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🟡 Creature from Cleveland Depths (Full Audiobook) | Fritz Leiber · Classic Science Fiction Audiobooks: Free Public Domain Sci-Fi Stories

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Part one of the Creature from Cleveland Depths by fritzliber
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Reading by Greg Marguerite, Part one
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: of the Creature from Cleveland Depths by Fritzliber. Here is
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: a modern tale of an interdirected sorcerer and an outer
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: directed sorcerer's apprentice. A tale of the Creature from Cleveland Depths.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Come on, Gussie, Faye prodded quietly, quit stalking around like
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: a neurotic bear and suggest something for my invention team
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: to work on. I enjoy visiting you in Daisy, but
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: I can't stay above ground all night. If being outside
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: the show shelters makes you nervous, don't come around anymore,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Gusterson told him, continuing to stalk. Why doesn't your invention
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: team think of something to invent? Why don't you h
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: in the hugh late triumphant condemnation of a whole way
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: of life, we do, Fay responded, imperturbably, But a fresh
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: viewpoint sometimes helps. I'll say it does, Fay. You burglar,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: I'll bet you've got twenty people like myself. You milk
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: for free ideas. First you irritate their bark, and then
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: you make the rounds every so often to draw off
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: the latex or the maple glop. Fay smiled. It ought
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: to please you that society still has a use for you,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: ultra interdirected types. It takes something to make a junior
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: executive stay above ground after dark when the missiles are
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: on the prow. Society can't have much use for us,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: or it did pay us something, Gusterson sourly asserted, staring
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: blankly at the tankless TV and kicking it lightly as
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: he passed on. No, you're wrong about that, Gussie. Money's
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: not the key goad with you inner directeds. I got
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: that straight from our motivations. Chief. Did he tell you
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: what we should use instead to pay the grosser? A
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: deep inner sense of achievement? Maybe, Fae. Why should I
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: do any free thinking for microsystems? I'll tell you why, Gussie,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: simply because you get a kick out of insulting us
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: with sardonic ideas. If we take one of them seriously,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: you think we're degrading ourselves, and that pleases you even more,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: like making someone laugh at a lousy pun. Gusterson held
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: still in his roaming and grinned that the reason, huh,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I suppose my suggestions would have to be something in
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  Speaker 1: the line of ultra subminiaturized computers, where one sinister, fine
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: etched molecule does the work of three big bumbling brain cells.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Not necessarily. Micro Systems is branching out wheel as free
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: as a rogue star. But I'll pass along to promotion
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: your one molecule three brain cell sparkler. It's a slight exaggeration,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: but it's catchy. I'll have my kids watch your ads
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: to see if you use it, and then I'll sue
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: the whole underworld. Gusterson frowned as he resumed his stalking.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: He stared puzzledly at the antique TV. How about inventing
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: a plutonium termite, he said suddenly. It would get rid
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: of those stockpiles that are worrying your mules to death.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Fay grimaced noncommittally and cocked his head. Well, then, how
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: about a beauty mask. How about that? Hey, I don't
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: mean one to repair a woman's complexion, but one she'd
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: wear all the time that it'd make her look like
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: a seventeen year old sex pot that'd end her worries. Hey,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: that's for me, Daisy called from the kitchen. I'll make
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Gusterson suffer. I'll make him crawl around on his hands
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: and knees, begging my immature You are favors. No you won't,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Gusterson called back. You having a face like that would
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: scare the kids. Better cancel that one. Faye half the
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: adult race looking like Vina Vitterson is too awful a thought. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: you're just scared of making a million dollars, Daisy jeered.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: I sure, am, Gusterson said, solemnly, scanning the fuzzy floor
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: from one murky glass wall to the other, hesitating at
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: the TV. How about something homey now, like a flock
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: of little prickly cylinders that roll around the floor collecting
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: lint and flub. They'd work by electricity or at a pinch.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Cats could bat him around every so often, they'd be
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  Speaker 1: automatically herded together, and the lint cleaned off the bristles.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: No good, they said, There's no lint underground, and cats
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  Speaker 1: are verbotten, and the above ground market doesn't amount to
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  Speaker 1: more money wise than the state of Southern Illinois. Keep
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: it grander, Gussie, and more impractical. You can't sell people
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: merely useful ideas. From his hassock in the center of
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: the room, he looked uneasily around. Say, did that violet
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: tone in the glass come from the high Cleveland hydrogen
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  Speaker 1: bomb or is it just age and ultra violet like
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: desert glass. No, somebody's grandfather liked it that color, Gusterson
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: informed him, with happy bitterness. I like it too, the glass,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, not the tint. People who live in glass
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: houses can see the stars, especially when there's a window
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  Speaker 1: washing streak in their germ plasm. Gussie, why don't you
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: move underground? Fay asked, his voice taking on a missionary note.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: It's a lot easier living in one room. Believe me,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: you don't have to tramp from room to room hunting things.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: I like the exercise, Gusterson said, stoutly. But I bet
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Daisy had preferred underground, and your kids wouldn't have to
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: explain why their father lives like a red Indian, not
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: to mention the safety factor and insurance savings and a
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: crypt church within easy slidewalk distance. Incidentally, we see stars
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: all the time better than you do. By repeater, stars
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: by repeater. Gusterson murmured to the ceiling, pausing for God
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  Speaker 1: to comment. Then no, Fay, even if I could afford
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: it and stand it, I'm such a bad luck Harry
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: that just when I got us all safely stowed at
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: the N minus one sublevel, the Soviets would discover an
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: earthquake bomb that struck from below, and I'd have to
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: follow everybody back to the tree tops. Hey, how about
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: bubble homes in orbit around Earth? Microsystems could subdivide the
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: world's most spacious suburb and all you moles could go ellipsing.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Space is as safe as there is no air, no
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: shock waves, free fall, the ultimate and restfulness, great health benefits.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Commute by rocket, or better yet, stay home and do
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: all your business by TV, telephone or by walder if
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: it were that sort of thing. Even pet your girl
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: by remote control. She in her bubble and you in yours,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: whizzing through vacuum. Oh, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn. He
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: was glaring at the blank screen of the TV, his
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: big hands clenching and unclenching. Don't let Faye give you apoplexy.
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  Speaker 1: He's not worth it, Daisy said, sticking her trim head
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  Speaker 1: in from the kitchen, while Fay inquired anxiously, Gussie, what's
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: the matter? Nothing, you worm, Gusterson roared, except that an
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: hour ago, I forgot to tune in on the only
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: TV program I've wanted to hear this year. Finnigan's Wake
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: scored for English, Gaelic and Brogue. Oh damn, damn, damn,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: too bad, Fay said. Lately, I didn't know they were
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: releasing it on flat TV. Too well, they were. Some
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: things are too damn big to keep completely underground, and
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: I had to forget. I'm always doing it. I miss everything.
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  Speaker 1: Look here, you rat, he bladded suddenly at Fae, shaking
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: his finger under the latter's chin. I'll tell you what
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: you can have that ignorant team of yours invent. They
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: can fix me up a mechanical secretary that I can
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  Speaker 1: feed orders into, and that'll remind me when the exact
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: moment comes to listen to TV, or phone somebody, or
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: mail in a story, or write a letter, or pick
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: up a magazine or look at in the clips or
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: a new orbiting station, or fetch the kids from school,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: or buy Daisy a bunch of flowers or whatever it is.
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  Speaker 1: It's got to be something that's always with me, not
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: something I have to go and consult or that I
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: can get sick of and put down somewhere. And it's
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: got to remind me forcibly enough so that I take
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  Speaker 1: notice and don't just shrug it aside like I sometimes do,
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  Speaker 1: even when Daisy reminds me of things. That's what your
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: stupid team can invent for me. If they do a
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: good job, I'll pay him as much as fifty dollars.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: That doesn't sound like anything so very original to me,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Faye commented coolly, leaning back from the wagging finger. I
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  Speaker 1: think all senior executives have something of that sort. At
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: least their secretary keeps some kind of file. I'm not
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  Speaker 1: looking for something with spiked falsees and nylons up to
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  Speaker 1: the neck, interjected Gusterson, whose idea about secretaries were a
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  Speaker 1: trifle lurid. I just want a mech reminder, that's all. Well.
