruptly I found myself in the midst of a vast heaving mass of struggling women. At first I thought they were after Sam and Phil, who had tried to steal me and failed—but the truth dawned only after I had eluded the steel-like clutches of one powerful mademoiselle and fallen right into another's arms.

As she hugged me triumphantly to her surging bosom, I understood. They were after me.

Me.

Two dozen women, chasing after me. And I was still not really fully conscious from my long stay under suspended animation.

Maybe I'm dreaming! I thought.

No. No dream. I was at least wide-awake enough to tell that. The women were battling furiously; I was being shunted back and forth from one to another. I was starting to feel like a plaything. So I struck back.

I landed a fist in a tough, unyielding female stomach, then splatted a hand into a pair of lovely lips. I was fighting for my life now; they were threatening to smother me. Two of them got me down, while a third grabbed one arm and tried to drag me away.

Suddenly I heard a loud voice yell, "Stop!" And an instant later, everything stopped. Completely. None of us could move a muscle. I was 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!"

I shut my eyes and pictured another madhouse and another wild chase back down the corridor. But this time it didn't happen. The two men nodded to one side. The wall opened, and we stepped in, out of sight.

Into an elevator.

Down, down, down ... into the depths of the Earth, it seemed. Finally the elevator stopped.

"We get out here," one of the men said.

We were in a dank, dungeon-like place. We started up a cold, crawling corridor, but happily turned off before we had gone too far. One of my male escorts opened a door.

"Here he is, boss."

A man sat behind the desk—unshaven, naked to the waist. His face was aggressively male; his bare chest was covered with a thick mat of black hair. "My name is Lola," he said, in a rumbling basso. "Welcome to our happy land."

"Lola?" I asked.

"Isn't it a beaut? The women take men's names now—and we get theirs. Lola," he repeated, bitterly.

"So that explains Phil and Sam, then."

"What?"

"Two chicks I met topside, before all the fuss began. I couldn't understand why they were named like that."

"Now you do," Lola said. "Let's get down to business: you come from 1957, don't you?"

"That's right. I—"

"You know what it's like to live in a world where men were supreme. Right?"

"Right."

"We're in a pretty bad fix here," Lola said. "The women grabbed control about three hundred years ago. It started with little things like running for office, and now it mushroomed into this. We're under their heels! And we can't do a thing about it!"

"Why not? Do they outnumber you?"

"Yes and no," Lola said. "In terms of actual arithmetic, we're about even; they've got a slight numerical edge, not much. But in terms of battle strength, they've got us licked. Most of today's men are weaklings."

"But you don't look like any milksop," I pointed out.

"I'm an exception. There's a pretty tight core of us, down here biding our time. We've planned a rebellion against the Matriarchs. But we need you, brother."

"Me? What for?"

"You've been asleep for five hundred years—and all that time, the world's been waiting for you to awaken. You're almost a demigod now—you're a historical figure. Imagine the impact if you come to life and spearhead a rebellion against the Matriarchs! You'll kindle the spirits of millions of downtrodden males who wouldn't have dared to do any such thing unless—"

"Wait a second," I said uneasily, thinking of the amazons upstairs. "I don't plan to get messed up in any private quarrels of this century, friend. Those girls look pretty tough, and I'm not going to risk my—"

"The hell you aren't," Lola said quietly. "We've been waiting for this day too long for you to mess it up now that you are awake. You cooperate or else."

I was tempted to ask what the "or else" was, but I didn't. There was too much menace hidden in Lola's flat voice.

"You're going to appear suddenly in Central Plaza tonight," he told me. "You'll use this photonic amplifier and tell everyone who you are. It'll attract a big crowd—and then you yell out, 'On to the Palace.'

"At that moment, my men appear. There are about five hundred of us, and with them as a nucleus we recruit as many of the men in the Plaza as we can. We storm the Palace, take over the place, and on the impetus of that we bring the women under our dominance again."

I folded my arms. "Suppose I don't make your speech?" I could see myself getting assassinated, torn to pieces by wild women, or dying in any number of horrid ways.

Lola smiled. "Then we brainwash you and hype you up with something that'll make you give your speech. After that, we throw what's left of you away. Sound better?"

"I'll think it over," I said.

