"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.