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  Speaker 1: I'll keep the idea in mind, Fay assured him, along
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: with the bubble homes and beauty masks. If we ever
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: develop anything along those lines, I'll let you know. If
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: it's a beauty mask, I'll bring Daisy a pilot model
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  Speaker 1: to use to scare strange kids. He put his watch
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: to his ear. Good lord, I'm going to have to
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: cut to make it underground before the main doors close.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Just ten minutes to second curfew by gus By Days.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Two minutes later, living room lights out. They watched Phase
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  Speaker 1: four shortened ant like figures scurrying across the balding ill
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  Speaker 1: lit park toward the new You're at escalator. Gusterson said,
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  Speaker 1: weird to think of that big bright spaceport glamour basement
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  Speaker 1: stretching around everywhere underneath. Did you remind Smitty to put
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: a new bulb in the elevator? The smiths moved out
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  Speaker 1: this morning, Daisy said tonelessly. They went underneath like cockroaches.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Gusterson said, cockroaches, leaving us sinkin apartment building. Next the
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: ghosts will be retreating to the shelters. Anyhow, From now on,
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  Speaker 1: we're our own janitors, Daisy said. He nodded. Just leaves
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  Speaker 1: three families besides us loyal to this glass death trap,
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  Speaker 1: not counting ghosts. He sighed. Then you like to move below, Daisy,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: he asked, softly, putting his arm lightly across her shoulders,
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  Speaker 1: get a woozy eye full of the bright lights, and
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: all for a change, be a rat for a while.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Maybe we're getting too old to be bats. I could
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  Speaker 1: scrouch me a company job and have a think closet
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  Speaker 1: all to myself and two secretaries with stainless steel breasts.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Life would be easier for you, and a lot cleaner
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: than You'd sleep safer, that's true, she answered, and paused.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: She ran her fingertips slowly across the murky glass, its
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  Speaker 1: violet tint barely perceptible against a cold, dim light across
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: the park. But somehow, she said, snaking her arm around
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  Speaker 1: his waist, I don't think i'd sleep happier or one
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: bit excited. Chapter two, Three weeks later, Faye, dropping in again,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: handed to Daisy the larger of the two rather small
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: packages he was carrying. It's a so called beauty mask,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: he told her, complete with wig eyelashes and wettable velvet lips.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: It even breathes pin hold a LASTI skin with a
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: static adherence charge. But microsystems had nothing to do with it.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Thank god. Beauty Tricks put it on the market ten
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: days ago, and it's already started a teenage craze some
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: boys are wearing them too, and the police are yipping
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: at Tricks for encouraging transvestism with psychic repercussions. Didn't I
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: hear somewhere that Tricks is a secret subsidiary of micro
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Gusterson demanded, rearing up from his ancient electric typewriter. Now
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: you're not stopping me writing, fae. It's the gut of everything.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: If I do any more, I won't have any juice
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: to start with. Tomorrow, I got another of my insanity
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: thrillers moving, a real id teaser. In this one, not
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: only all the characters are crazy, but the robot psychiatrist too.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: The vending machines are jumping with insanity novels, they commented,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: odd they're so popular, Gusterson shortled. The only way you
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: outer directed moles will accept individuality anymore, even in a
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: fictional character without your superegos getting seasick, is for them
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: to be crazy. Hey, daisy, let me see that, he asked,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: But his wife, backing out of the room, hugged the
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: package to her bosom and solemnly shook her head. A
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: hell of a thing, Gusterson complained, not even able to
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: see what my stolen ideas. Look like I've got a
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: present for you too, Fay said, something you might think
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: of as a royalty on all the inventions someone thought
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: of a little ahead of you, fifty dollars by your
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: own evaluation. He held out the smaller package. Your tickler,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: My what, Gusterson demanded, suspiciously? Your tickler the mech reminder
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: you wanted. It turns out that the file a secretary
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: keeps to remind her boss to do certain things at
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: certain times is called a tickler file. So we named
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: this a tickler Here Gusterson still didn't touch the package.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: You mean you actually put your invention team to work
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: on that nonsense? Well, what do you think? Don't be
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: scared of it. Here I'll show you. As he unwrapped
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: the package, Fay said, it hasn't been decided yet whether
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: we'll manufacture it commercially. If we do, I'll put through
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: a voucher for you for development consultation or something like that. Sorry,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: no royalties possible. Davidson's squad had started to work up
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: the identical idea three years ago, but it got shelved.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: I found it on a snoop through the closets. There
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: looks rich doesn't it. On the scarred black tabletop was
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: a dully gleaming silvery object about the size and shape
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: of a cupped hand with fingers merging a tiny pellet
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: on a short near invisible wire led off from it.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: On the back was a punctured area suggesting the face
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: of a microphone. There was also a window with a
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: date and time in hours and minutes showing through, and
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: next to that four little buttons in a row. The
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: concave under side of the silvery hand was smooth, except
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: for a central area where what looked like two little
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: rollers came through. It goes on your shoulder, under your shirt,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Faye explained, and you tuck the pellet in your ear.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: We might work up bone conduction on a commercial model.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Inside is an ultra slow fine wire recorder holding a
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: spool that runs for a week. The clock lets you
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: go to any place on the seven day wire and
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: record a message. The buttons give you variable speed in
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: going there, so you don't waste too much time making
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: a setting. There's a knack in fingering them efficiently, but
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: it's easily acquired. Faye picked up the tickler. For instance,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: suppose there's a TV show you want to catch tomorrow
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: night at twenty two hundred. He touched the buttons. There
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: was the faintest whirring. The clock face blurred briefly three
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: times before showing the setting he'd mentioned. Then Fay spoke
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: into the punctured area. Turn on TV channel two. You
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: big dummy, he grinned over at Gusterson. When you've got
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: all your instructions to yourself loaded in, you synchronize with
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: the press moment and let her roll. Fit it on
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: your shoulder and forget it. Oh yes, and it literally
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: does tickle you every time it delivers an instruction. That's
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: what the little rollers are for. Believe me, you can't
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: ignore it. Come on, Gussie, take off your shirt and
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: try it out. We'll feed in some instructions for the
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: next ten minutes so you get the feel of how
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: it works. I don't want to, Gusterson said, not right now.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: I want to sniff around it first. My god, it's small.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Besides everything else it does, does it think? Don't pretend
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: to be an idiot, Gussie. You know very well that
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: even with ultra sub micro, nothing quite this small can
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: possibly have enough elements to do any thinking. Gusterson shrugged,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know about that. I think bugs think they
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: groaned faintly. Bugs operate by instinct, Gussie, He said, a
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: patterned routine. They do not scan situations and consequences and
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: then make decisions. I don't expect bugs to make decisions,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Gusterson said, for that matter, I don't like people who
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: go around all the time making decisions. Well, you can
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: take it from me, Gussy, that this tickler is just
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: a miniaturized wire recorder in clock and a tickler. It
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: doesn't do anything else, not yet, maybe, Gusterson said, darkly,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: not this model, Fae. I'm serious about bugs thinking, or
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: if they don't exactly think, they feel, they've got an
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: interior drama and inner glow. They're conscious. For that matter, Fay,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: I think all your really complex electronic computers are conscious too.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Quit kidding, Gussy, who's kidding you? Are computers simply aren't alive?
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: What's alive a word? I think computers are conscious at
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: least while they're operating. They've got that inner glow of awareness.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: They sort of well meditate, Gussy. Compute haven't got any
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: circuits for meditating. They're not programmed for mystical lucubrations. They've
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: just got circuits for solving the problems there on. Okay,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: you admit they've got problems solving circuits like a man
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: has I say, if they've got the equipment for being conscious,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: they're conscious? What has wings flies? Including stuffed doals and
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: gilt eagles and dodos and wood burning airplanes? Maybe under
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: some circumstances there was a wood burning airplane, Fay. Gusterson continued,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: wagging his wrists for emphasis. I really think computers are conscious.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: They just don't have any way of telling us that
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: they are, or maybe they don't have any reason to
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: tell us. Like the little Scotch boy who didn't say
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: a word until he was fifteen and was supposed to
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: be deaf and dumb. Why didn't he say a word
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: because he'd never had anything to say? Or take those
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Hindu fuck heres, Faye, who sit still and don't say
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: a word for thirty years or until their fingernail grow
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: to the next village. If Hindu fockers can do that,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: computers can. Looking as if he were masticating a lemon,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Fay asked quietly, Gussie, did you say you were working
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: on an insanity novel? Gusterson frowned fiercely. Now you're kidding,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: he accused Faye, the dirty kind of kidding too. I'm sorry,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Faye said, with light contrition. Well, now that you've sniffed
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: at it, how about trying on tickler. He picked up
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: the gleaming, blunted crescent and jogged it temptingly under Gusterson's chin.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Why should I, Gusterson asked, stepping back, Faye, I'm up
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: to my ears writing a book. The last thing I
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: want is something interrupting me to make me listen to
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: a lot of junk and do a lot of useless things.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: But damn it, Gussie, it was all your idea in
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: the first place, Faye bladded, Then catching himself, he added,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: I mean you were one of the first people to
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: think of this particular sort of instrument. Maybe so, But
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: I've done some more thinking since then. Gusterson's voice grew
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: a trifle solemn, inner directed worthwhile thinking, Fay, when a
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: man forgets to do something, it's because he really doesn't
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: want to do it, or because he's all roiled up
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: down in his unconscious He ought to take it as
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: a danger signal and investigate the roiling, not hire himself
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: a human or mech reminder bush Wi Fay retorted, in
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: that case, you shouldn't write memorandums or even take notes.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Maybe I shouldn't. Gusterson agreed, lamely. I have to think
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: that over too, huh, Faye jeered. No, I'll tell you
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: what your trouble is, Gussie. You're simply scared of this contraption.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: You've loaded your skull with horror story nonsense about machines
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: sprouting minds and taking over the world until you're even
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: scared of a simple miniaturized and clocked recorder. He thrust
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: it out. Maybe I am, Gusterson admitted, controlling a flinch. Honestly, Fay,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: that thing's got a gleam in its eye, as if
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: it had ideas of its own, nasty ideas. Gussie, you nut.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: It hasn't got an eye, not now, no, but it's
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: got the gleam. The eye may come. It's the chesher
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: cat in reverse. If you'd step over here and look
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: at yourself holding it, you could see what I mean.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: But I don't think computers sprout minds, Fae. I just
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: think they've got minds because they've got the mind elements.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Ho ho Faye, mocked. Everything that has a material side
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: has a mental side, he chanted, Everything that's a body
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: is also a spirit. Gussie. That dubious old metaphysical dualism
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: when out centuries ago. Maybe so, Gusterson said, But we
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: still haven't anything but that dubious dualism to explain the
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: human mind, have we? It's a jelly of nerve cells
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: and it's a vision of the cosmos. If that isn't dual,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: what is? I give up? Gussie? Are you going to
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: try out this tickler? No? But damn it, Gussie, we
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: made it just for you, but practically sorry, but I'm
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: not coming near the thing. Then come near me. A
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: husky voice in toned behind them, tonight, I vant a
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: man standing in the door was something slim in a
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: short silver sheath. It had golden bangs and the haughtiest
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: snub nosed face in the world. It slunk toward them.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: My god, it's Verna Vitterson, Gusterson yelled, Daisy, that's terrific.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: Faye applauded, Going up to her. She bumped him aside
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: with a swing of her hips, continuing to advance. Not you, Ratti,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: she said throatily. Ivan triel Man Faye, I suggested Vina
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Vitterson's face for the beauty mask, Gusterson said, walking around
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: his wife and shake a finger. Don't tell me tricks
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: just happened to think of that too. What else could
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: they think of? Fay laughed, This season sex means VV
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: and nobody else. An odd little grin flicked his lips,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: a tick traveled up his face, and his body twitched slightly. Say, folks,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: I'm going to have to leave. It's exactly fifteen minutes
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: to second curfew. Last time I had to run and
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: I got heartburn. When are you people going to move downstairs?