"Good." He glanced at one of his brawny underlings. "Clara, lock this guy up in the keep until we're ready to spring things. Then start getting the boys together, huh?"

I sat alone in the dark and tried to figure things out. Somehow, the women had gotten the upper hand in this society, and most of the men were reduced to mere milksops. Except for a handful of determined musclemen, that is, who were holed up down here ready to make a last stand against feminine supremacy.

Into this situation, enter me.

I was just an average joe in the past, a fellow who ran into some trouble and decided the easiest way out was to duck into this guinea-pig job. Some way out!

Apparently these women saw something in me—maybe there aren't enough men to go around, or something, and they jumped for me. So I got away from them. Talk about frying pans and fires, though!

I heard Clara's steady pacing outside my cell. They weren't going to let me out until the time came for my speech. And if I delivered the speech as instructed, some amazon was likely to nail me; if I didn't, Lola would take care of me. I was cooked either way.

I cursed myself for having left 1957 in the first place. But it was too late to worry about that now. I was here, and I was going to operate under my own steam or else.

And no matter which way I moved, I was doomed. Even if Lola and his men won, probably Lola's first action would be to put me out of his way, as a possible rival for his throne. And naturally if the women held the fort they'd waste no time slitting my throat before I fomented another rebellion.

Maybe wishing wouldn't make it so, but I wished desperately to be back in the 20th century where I belonged. I practically yelled it out loud.

"I don't want to be here!" I yelled. "I should a stayed where I was!"

"Cut out that caterwauling," Clara growled. "You want the Queen to hear you? She's only a hundred stories above us, y' know."

"I don't care," I said miserably. "I'm going to die either way, so what does it matter?"

Then I realized the foolishness of my own attitude. I was due to face death; why not do it bravely? So I shut up. I waited.

Hours passed. Then the cell door swung open, and Lola walked in.

"Ready to go make your speech, pal? Remember—all of masculine mankind's future depends on the pitch you make."

"Okay," I said. "I'll go." But my knees were quivering, and I didn't really mean it.

He handed me a small round capsule. "This is the photonic amplifier. When I give you the signal, just switch it on and start to talk. You'll be heard all over the city."

"Downtrodden males of the world, unite!" I said, grinning despite myself. "All right, Lola. I'll do what I can in the name of mankind."

"You'd better," he said ominously.

What happened after that is pretty hazy. Lola and Clara led me through a fantastic passageway into the open, and conducted me to the Central Plaza. I remember making a speech of some kind. I remember three of the amazon women racing madly toward me, trying to reach me and shut me up. I remember starting to run in the middle of my speech, turning, slugging it out with the three women. They were like pillars of stone. They closed in on me.

And I blanked out. Sometime later, I awoke—

And saw the patient, kindly face of Professor Ostrov peering down at me.

"What are you doing here?" I demanded. "Did you suspend yourself too? And what's been going on?"

"This is the year 1957, son," he said calmly. "Everything is all right."

"Like hell it is," I snapped. "Where am I? What—"

"You're in my laboratory," he said. "You've been under-going preliminary psychological tests before I put you into the somno-casket. I've been keeping close electroencephalographic check on you all the time you were living through that purely fictional incident."

I sat bolt upright. "You mean that never happened?"

"Merely a test," he said mildly. "But I'm happy to report that you showed commendable adaptability in strange situations, that you handled yourself well—though we observed one momentary lapse in stability—and that, in general—"

I got off the table and silenced him. "I want to thank you, Doctor."

"What for?"

"For giving me a second chance," I said. I reached for my clothes and started getting into them. "I've had one look at the future, and maybe it was a phony, but it taught me one thing—life can't be any worse here."

"Are you, then, planning to withdraw from the experiment?" he asked, gaping.

"Damned right I am!" I smiled happily, put on my coat, and left the lab without a further word. I knew now that there was no sense in running off to the future; things weren't any simpler there.

I knew what I would do: I would find my girl, take her out someplace, talk over all our misunderstandings. I was confident we'd patch things up somehow.

All I had to do to make our marriage work was be a little more considerate—and let her share the responsibilities, instead of trying to run the whole show myself. Yes, I thought, as I started down the familiar dirty old twentieth-century street. Women needed to be given more responsibility in running things.