"Come along," said the guard. "Her Majesty awaits."

The sole of Madison's foot recoiled from the cold, rough floor stones of the washroom. "You didn't give me any slippers! At least let me put on my shoes!"

"Barefoot is just great," said the guard. And he gave the button another push.

Madison gripped his head so it wouldn't fall off.

He followed.

Everything depended on the next few minutes. He would be a dead man or a hero!

His idea MUST work!

He wasn't being taken up the golden stairs. He was being led up a circular metal set of steps that spiralled back of the walls. It was very dark and from the deadness of the air Madison suspected it had long been out of use. Suddenly a gate with spikes barred their way: he could see small sparks chasing back and forth, skipping from tip to tip on daggerlike extrusions, ready to impale any unauthorized interloper. No wonder Flick said no-no on robbing these palaces. They were FORTS!

The guard did something over at the side and with the groan of long disuse the portal slid aside.

They seemed to be in a dark box now, another thick door facing them. The guard picked up a dusty microphone and said something, evidently to a remote security desk-some sort of numbered password. Then the guard shoved him in front of what must be a closed-circuit camera.

"Demonstrate that you are not under duress, Jinto," said a sepulchral voice.

Jinto, Madison's guard, closed his hand on the chain. The dreadful tearing feeling ripped at Madison's neck and an additional yank threw him off balance.

Apparently some security post somewhere was satis­fied. Beyond the haze of lingering pain, Madison heard the slither and snap of several sets of remote-controlled bolts.

Silently the door slid open and Madison was pushed forward.

A moaning sort of music caressed his ears.

He was hit with a feminine whiff of fragrance and he fearfully opened his eyes.

He was standing in a softly lit room of considerable dimensions. Gently rippling colored lights bathed the walls in ever-changing pastels, soothing, almost hypnot­ic. Overhead, at first he thought these must be the open skies and then he saw that the stars were slowly dancing in a pattern about a moon which, real as it looked, could never possibly, in nature, pulse with the same ripples as the walls: the ceiling was some sort of an illusion that must change the hour of the day or night on command.

The floor suddenly frightened him. It seemed to be a thick mist, not a rug, and he was standing ankle-deep in it. But he was reassured to find it seemed to be holding him up.

The furniture, delicate and curved, bureaus and chairs and tables, didn't seem to have any legs; they were just motionlessly floating in place.

The lost feeling he had experienced at his first glimpse of this place-like nothing he had ever heard of or imagined on Earth-was leaving him. The determination to be successful in his visit gripped him again. Where was Teenie?

Then he again felt all unstabilized. Neither he nor the guard were walking, they seemed to have just been standing. But they were moving! Very slowly and gently this floor, without even so much as a ripple, was carrying them down one wall. What he had thought must be some kind of huge bureau was actually the top of a bed!

Madison stared.

It was a dark area of the room. Moans of pleasure were coming from it.

The moving floor made further progress.

Teenie's hand was visible in a patch of light. It rose up and quivered as she groaned.

The music moaned; the perfume drifted.

The guard gave the chain a slight rattle to attract attention.

The heads of the two maids snapped up with a jerk. They saw who it was and glared at Madison resentfully.

Teenie turned her head slowly and her sex-glazed eyes gradually focused on Madison. Then she closed her too-big mouth and smiled a slow smile.

In a lazy voice, in English she said, "You waited so long, I was finally certain you weren't coming so I let them go ahead-they wring their hands so when they see me all worked up by dancing and unsatisfied." She was coming back to herself now and the musing quality was leaving her voice. The lazy smile turned into a grin. "Well, well, Maddie. You finally decided to let me have a crack at breaking you of this mother fixation." She laughed with delight.

The guard suddenly knelt, bowed his head and courteously placed the handle of the chain in her nearest out-flung hand. He said to the misty floor, "Your Majesty, here is one to do your bidding: pray thee, if he does not please thee, I shall be right outside the door with an electric whip."

Teenie glanced along her arm at it, saw the button and gripped it.

The collar almost took Madison's head off. He let out a scream! He clutched at the collar with both hands. Teenie looked at the button and looked up at him. The current was off now and Madison was moving his head about to see if it was still on. Teenie suddenly began to laugh. "Oh, Maddie, I see we're going to have fun! I don't want to hurt you. I want you to have a marvelous time. So you just be a good boy and do whatever you're told and I won't touch the button again."

Madison was not at all reassured. The bizarre room was already rippling and the tearing feeling had jarred his brain so it now seemed to be spinning. Was the moaning still the music or was it him?

Through the daze, he saw that the maids were also laughing now, but there was a note of cruelty in it that was absent from Teenie's: he was only too well aware that with this staff he was not amongst friends. And Teenie was no friend either. She had said so! He was trying to marshal his resolution. The guard, after a glare of caution at him, went to stand in the hall.

Teenie, still laughing, was giving them directions.

One maid got up, wrapping a robe about her. With a silken cloth, she began to straighten Teenie's makeup.

The other maid, a mature and good-looking woman, wiped off her own face with the hem of her scanty covering, got up and began to advance on Madison.

Although he tried to flinch away, she sprayed him with a masculine-smelling powder.

She reached for a pot of grease on a bureau.

Madison looked down at her and flinched.

The maid turned to Teenie and said, "Your Majesty, I think this nobleman must have had a dishrag in his ancestry."

This made Teenie laugh. She was lying on her side now, looking in Madison's direction. "Well, wring him out!" she cried.

Madison snatched his robe about him in panic.

The other maid looked over at him in surprise and then began to guffaw.

Madison now had his hands out, trying to keep the first maid from approaching him.

This sent Teenie into gales of laughter. She finally panted, "Oh, Maddie, you're killing me! Didn't your mother teach you anything?" And she went rolling about, screaming with mirth at her own joke.

Madison's eyes were glazed with terror. He was making a blocking motion with his hands.

Two maids' faces were laughing at him as they knelt in front of him.

Madison was backing up.

One maid had the pot of grease.

Madison was staring down at it.

The other was measuring out some hash oil.

"No, no!" shrieked Madison.

Teenie was convulsed with laughter. "Oh, Maddie," she shrieked, "you ARE a clown! This time you're going to be cured of your mother!" She sat up. "After me, you're going to get those two," and she pointed to her maids.

"NO!" screamed Madison.

One of the maids, still laughing, moved forward to grab him.

Madison backed up again. Then he saw something.

The end of the chain was no longer held by Teenie. It fell off the bed and hit the floor.

The maid had grabbed him. Madison was looking around wildly.