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: I'll leave, tickler Gussie play around with it and get
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: used to it by now, Hey, Fay, Gusterson called, curiously,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: have you developed absolute time? Since Fay grinned a big
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: grin from the doorway. Almost too big a grin for
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: so small a man. I didn't need to, he said, softly,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: patting his right shoulder. My tickler told me. He closed
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: the door behind him. As side by side they watched
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: him strut sedately across the murky chili looking park. Gundersen mused,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: So the little devil had one of those nonsense gadgets
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: on all the time, and I never noticed. Can you
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: beat that? Something drew across the violet tinged stars, a short,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: bright line that quickly faded. What's that? Gusterson asked gloomily,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: next to last stage of missile here, won't you settle
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: for an old fashioned shooting star, Daisy asked softly. The
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: wettable velvet lips of the mask made even her natural
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: voice sound different. She reached a hand back of her
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: neck to pull the thing off. Hey, don't do that,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: Gusterson protested, in a hurt voice. Not for a while anyway,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: haw kay, she said, harshly, turning on him. Zen down
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: on your knees, dog. Chapter three. It was a fortnight
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: and Gusterson was loping down the home stretch on his
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: forty thousand word insanity novel before fate dropped in again,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: this time promptly at high noon. Normally, Fay cringed his
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: shoulders a trifle and was inclined to slither, But now
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: he strode aggressively, his legs scissoring in a fast, low
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: goose step. He whipped off the sunglasses that all moles
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: wore during topside by day and began to pound Gusterson
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: on the back while calling boisterously, how are you gussy?
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Old boy? Old boy? Daisy came in from the kitchen
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: to see why Gusterson was joking. She was instantly grabbed
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: and violently busted to the accompaniment of Hi, gorgeous, yum yum,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: how about ad libbing that some weekend. She stared at
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: Fade dazedly, rasping the back of her hand across her mouth,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: while Gusterson yelled quit that what's got into you? Faye?
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Have they transferred you out of our indeed a company morale?
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: They line up all the secretaries at roll call and
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: make you give them an eight hour energizing kiss. Huh
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: wouldn't you like to know? Fay retorted. He grinned, twitched, jumpingly,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: held still a moment, then hustled over to the far wall.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Look out there, he wrapped, pointing through the violet glass
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: at the gap between the two nearest old skyscraper apartments.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: In thirty seconds, you'll see them test the new needle
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: bomb at the other end of Lake Erie. It's educational.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: He began to count off seconds, vigorously, semaphoring his arm. Two. Three, Gussie,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: I've put through a voucher for two yards for you,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Budgeting squawked, but I pressured them, Daisy squealed, yards are
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: those dollar thousands? While Gusterson was asking, then you're marketing
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: the tickler. Yes, yes, Fay replied to them in turn
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: nine ten. Again he grinned and twitched time for noon
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: com staff. He announced, staccato, pardon the hushbox. He whipped
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: a pancake phone from under his coat, clapped it over
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: his and spoke fiercely but inaudibly into it, continuing to semaphore.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Suddenly he thrust the phone away. Twenty nine thirty the
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: ar she blows and incandescent streak shot up the sky
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: from a little above the far horizon, and a doubly
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: dazzling point of light appeared just above the top of it,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: with the effect of God dotting an eye that'll skewer
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: the espionage satellites like swatting flies. Fate proclaimed as the
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: poor tent faded bracing. Gussie, where's your tickler. I've got
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: a new spool for it that'll razzle dazzle you, I'll bet,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Gusterson said dryly. Daisy, you gave it to the kids
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: and they got to fooling with it and broke it,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: no matter, Fate told them with a large sidewise sweep
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: of his hand. Better you wait for the new model.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: It's a six way improvement, so I gathered, Gusterson said,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: eyeing him speculatively. Does it automatically inject you with cocaine
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: fix every hour on the second? Ha ha joke, Gussie.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: It achieves the same effect without using any dope at all. Listen,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: a tickler reminds you of your duties and opportunities, your
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: chances for happiness and success. What's the obvious next step?
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Throw it out the window? By the way, how do
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: you do that when you're underground? We have high speed
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: garbage boosts. The obvious next step is to give the
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: tickler a heart. It not only tells you, it warmly
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: persuades you. It doesn't just say turn on the TV
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: channel two choice program. It brills at you, kid, old kid,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: race for the TV and flip that two switch. There's
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: a great show coming through the pipes this second plus ten.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: You'll enjoy the hell out of yourself. Grab a ticket
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: to ecstasy, My god, Gusterson gasped. Are those the kind
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: of jolts it's giving you now? Don't you get it, Gussie.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: You never load your tickler except when you're feeling buoyantly enthusiastic.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: You don't just tell yourself what to do hour by
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: hour next week. You sell yourself on it. That way,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: you not only make doubly sure you'll obey instructions, but
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: you constantly reinoculate yourself with your own enthusiasm. I can't
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: stand myself when I'm that enthusiastic, Gusterson said, I feel
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: ashamed for hours afterwards. You are warped all this lonely SkyLife.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: What's more, Gussie? Think how still more persuasive some of
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: those instructions would be if they came to a man
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: in his best girl's most bedroomy voice, or his doctors
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: or psychers, if it's that sort of thing, or Vina Vinerson's.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: By the way, days, don't wear that beauty mask outside.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: It's a grand misdemeanor ever since ten thousand teenagers riding
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: through tunnel Mart wearing them and vv's suing tricks. No
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: chance of that, Daisy said, and got excited and bit
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: off the nose. She pinched her own delicately. I'd no
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: more obey my enthusiastic self, Gusterson was brooding than I'd
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: obey a Napoleon drunk on his own brandy, or a
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: hopped up Saint Francis reinoculated with my own enthusiasm. I die,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: just like from a snake bite warped, I said, Fay dogmatized.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Stamping around Gussie, having the instructions persuasive instead of neutral,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: turned out to be only the opening wedge. The next
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: step wasn't so obvious, but I saw it using subliminal
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: verbal stimuli in his tickler. A man can be given constant,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: supportive euphoric therapy twenty four hours a day, and it
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: makes use of all that empty wire. We've revived the
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: ideas of a pioneer dynamic psycher named doctor Cooey. For instance,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: right now, my tickler is saying to me in tones
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: too soft to reach my conscious mind, But do they
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: stab in the unconscious day by day? In every way,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: I'm getting sharper and sharper. It alternates that with gutsier
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: and gutsier, and well, forget that Kooey mostly used better
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: and better, but that seems too general. And every hundredth
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: time it says them out loud, and the tickler gives
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: me a brush, just a faint couch to make sure
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: I'm keeping in touch that third word pair, Daisy wondered,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: feeling her mouth reminiscently. Could I guess Gunderson's eyes had
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: been growing wider and wider? Faye, he said, I could
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: no more use my mind for anything if I knew
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: all that was going on in my inner ear than
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: if I were being brushed down with brooms by three witches.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Look here, he said, with loud authority. You got to
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: stop all this. It's crazy. Faye. If micro will junk
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: the tickler, I'll think you up something else to invent
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: something real good. You're inventing days are over, Fay brilled gleefully.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: I mean you'll never equal your masterpiece. How about, Gusterson bellowed,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: an anti individual guided missile. The physicists have got small
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: scale anti gravity good enough to float and fly something
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: the size of a hand grenade. I can smell that,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: even though it's a back of the safe military secret. Well,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: how about keying such a missile to a man's fingerprints,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: or brain waves maybe or his unique smell, so it
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: can spot and follow him around, then target in on
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: him without harming anyone else. Long distance assassination, and the
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: stinkin just gets in. Or you could simply load it
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: with some disgusting goo and key it to teenagers as
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: a group that'd take care of them. Fay, doesn't it
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: give you a rich, warm kick to think of my
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: midget missiles buzzing around in your tunnels seeking out evildoers
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: like a swarm of angry wasps or angelic bumblebees. You're
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: not luring me down any side trails, Faye said, laughingly.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: He grinned and twitched, then hurried toward the opposite wall,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: motioning them to follow outside. About one hundred yards beyond
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: the purple glass rose another ancient glass walled apartment skyscraper
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: beyond Lake Eerie rippled glintingly. Another bomb test, Gunderson asked.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: Faye pointed at the building. Tomorrow, he announced, a modern
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: factory devoted solely to the manufacturer of ticklers will be
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: erected on that site. You mean one of those windowless
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: phallic eye sores, Gunderson demanded, Fay. You people aren't even consistent.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: You've got all your homes underground, why not your factories
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: sh not enough room? And night missiles are scarier. I
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: know that building's been empty for a year, Daisy said, uneasily,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: But how sh watch now The looming buildings seemed to
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: blur or fuzz for a moment. Then it was as
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: if the lakes brought ripples that invaded the old glass
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: one hundred yards away. Wavelets chased themselves up and down
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: the gleaming walls became high higher, and then suddenly the
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: glass cracked all over to tiny fragments and fell away,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: to be followed quickly by fragmented concrete and plastic and
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: plastic piping, until all that was left was the nude
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: steel framework, vibrating so rapidly as to be almost invisible
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: against the gleaming sky. Daisy covered her ears, but there
