“Now that you’ve told me all about myself maybe you’ll tell me what’s going on,” Ben said.
“One of your compatriots can do that,” the woman told him. Her interest seemed suddenly to have waned.
She said a few words in a strange tongue to the man who stood at her side. He grunted, bowed, and advanced toward Ben. Long arms, covered with thick black hair, reached out. Ben dodged.
“You’ll be sorry if you make him use force,” the woman said.
“Nothing like trying,” Ben told her. He avoided another grab and stepped in and smashed his fist to the hairy man’s jaw.
He might as well have hit a wall. Before Ben could strike another blow he was lifted from his feet by an upward slap that threatened to tear loose one side of his face. Too dazed to resist, he felt both his wrists encircled by a tremendous hand. The woman’s voice rose sharply in a tone of command.
The corridor through which Ben Sessions was being led was thronged with people. There seemed to be three classes: rosy-skinned giantesses like his escort; men of his own size, but also with pink complexions; and the squat, hairy men who appeared to be nothing more than slaves.
It was plain that women dominated this society, and from them Ben received curious but contemptuous glances. Any one of these Amazons would have been considered a beauty on Earth, so regular were their features, but they lacked an air of feminine softness. Instead, cruelty lay thinly masked beneath the surface.