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."