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: was no explosion, only a long, drawn out low crash
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: as the fragments hit twenty floors below and dust washed
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: out sideways spectacular, they summed up. Knew you'd enjoy it.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: That little trick was first conceived by the Great Tesla
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: during his last fruity years. Research discovered it in his biog.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: We just made the dream come true. A tiny resonance
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: device you could carry in your belt bag at tunes
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: itself to the natural harmonic of a structure, and then
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: increases amply to buy tiny pushes exactly in time, just
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: like soldiers marching in step can break down a bridge,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: only this is as if it were being done by
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: one marching ant. He pointed at the naked framework, appeering
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: out of its own blur, and said, we'll be able
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: to hang the factory on that. If not, we'll whip
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: a mega current through it and vaporize it. No question,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: the micro resonator is the neatest, sweetest wrecking device going.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: You can expect a lot more of this sort of
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: efficiency now that mankind has the tickler to enable him
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: to use his full potential. What's the matter, folks? Daisy
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: was staring around the violet walled room with dumb mistrust.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: Her hands were trembling. You don't have to worry, Faye
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: assured her with an understanding laugh. This building's safe for
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: a month more, at least. Suddenly he grimaced and leaped
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: a foot in the air. He raised a clawed hand
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: to scratch his shoulder, but managed to check the movement.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: Got to beat it, folk, he announced, tersely. My tickler
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: gave me the grand couch. Don't go yet, Gunderson called
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: rousing himself with a shudder, which he immediately explained, I
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: just had the illusion that if I shook myself, all
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: my flesh and guts would fall off my shimmying skeleton.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Burr Faye. Before you and micro go off half cocked,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: I want you to know there's one insuperable objection to
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: the tickler as a mass market item. The average man
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: or woman won't go to the considerable time and trouble
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: it must take to load the tickler. He simply hasn't
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: got the compulsive orderliness and willingness to plan that it requires.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: We thought of that weeks ago. Fay wrapped his hand
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: on the door. Every tickler spool that goes to market
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: is patterned like wallpaper, with one of five designs of
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: suitable subliminal support of euphoric material idior and idior, viriler
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: and viler. You know, the buyer is robot interviewed for
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: an hour, his personalized daily routine laid out and thereafter
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: templated on his weekly spool. He's strongly urged next to
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: take his tickler to his doctor and psycher for further
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: instruction imposition. We've been working with the medical profession from
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: the start They love the tickler because it reminds people
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: to take their medicine on the dot and rest and
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: eat and go to sleep. Just when and how Doc says,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: this is a big operation, Gussie, A big operation by
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: Daisy hurried to the wall to watch him cross the park.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: Deep down, she was a wee bit worried that he
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: might linger to attach a micro resonator to this building,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: and she wanted to time him. But Gusterson settled down
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: to his typewriter and began to bat away. I want
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: to have another novel started, he explained to her, before
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: the ant marches across this building. In about four and
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: a half weeks or a million sharp little gutsy guys
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: comes swarming out of the ground and he into Lake Erie.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: Chapter four. Early next morning, windowless walls began to crawl
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: up the stripped skyscraper between them and the lake. Daisy
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: pulled the blackout curtains on that side. For a day
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: or two longer, their thoughts and conversations were haunted by
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: Gusterson's vague, sardonic visions of a horde of tickler energized
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: moles pouring up out of the tunnels to tear down
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: the remaining trees, tank the atmosphere and perhaps somehow dismantle
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: the stars, at least on this side of the world.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: But then they both settled back into their customary, easy
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: going routines. Gusterson typed Daisy made her daily shopping trip
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: to a little topside daytime store and started painting a
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: mural on the floor of the empty apartment next to theirs.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: We ought to lasso some neighbors, she suggested, once I
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: need somebody to hold my brushes and admire. How about
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: you making a trip below at the cocktail hours Gusterson
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: and picking up a couple of girls for a star
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: flash the old viriler charm cooch them up a bit,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: emphasize the delights of high living, but make sure they're
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: compatible roommates. You could pick up that two yard check
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: from micro at the same time. You're an immoral money
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: ravenous wench, Gusterson said, absently, trying to dream of an
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: insanity beyond insanity that would make his next novel a
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: real id rousing best vender. If that's your vision of me,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't have chewed up the v V mask. I
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: really prefer you with green stripes, he told her. But stripes,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: spots or sunbathing. You're better than those cocktail moles. Actually,
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: both of them acutely disliked going below. They much preferred
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: to perch in their eerie and watch the people of
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Cleveland Depths, as they privately called the local sub suburb,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: rush up out of the shelters at dawn to work
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: in the concrete fields and windowless factories, make their daytime
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: jet trips and freeway jaunts, do their noon hour and
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: coffee break gorilla practice, and then go scarrying back at
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: twilight to the atomic proof, brightly lit, vastly exciting, claustrophobic caves.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: Fay and his projects began once more to seem dream like,
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: though Gusterson did run across a cryptic advertisement for ticklers
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: in the Manchester Guardian, which he got daily by facsimile.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: Their three children reported similar ads of no interest to
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: young Fry on the TV, and one afternoon they came
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: home with the startling news that the monitors at their
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: subsurface school had been issued ticklers. On sharp interrogation by Gusterson, however,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: it appeared that these last were not ticklers, but merely
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: two way radios linked to the school police station transmitter,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: which is bad enough, Gusterson commented later to Daisy, but
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: it'd be even dirtier to think of those clock watching
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: super egos being strapped to kids shoulders. Can you imagine
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: huck Finn with a tickler telling and then went to
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: tie up the raft to a tow head and went
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: to take a swim. I bet Fay could, Daisy countered,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: when's he going to bring you that check? Anyhow? Iago
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: wants a jet cycle, and I promised immagene a Vina kit,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: and then Claudius, I'll have to have something. Gusterson scowled thoughtfully.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: You know days, he said, I got a feeling fase
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: in the hospital, all narketized up and being fed intravenously
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: the way he was jumping around last time, that Tickler
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: was going to coach him to pieces in a week.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: As if to refute this intuition, Fay turned up that
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: very evening the lights were dim. Something had gone wrong
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: with the building's old transformer, and pending repairs, the two
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: remaining occupied apartments were making do with batteries, which turned
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: bright globes to mysterious amber candles and made Gusterson's ancient
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: typewriter operate sluggishly. Fay's manner was subdued, or at least
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: closely controlled, and for a moment Gusterson thought he'd shed
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: his Tickler. Then the little man came out of the
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: shadows and Gusterson saw the large bulge on his right shoulder. Yes,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: we had to up it a bit size wise, Fay explained,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: in clipped tones additional super features. While brilliantly successful on
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: the whole, these subliminal euphorics were a shade too effective.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: Several hundred users went hoppity manic. We gentled the couch
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: and qualified the subliminals. You know, day by day in
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: every way, I'm getting sharper and more serene. But a
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: stabilizing influence was still needed. So after a top level conference,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: we decided to combine Tickler with mood Master. My god,
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: Gusterson interjected, Do they have a machine now that does that?
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: Of course, they've been using them on ex mental patients
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: for years. I just don't keep up with progress, Gusterson said,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: shaking his head bleakly. I'm falling behind on all fronts.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: You you ought to have your tickler remind you to
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: read Science Service releases Faye told him, we're simply instructed
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: to scan the releases, and no, that's still in research.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: He looked at Gusterson's shoulder and his eyes widened. You're
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: not wearing the new model Tickler I sent you, he said, accusingly.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: I never got it, Gusterson assured him. Postman delivered topside
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: mail and parcels by throwing them on the high speed
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: garbage boosts and hoping a tornado will blow them to
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: the right address. Then he added, helpfully, maybe the Russians
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: stole it while it was riding the whirlwinds. That's not
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: a suitable topic for jesting, Faye frowned. We're hoping that
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: Tickler will mobilize the full potential of the free world
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: for the first time in history. Gusterson, you are going
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: to have to wear a tickie tick It's becoming impossible
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: for a man to get through modern life without one.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: Maybe I will, Gusterson said, appeasingly. But right now, tell
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: me about mood Master. I want to put it in
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: my new insane novel. Fay shook his head. Your readers
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: will just think you're behind the times if you use it,
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: underplay it. But anyhow, mood Master is a simple physiotherapy
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: engine that monitors bloodstream chemicals and body electricity. It ties
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: directly into the bloodstream, keeping blood sugar, et cetera at
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: optimum levels, and injecting euphrine or depress in as necessary,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: and occasionally a touch of extra adrenaline, as during work emergencies.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: Is it painful? Daisy called from the bedroom, excruciating Gusterson
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: called back, excuse it please? He grinned at Faye, Hey,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: didn't I suggest cocaine injections last time I saw you?
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: So you did? Fay agreed flatly. Oh, by the way, Gussie,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: here's that check for a yard. I promised you Micro
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: doesn't muzzle the ox. Hooray, Daisy cheered faintly. I thought
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: you said it was going to be for two. Gusterson complained,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: Budgeting always forces a last minute compromise. Fay shrugged. You
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: have to learn to accept those things. I love accepting money,
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: and I'm glad any time. For three feet, Daisy called agreeably.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: Six feet might make me wonder if I weren't an insect,
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: but getting a yard just makes me feel like a
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: gangster's mall want to come out and gloat over the
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: yard paper toots and stuff it in your diamond embroidered
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: net stocking top. Gusterson called back, No, I'm doing something
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: to that portion of me just now. But hang on
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: to the yard Gusterson. Aye, aye, cap'n, he assured her,
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: then turning back to Fay. So you've taken the doctor
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: Cooey repeating out of the tickler. Oh no, just balance
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: it off with depressing. The subliminals are still a prime
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: sales point. All the tickler features are cumulative. Gussie. You're
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: still underestimating the scope of the device. I guess, I am.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: What's this work emergency's business? If you're use the tickler
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: to inject drugs into workers to keep them going, that's
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: really just my cocaine suggestion modernized and I'm putting in
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: for another thou Hundreds of years ago, the South American
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: Indians chewed coca leaves to kill fatigue sensations. That's so interesting,
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: and it proves priority for the Indians, doesn't it. I'll
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: make a try for you, Gussie, but don't expect anything.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: He cleared his throat, his eyes grew distant, and turning
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: his head a little to the right, he enunciated sharply
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: pooh Bah time instant oh five, one oh five seven,
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: oh oh record Gussie Coca Thoul budget cut, He explained,
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: we got a voice cued setter. Now on the Deluxe
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: models you can record a memo to yourself without taking
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: off your shirt. Incidentally, I used the ends of the
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: hours for trifle memos. I've already used up the fifty
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: nines and eights for tomorrow and started on the fifty sevens.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: Understood most of your memo, Gusterson told him gruffly. The
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: last oh was for seconds, wasn't it Now? I call
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: that crude? Why not microseconds too? But how do you
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: remember where you've made a memo so you don't record
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: over it? After all, you're re recording over the wallpaper
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: all the time. Tickler beeps and then hunts for the
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: nearest information free space. I see, And what's the poohba for?
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: Fay smiled cut my password for activating this setter so
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: it won't respond to chance numerals it overhears. But why
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: poohba Faye grinned cut and you were writer? It's a
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: literary reference, Gussie poohba cut was lord high everything else
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: in the mikado. He had a little list, and nothing
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: on it would ever be missed. Oh yeah, Gunderson remembered,
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: glowering as I recall it. All that went on that
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: list was the names of people who were slim to
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: have their heads chopped off by Coco. Better watch your steps, shorty.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: It may be a backhanded omen. Maybe all those workers
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: you're putting ticklers on to pump them full of adrenaline
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: so they'll overwork without noticing it, will revolt and come
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: out someday choppin for your head. Spare me the Marxist mythology,
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: they protested, Gussie, you've got a completely wrong slant on tickler.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: It's true that most of our mass sales so far,
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: bar government and army, have been to large companies purchasing
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: for their employees. Aha. But that's because there's nothing like
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: a tickler for teaching a new man his job. It
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: tells him from instant to instant what he must do
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: while he's already on the job, and without disturbing other workers.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: Magnetizing a wire with a job pattern is the easiest
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: thing going. And you'd be astonished what the subliminals do
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: for employee morale. It's this way, Gussie. Most people are
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: too improvident and unimaginative to see in advance the advantages
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: of ticklers. They buy one because the company strongly suggests it,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: and payment is on easy installments withheld from salary. They
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: find a tickler makes the work day go easier. The
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: little fellow perched on your shoulders a friend exuding comfort
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: and good advice. The first thing he's set to say
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: is take it easy, pall. Within a week they're wearing
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: their ticklers twenty four hours a day, and buying a
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: tickler for the wife so she'll remember to comb her
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: hair and smile real pretty and cook favorite dishes. I
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: get it, Fae Gusterson cut in. The tickler is the
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: newest fad for increasing worker efficiency. Once I read somewheres
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: it was salt tablets. They had salt tablet dispensers everywhere,
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: even in air conditioned offices where there wasn't a moist
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: armpit twice a year, and the gals sweat only champagne.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: A decade later, people wondered what all those dusty white
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: pills were for. Sometimes they mistook them for tranquilizers. It'll
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: be the same way with ticklers. Somebody'll open a musty
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: closet and see jumbled heaps of these gripping hand silvery
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: gadgets gathering dust curls, and they will not, Faye protested vehemently.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: Ticklers are not a fad. They're history changers. They're free,
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: world revolutionary. Why before Microsystems put a single one on
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: the market, we made it a rule that every micro
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: employee had to wear one. If that's not having supreme
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: confidence in a product, every employee except the top executives,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: of course, Gusterson interrupted, jeeringly, And that's not demoting you, Fae.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: As the R and D chief most closely involved, you'd
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: naturally have to show special enthusiasm. But you're wrong there, Gussie.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: Faye crowede man for man our top executives have been
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: more enthusiastic about their personal ticklers than any other class
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: of worker in the whole outfit. Gusterson slumped and shook
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: his head. If that's the case, he said, darkly, maybe
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: mankind deserves the tickler. I'll say it does, Faye agreed loudly,
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: without thinking, Then, oh can the carping gussy Tickler's a
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: great invention. Don't depreciate it just because you had something
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: to do with its genesis. You're going to have to
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: get in the swim and wear one. Maybe I'd rather
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: drown horribly. Can the gloom talk to Gussie? I said
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: it before and I'll say it again. You're just scared
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: of this new thing. Why you've even got the drapes
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: pulled so you won't have to look at the tickler factory. Yes,
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: I am scared, Gusterson said, really scared. Well. Faye whirled around.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: Daisy was standing in the bedroom doorway wearing the short
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: silver sheath. This time there was no mask, but her
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: bobbed hair was glitteringly silvered, while her legs, arms, hands, neck, face,
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: every bit of her exposed skin was painted with beautifully
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: even vertical green stripes. I did it as a surprise
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: for Gusterson, explained to Faye. He says he likes me
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: this way. The green glop's supposed to be smudgeproof. Gusterson
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: did not comment. His face had a rapt expression. I'll
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: tell you why your tickler's so popular, Faye, he said softly.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: It's not because it backstops the memory or because it
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: boosts the ego with subliminals. It's because it takes the
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: hook out of a guy. It takes over the job
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: of withstanding the pressure of living. See, Fay, here are
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: all these little guys in this subterranean rat race with
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: atomic death squares and chromium plated reward squares, and enough
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: money if you pass go almost to get to go again,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: and a million million rules of the game to keep
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: in mind. Well, here's this one little guy, and every
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: morning he wakes up, there's all these things he's got
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: to keep in mind or do, or he'll lose his
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: turn three times in a row, and maybe a terrible
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: black rook in iron armor loom up and bang him
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: off the chessboard. But now look, now he's got his tickler,
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: and he tells his sweet silver tickler all these things,
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: and the tickler's got to remember them. Of course he'll
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: have to do them eventually, But meanwhile the pressure's off him,
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: the hooks out of his short hairs. He's shifted the responsibility. Well,
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: what's so bad about that, Faye broke in loudly. What's
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: wrong with taking the pressure off little guys? Why shouldn't
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: tickler be a super ego surrogate? Micro's Motivations chief noticed
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: that positive feature straight off and scored it three pluses. Besides,
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: it's nothing but a gaudy way of saying that. Tickler
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: backstops the memory. Seriously, Gussie, what's so bad about it?
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know, Gusterson said, slowly, his eyes still far away.
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: I just know it feels bad to me, he crinkled
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: his big forehead. Well, for one thing, he said, it
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: means that a man's taking orders from something else. He's
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: got a kind of master. He's sinking back into a
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: slave psychology. He's only taking orders from himself. Fay countered, disgustedly.
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: Tickler's just a mech reminder, a note book in essence,
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: no more than the back of an old envelope. It's
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: no master. Are you absolutely sure of that, Gusterson asked quietly, Why, Gussie,
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: you big oath? Faye began heatedly. Suddenly his features quirked
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: and he twitched. Excuse me, folks, he said, rapidly, heading
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: for the door. But my tickler told me I gotta go. Hey, Fay,
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: don't you mean you told your tickler to tell you
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: when it was time to go? Gusterson called after him.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: Fay looked back in the doorway. He wet his lips,
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: his eyes moved from side to side. I'm not quite sure,
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: he said in an odd, strained voice, and darted out.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: Gusterson stared for some seconds at the pattern of emptiness
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: Fay had left. Then he shivered, Then he shrugged. I
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: must be slipping, he muttered, I never and suggested something
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: for him to invent. Then he looked around at Daisy,
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: who was still standing poker faced in her doorway. Hey
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: you look like something out of the Arabian Nights, he
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: told her. Are you supposed to be anything special? How
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: far do those stripes go? Anyway? You could probably find out,
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: she told him coolly. All you have to do is
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: kill me a dragon or two. First, he studied her.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: My god, he said reverently. I really have all the
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: fun in life. What do I do to deserve this.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: You've got a big gun, she told him, And you
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: go out in the world with it and hold up
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: big companies and take yards and yards of money away
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: from them in rolls like ribbon, and bring it all
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: home to me. Don't say that about the gun again,
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: he said, don't whisper it, don't even think it. I've
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: got one, damn it, thirty eight caliber yet, and I
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: don't want some psionic monitor with two way clare audience.
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: They haven't told me about catching the whisper and coming
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: to take the gun away from us. It's one of
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: the few individuality symbols we've got left. Suddenly, Daisy whirled
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: away from the door, spun three times so that her
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: silvered hair stood out like a metal coolie hat, and
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: sank to a curtsey in the middle of the room.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: I've just thought of what I am, she announced, fluttering
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: her eyelashes at him. I'm a sweet silver tickler with
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: green stripes and of Part one of The Creature from
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: Cleveland Depths by Fritz Liber. Part two of the Creature
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: from Cleveland Depths by Fritz Liber. This LibriVox recording is
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Reading by Greg Marguerite, Part two
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: of The Creature from cleeveand Depths by Fritz Liber, Chapter five.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: Next day, Daisy cashed the micro check for ten hundred
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: silver smackers, which she hid in a broken radionic coffee urn.
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: Gusterson sold his Insanity novel and started a new one
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: about a mad medic with a hiccuppy hysterical chuckle who
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: gimmicked mood masters to turn mental patients into nifomaniacs, mass murderers,
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: and compulsive saints. But this time he couldn't get Faye
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: out of his mind or the last chilling words the
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: nervous little man had spoken. For that matter, he couldn't
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: blank the underground out of his mind as effectively as usual.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: He had the feeling that a new kind of mole
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: was loose in the burrows, and that the ground at
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: the foot of their skyscraper might start humping up any minute.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: Toward the end of one afternoon, he tucked a half
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: dozen newly tight sheets in his pocket, shrouded his typer,
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: went to the hat rack and took down his prize,
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: a miner's hard top cap with electric headlamp going below cap'n,
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: he shouted toward the kitchen. Be back for second dog watch,
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: Daisy replied, remember what I told you about lassoing me
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: some art conscious girl neighbors. Only if I meet a
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: piebald one with a taste for Scotch, or maybe a
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: pearl gray biped jaguar with violet spots, Gusterson told her,
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: clapping on the cap with a we who are about
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: to die gesture. Halfway across the park to the escalator bunker.
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: Gusterson's heart began to tick. He resolutely switched on his
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: head lamp as he'd known it would. The hatch robot
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: word and extra hire pitched ten seconds when it came
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: to his topside address, but it ultimately dilated the hatch
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: for him, first handing him a claim check for his
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: ID card. Gusterson's heart was ticking like a sledgehammer by now.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: He hopped clumsily onto the escalator, clutching the moving guardrail
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: to either side, then shut his eyes as the steps
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: went over the edge and became what felt like vertical.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: An instant later, he forced his eyes open, unclipped a
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: hand from the rail, and touched the second switch beside
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: his head lamp, which instantly began to blink whitely, as
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: if he were a civilian plane flying into a nest
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: of military jobs. With a further effort, he kept his
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: eyes open and flinchingly surveyed the scene around him. After
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: zigging through a bomb proof half furlong of roof, he
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: was dropping into a large twilight cave. The blue black
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: ceiling twinkled with stars. The walls were pierced at floor
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: level by a dozen archways with busy niche stores and
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: glowing advertisements crowded between them. From the archways, some three
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: dozen sidewalks curved out, tangenting off each other in a
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: bewildering multiple clover leaf. The sidewalks were packed with people,
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: traveling motionless like purposeful statues, or pivoting with practiced grace
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: from one sidewalk to another like a thousand to rare
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: doing veronicas. The sidewalks were moving faster than he recalled
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: from his last venture underground, and at the same time,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: the whole pedestrian concourse was quieter than he remembered. It
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: was as if the five thousand or so moles in
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: view were all listening for what But there was something
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: else that had changed about them, a change that he
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: couldn't for a moment define, where unconsciously didn't want to.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: Clothing style, no, my god, they were all wearing identical
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: monster masks. No no hair color. Well, he was studying
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: them so intently that he forgot his escalator was landing.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: He came off it with a heel jarring stumble and
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: bumped into a knot of four men on the tiny
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: triangular hold. Still, these four at least sported a new
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: style wrinkle ribbed gray shoulder capes that made them look
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: as if their heads were poking up out of the
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: center of bulgy umbrella or giant mushrooms. One of them
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: grabbed hold of Gusterson and saved him from staggering onto
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: a sidewalk that might have carried him to Toledo. Gussie,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: you dog, you must have esp'd I wanted to see you,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: Fay cried, patting him on the elbows. Meet Davidson and
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: Kester and Hazen, colleagues of mine. We're all Micromen. Fay's
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: companions were staring strangely at Gusterson's blinking headlamp. Faye explained rapidly,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: mister Gusterson is an insanity novelist. You know, I d
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: interdirected spells id Gusterson said, absently, still staring at the
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: interweaving crowd beyond them, trying to figure out what made
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: them different from last trip creativity fuel cranky explodes through
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: the parietal fissure if you look at it cross eyed. Haha.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: Fay laughed, Well, boys, I've found my man. How's the
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: new novel? Perking? Gussie got my climax? I think Gusterson mumbled,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: still peering puzzledly around Faye at the slide standers. Mood
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: Master's going to come alive. Never occur to you. That
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: mood is doom spelled backwards, and then he let his
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: voice trail off as he realized that Kester and Davidson
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: and Hazen had made their farewells and were sliding into
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: the distance. He reminded himself rily that nobody ever wants
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: to hear an author talk. He's much too good a
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: listener to be wasted that way. Let's see, was it
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: that everybody in the crowd had the same facial expression
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: or showed symptoms of the same disease. I was coming
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: to visit you, but now you can pay me a call.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: Faye was saying, there are two matters I want to
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: Gusterson stiffened. My god, they're all hunchbacked. He yelled, sh
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: of course they are, Fay whispered reprovingly they're all wearing
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: they're ticklers. But you don't need to be insulting about it.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: I'm getting out of here. Gusterson turned to flee, as
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: if from five thousand Richard the thirds, Oh no, you're not,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: Fay amended drawing him back with one hand. Somehow, underground,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: the little man seemed to carry more weight. You're having
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: cocktails in my thinking box. Besides, climbing a down escaladder
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: will give you a heart attack. In his home habitat,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: Gusterson was about as easy to handle as a rogue rhinoceros.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: But away from it, and especially if underground, he became
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: more like a pliable elephant. All his bones dropped out
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: through his feet, as he described it to Daisy. So
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: now he submitted miserably as Fay surveyed him up and down,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: switched off his blinking headlamp. That coal miner caper is corny, Gussie,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: and then surprisingly rapidly stuffed his belt bag under the
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: right shoulder of Gusterson's coat and buttoned the ladder to
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: hold it in place. So you won't stand out, he explained,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: another swift survey. You'll do. Come on, Gussie, I've got
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: lots to brief you on three rapid paces. And then
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: Gusterson's feet would have gone out from under him, except
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: that Fay gave him a mighty shove. The small man
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: sprang on to the slidewalk after him, and then they
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: were skimming effortlessly side by side. Gusterson felt frightened and
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: twice as hunchbacked as the slide standers around him, morally
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: as well as physically. Nevertheless, he countered bravely, I got
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: things to brief you on. I got six pages of
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: cautions on ti sh Faye stopped him. Let's use my hushbox.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: He drew out his pancake phone and stretched it so
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: that it covered both their lower faces like a double yashmak.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: Gundersen his neck, pushing into the ribbed bulge of the
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: shoulder cape so he could be cheeked to cheek with.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: Faye felt horribly conspicuous. But then he noticed that none
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: of the slide standers were paying them the least attention.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: The reason for their abstraction occurred to him. They were
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: listening to their ticklers. He shuddered. I've six pages of
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: caution on ticklers, he repeated into the hot, moist quiet
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: of the pancake phone. I typed him so I wouldn't
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: forget him in the heat of polemicking. I want you
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: to read every word, Phaye. I've had it on my
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: mind ever since I started wondering whether it was you
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: or your tickler made you duck out of our place
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: last time you were there. I want you to all
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: in good time in the pancake phone phase. Laugh was brassy,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: but I'm glad you've decided to lend a hand. Gussie.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: This thing is moving fast nationwise, adult underground ticklarization is
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: ninety percent complete. I don't believe that, Gusterson protested, while
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: glaring at the hunchbacks all around them. The slidewalk was
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: gliding down a low glow ceiling tunnel lined with doors
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: and advertisements. Rapt Eyed people were pirouetting on and off.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: A thing just can't develop that fast phase. It's against nature.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: But we're not in nature. We're in culture. The progress
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: of an industrial scientific culture is geometric. It goes and
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: times as many jumps as it takes more than geometric exponential. Confidently,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: Micro's math chief tells me we're currently on a fourth
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: power progress curve trending into a fifth You mean we're
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: going so fast, we got to watch out. We don't
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: bump ourselves in the rear when we come around again,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: Gusterson asked, scanning the tunnel ahead for curves, or just
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: shoot straight up to infinity exactly of course, most of
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: the last power in a half is due to tickler itself. Gussie.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: The Tickler's already eliminated absenteeism, alcoholism of boulia in numerous
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: urban areas. And that's just one letter of the alphabet.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: If Tickler doesn't turn us into a nation of photo memory, constant,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: creative flow geniuses in six months, I'll come live top side.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: You mean, because a lot of people are standing around,
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: glassy eyed, listening to something, mumbling in their ear that
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: it's a good thing. Gussie. You don't know progress when
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: you see it. Tickler is the greatest invention since language,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: bar none. It's the greatest instrument ever devised for integrating
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: a man into all phases of his environment. Under the
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: present routine, a newly purchased Tickler first goes to government
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: and civilian defense for primary patterning, then to the purchaser's employer,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: then to his doctor psycher, then to his local bunker captain,
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: then to him. Everything that's needful for a man's welfare
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: gets on the spools efficiency cubed. Incidentally, Russia's got the tickler.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: Now our DIP satellites have photographed it. It's like ours,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: except the Kamis wear it on their left shoulder. But
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: they're two weeks behind us in development, and they'll never
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: close the gap. Gusterson reared up out of the pancake
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: phone to take a deep breath. A sulky lipped, sylph
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: figured girl two feet from him twitched medium cooch, he judged,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: then fumbled in her belt bag for a pill and
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: popped it in her mouth. Hell, the tickler's not even
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: efficient yet. About up little things, Gusterson blatted, diving back
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: into the privacy yeshmak he was sharing with Fay. Why
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: didn't that girl's doctor have the moodmaster component of her
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: tickler injector with medicine, Her doctor probably wants her to
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: have the discipline of pill taking or the exercise, Fay answered, glibly,
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: Look sharp, Now here's where we fork. I'm taking you
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: through Micro's postern. A ribbon of slidewalk split itself from
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: the main band and angled off into a short alley.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: Gusterson hardly felt the constant speed juncture as they crossed it.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: Then the secondary ribbon speeded up, carrying them at about
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: thirty feet a second toward the blank concrete wall in
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: which the alley ended. Gusterson prepared to jump, but Fay
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: grabbed him with one hand and with the other held
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: up toward the wall a badge and a button. When
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: they were about ten feet away, the wall whipped aside,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: then whipped shut behind them so fast that Gusterson wondered
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: momentarily if he still had his heels and the seat
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: of his pants. Faye, tucking away his badge and pancake phone,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: dropped the button in Gunderson's vest pocket. Use it when
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: you leave, he said, casually, that is, if you leave. Gusterson,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: who was trying to read the do and don't posters
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: papering the walls they were passing, started to probe that
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: last sinister supposition, But just then the ribbon slowed, A
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: swinging door opened and closed behind them, and they found
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: themselves in a luxuriously furnished thinking box measuring at least
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: eight feet by five. Hey, this is something, Gusterson said, appreciatively,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: to show he wasn't an utter yokel. Then, drawing on
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: research he'd done for period novels, why it's as big
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: as a Pullman car compartment or a first mate's cabin
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: in the War of eighteen twelve. You really must rate.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: Faye nodded, smiling wanly, and sat down with a sigh
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: on a compact overstuffed swivel chair. He let his arms
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: dangle and his head sink into his puffed shoulder cape
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: guster and stared at him. It was the first time
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: he could ever recall the little man showing fatigue. Tickler
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: currently does have one serious drawback, Fay volunteered. It weighs
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: twenty eight pounds. You feel it when you've been on
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: your feet a couple of hours. No question, We're going
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: to give the next model that anti gravity feature you
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: mentioned for pursuit grenades. We'd have had it in this model,
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: except that there were so many other things to be incorporated.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: He sighed again. Why the scanning and decision making elements
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: alone tripled the mass? Hey Gunderson protested, thinking especially of
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: the sulky lipped girl. Do you need to tell me
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: all those other people were toting two stone? Fay shook
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: his head heavily. They were all wearing Mark three or four.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: I'm wearing Mark six, he said, as one might say,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: I'm carrying the genuine Cross, not one of the balsa ones.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: But then his face brightened a little, and he went on,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: of course, the new improved features make it more than
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: we and you hardly feel it at all at night
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: when you're lying down, and if you remember to talcum
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: under it twice a day, no sores develop, at least
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: not very big ones. Backing away involuntarily, Gusterson felt something
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: prod his right shoulder blade, ripping open his coat. He
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: convulsively plunged his hand under it and tore out Fay's
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: belt bag, and then set it down very gently on
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: the top of a shallow cabinet and relaxed with the
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: sigh of one who has escaped a great, if symbolic danger.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: Then he remembered something Fay had mentioned. He straightened again. Hey,
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: you said, it's got scanning and decision making elements. That
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: means your tickler thinks, even by your fancy standards, and
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: if it thinks, it's conscious, Gussie Fay said, wearily, frowning.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: All sorts of things nowadays have S and d M elements,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: mail sorders, missiles, robot medics, high style mannequins, just to
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: name some of them. They think to use that archaic word,
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: but it's neither here nor there, and there certainly not conscious.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: Your tickler thinks, Gusterson repeated, stubbornly, just like I warned
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: you it would. It sits on your shoulder, riding you
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: like it was a pony or a starved Saint Bernard,
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: and now it thinks. Suppose it does? Fay yawned, what
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: of it? He gave a rapid, sinuous, one sided shrug
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: that made it look, for a moment, as if his
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: left arm had three elbows. It stuck in Gunderson's mind,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: for he had never seen Fay use such a gesture,
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: and he wondered where he'd picked it up, maybe imitating
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: a double jointed micro finance chief. Fay yawned again and said, please, Gussie,
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: don't disturb me. For a minute or so, his eyes
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: half closed, Gusterson studied Fay's sunken, cheeked face and the
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: great puff of his shoulder. Cape Say, Fay, he asked,
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: in a soft voice, after about five minutes, are you meditating? Why? No,
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: Fay responded, starting up and then stifling it another yawn,
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: Just resting a bit. I seem to get more tired
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: these days. Somehow. You'll have to excuse me, Gussie, But
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: what made you think of meditation. Oh, I just got
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: to wondering in that direction, Gusterson said. You see, when
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: you first started to develop Tickler, it occurred to me
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: that there was one thing about it that might be
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: real good, even if you did give it S and
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: DM elements. It's this having a mech secretary to take
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: charge of his obligations and routines in the real world
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: might allow a man to slide into the other world,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: the world of thoughts and feelings and intuitions, and sort
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: of ooze around in there and accomplish things. Know, any
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: of the people using Tickler that way, Hey, of course
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: not fade denied with a bright and credulous laugh. Who'd
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: want to loaf around in an imaginary world and take
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: a chance of missing out on what his tickler's doing?
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, on what his tickler has in store for him,
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: what he's told tickler to have in store for him.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: Ignoring Gusterson's shiver, Fay straightened up and seemed to briskin himself.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: That little slump did me good. A tickler makes you rest,
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: you know, it's one of the great things about it.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: Pooh Bah's kinder to me than I ever was to myself.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: He buttoned open a tiny refrigerator and took out two
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: waxed cardboard cubes and handed one to Gusterson. Martini, hope
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: you don't mind drinking it from the cart and cheers now,
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: a gussy old pal. There are two matters I want
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: to take up with you. Hold it, Gusterson said, with
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: something of his old authority. There's something I got to
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: get off my mind. First, he pulled the typed pages
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: out of his inside pocket and straightened them. I told
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: you about these, he said, I want you to read
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: them before you do anything else here. Fay looked toward
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: the pages and nodded, but did not take them yet.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: He lifted his hands to his throat and unhooked the
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: clasp of his cape. Then hesitated, you wear that thing
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: to hide the hump your tickler makes. Gusterson filled in,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: You've got better taste than those other moles. Not to
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: hide it exactly, Faye protested, but just so the others
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: won't be jealous. I wouldn't feel comfortable parading a free
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: scanning decision capable Mark six tickler in front of people
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: who can't buy it until it goes on open sale
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: at twenty two fifteen. Tonight, A lot of shelter folk
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: won't be sleeping tonight. They'll be cued up to trade
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: in their old tickler for a mark six, almost as
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: good as pooba. He started to jerk his hands apart,
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: hesitated again with an oddly apprehensive look at the big man,
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: then whirled off the cape. Chapter six. Gusterson sucked in
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: such a big gasp that he hiccuped. The right shoulder
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: of face, jacket and shirt had been cut away. Thrusting
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: up through the neatly hemmed hole was a silvery gray
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: hump with a one eyed turret atop it and two
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: multi jointed metal arms sending in little claws. It looked
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: like the top half of a pseudo science robot, a
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: squat evil child robot, Gusterson told himself, which had lost
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: its legs in a railway accident, and it seemed to
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: him that a red fleck was moving around imperceptibly in
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: the huge single eye. I'll take that memo, now, face
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: said coolly. Reaching out his hand, he caught the rustling
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: sheets as they slipped from Gusterson's fingers, even them up
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: very precisely by tapping them on his knee and then
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: handed them over his shoulder to his tickler, which clicked
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: its claws around either margin, and then began rather swiftly
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: to lift the top sheet past its single eye at
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: a distance of about six inches. The first matter I
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: want to take up with you, Gussie, Fay began paying
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: no attention whatsoever to the little scene on his shoulder
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: or warn you about rather, is the imminent ticklarization of
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: school children, geriatrix convicts and topsiders. At three zero zero
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: tomorrow ticklers become mandatory for all adult shelter folk. The
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: mop up operations won't be long in coming. In fact,
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: these days we find that the square root of the
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: estimated time of a new development is generally the best
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: time estimate. Gussie, I strongly advise you to start wearing
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: a tickler now, and Daisy and your moppets. If you
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: heed my advice, your kids will have the jump on
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: your class. Transition and conditioning are easy, since tickler itself
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: sees to it. Pooh Bah leafed the first page to
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: the back of the packet and began lifting the second
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: page past his eye a little more swiftly than the first.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: I've got a mark six tickler all warmed up for you,
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: Faye pressed and a shoulder cape. You won't feel one
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: bit conspicuous. He noticed the direction of Gusterson's gaze and remarked,
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: fascinating mechanism, isn't it. Of course, twenty eight pounds are
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: a bit oppressive, but then you have to remember it's
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: only a way station to free floating. Mark seven or eight.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: Pooba finished page two and began to race through page three.
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: But I wanted you to read, Gusterson said, bemusedly, staring,
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: pooh Ba will do a better job than I could.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: Fay assured him, get the gist without losing the chaff.
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: But damn it, it's all about him, Gusterson said a
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: little more strongly. He won't be objective about it. A
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: better job, Fay reiterated, and more fully objective. Poohba's set
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: for full precige. Stop worrying about it. He's a dispassionate machine,
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: not a fallible, emotionally disturbed human misled by the willow
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: the wisp of consciousness. Second, Matter Micro's Systems is impressed
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: by your contributions to Tickler and will recruit you as
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: a senior consultant with a salary and thinking box as
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: big as my own family quarters to match. It's an
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: unheard of high start. Gussie, I think you'd be a fool.
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: He broke off, held up a hand for silence, and
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: his eyes got a listening look. Pooh Bah had finished
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: page six and was holding the packet motionless. After about
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: ten seconds, Fay's face broke into a big fake smile.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: He stood up, suppressing a WinCE, and held out his hand. Gussie.
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: He said loudly, I am happy to inform you that
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: all your fears about Tickler are so much thistled down.
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: My word on it. There's nothing to them at all.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: Poohba's precige, which he's just given to me, proves it. Look,
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: Gusterson said solemnly. There's one thing I want you to do,
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: purely to humor and old friend, but I want you
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: to do it. Read that memo yourself. Certainly I will, Gussie.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: Faye continued in these same ebuliant tones. I'll read it.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: He twitched, and his smile disappeared. A little later, Sure,
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: Gusterson said, dully, holding his hand to his stomach. And now,
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: if you don't mind, Faye, I'm going home. I feel
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: just a bit sick. Maybe the ozone and the other
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: additives in your shelter air are too heady for me.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: It's been years since I tramped through a pine forest.
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: But Gussie, you've hardly got here. You haven't even sat down.
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: Have another martini, have a Seltzer pill, have a whiff
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: of oxy, have a no Fay. I'm going home right away.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: I'll think about the job offer. Remember read that memo.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: I will, Gussie, I certainly will you know your way?
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: The button takes you through the wall by now. He
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: sat down abruptly and looked away. Gusterson pushed through the
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: swinging door. He tensed himself for this step across onto
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: the slowly moving reverse ribbon. Then, on an impulse, he
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: pushed ajar the swinging door and looked back inside. Faye
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: was sitting as he'd left him, apparently lost in listless
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: brooding on his shoulder. Poohbah was rapidly crossing and uncrossing
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: its little metal arms, tearing the memo too smaller and
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: smaller shreds. It let the screw raps drift slowly toward
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: the floor, and oddly writhed its three elbowed left arm,
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: and then Gunderson knew from whom, or rather from what
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: Fay had copied his new shrug chapter seven. When Gusterson
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: got home toward the end of the Second Dog Watch,
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: he slipped aside from Daisy's questions and set the children
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: laughing with a graphic enactment of his slide standing technique
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: and a story about getting his head caught in a
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: thinking box built for a midget physicist. After supper, he
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: played with Imogen, Iago and Claudius until it was their bedtime,
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: and thereafter was unusually attentive to Daisy, admiring her fading
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: green stripes, though he did spend a while in the
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: next apartment, where they stored their outdoor camping equipment. But
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: the next morning he announced to the children that it
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: was a holiday, the Feast of Saint Gusterson, and then
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: took Daisy into the bedroom and told her everything. When
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: he'd finished, she said, this is something I've got to
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: see for myself. Gusterson shrugged. If you think you've got to,
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: I say we should head for the hills right now.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: One thing I'm standing on. The kids aren't going back
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: to school, agreed, Daisy said, But Gusterson, we've lived through
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: a lot of things without leaving home altogether. We lived
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: through the everybody six feet underground by Christmas campaign and
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: the robot Watchdog craze when you got your left foot
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: half chewed off. We lived through the venomous bats and
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: the indoctrinated saboteur rats, and the hypnotized monkey paratrooper scares.
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: We lived through the Voice of Safety and the anti
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: communist SAMN no instruction and rightest pills and jet propelled vigilantes.
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: We lived through the cold out when you weren't supposed
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: to turn on a toaster for fear its heat would
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: be a target for prow missiles, and when people with
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: fevers were unpopular. We lived through Gusterson patted her hand.
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: You go below, he said, come back when you've decided
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: this is different. Come back as soon as you can. Anyway,
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: I'll be worried about you every minute you're down there.
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: When she was gone in a green suit and hat.
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: To minimize or at least justify the effect of the
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: faded stripes, Gusterson doled out to the children pro vender
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: and equipment for a camping expedition to the next floor.
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: Iago led them off in stealthy Indian file leaving the
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: hall door open. Gusterson got out his thirty eight and
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: cleaned and loaded it, meanwhile concentrating on a chess problem
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: with the idea of confusing a hypothetical psionic monitor. By
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: the time he had hid the revolver again, he heard
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: the elevator creaking back up. Daisy came dragging in without
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: her hat, looking as if she'd been concentrating on a
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: chess problem for hours herself and just now given up.
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: Her stripes seemed to have vanished. Then Gusterson decided this
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: was because her whole complexion was a touch green. She
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: sat down on the edge of the couch and said,
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: without looking at him, did you tell me, Gusterson, that
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: everybody was quiet and abstracted and orderly down below, especially
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: the ones wearing ticklers, meaning pretty much everybody? I did,
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: He said, I take it that's no longer the case.
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: What are the new symptoms? She gave no indication. After
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: some time, she said, Gusterson, do you remember the Dore
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: illustrations of the Inferno? Can you visualize the paintings of
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: Hieronymous Bosh with the hordes of proto Freudian devils tormenting
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: people all over the farmyard and city Square? Did you
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: ever see the Disney animations of Mazorski's Witch's Sabbath Music
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: back in the foolish days before you married me? Did
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: that drug addict girlfriend of yours ever take you to
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: a genuine orgy as bad as that? Eh? She nodded emphatically,
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden shivered violently several shades worse,
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: She said, if they decide to come top side, she
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: shot up, where are the kids upstairs? Camping in the
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: mysterious wilderness of the twenty first floor. Gusterson reassured her,
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: let's leave him there until we're ready to He broke off.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: They both heard the faint sound of thudding footsteps. They're
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: on the stairs, Daisy whispered, starting to move toward the
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: open door. But are they coming from up or down?
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: It's just one person, judged Gusterson, moving after his wife,
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: too heavy for one of the kids. The footsteps doubled
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: in volume and came rapidly closer along with them. There
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: was an agonized gasping. Daisy stopped, staring fearfully at the
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: open doorway. Gusterson moved past her. Then he stopped too
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: fay stumbled into view and would have fallen on his face,
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: except he clutched both sides of the doorway. Half way up.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: He was stripped to the waist. There was a little
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: blood on his shoulder. His narrow chest was arching convulsively,
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: the ribs standing out starkly, as he sucked in oxygen
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: to replace what he'd burned up. Running up twenty five flights,
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: his eyes were wild. They've taken over. He panted, another
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: gobbling breath, gone crazy. Two more gasps, gotta stop him.
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: His eyes filmed. He swayed forward. Then Gusterson's big arms
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: were around him and he was carrying him to the couch.
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: Daisy came running from the kitchen with a damp, cool towel.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: Gusterson took it from her and began to mop Faye off.
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: He sucked in his own breath as he saw that
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: Fay's right ear was raw and torn. He whispered to Daisy,
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: look at where that thing savaged him. The blood on
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: Fay's shoulder came from his ear. Some of it stained
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: a flushed skin plastic fitting that had two small valved
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: holes in it, and that puzzled Gusterson until he remembered
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: that moodmaster tied into the blood stream. For a second
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: he thought he was going to vomit. The dazed look
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: slid aside from Fay's eyes was gasping less painfully now.
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: He sat up, pushing the towel away, buried his face
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: in his hands for a few seconds, then looked over
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: the fingers at the two of them. I've been living
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: in a nightmare for the last week, he said, in
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: a taut, small voice, knowing the thing had come alive,
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: and trying to pretend to myself that it hadn't, knowing
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: it was taking charge of me more and more, having
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: it whisper in my ear over and over again in
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: a cracked little rhyme that I could only hear every
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: hundredth time, day by day, in every way, you're learning
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: to listen and obey day by day. His voice started
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: to go high. He pulled it down and continued harshly.
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: I ditched it this morning when I showered. It let
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: me break contact. To do that, it must have figured
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: it had complete control of me, mounted or dismounted. I
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: think it's telepathic. And then it did some well, rather
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: unpleasant things to me late last night. But I pulled
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: together yether, my fears and my will, and I ran
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: for it. The slidewalks were chaos. The Mark six ticklers
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: showed some purpose, though I couldn't tell you what. But
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: as far as I could see, the Mark threes and
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: fours were just coaching their mounts to death. Chinese feather torture, giggling, gasping, choking,
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: gales of mirth. People are dying of laughter. Ticklers. The
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: irony of it. It was the complete lack of order, insanity,
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: and that let me get topside. There were things I
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: saw once again, his voice went shrill. He clapped his
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: hand to his mouth and rocked back and forth on
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: the couch. Gusterson gently but firmly laid a hand on
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: his good shoulder. Steady, he said, here, swallow this fay
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: shoved aside the short brown drink. We've got to stop them,
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: he cried. Mobilize the topsiders, contact the wilderness, patrols and
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: manned satellites, Pour ether in the tunnel, air pumps, invent
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: and crash, manufacture missile that will home on ticklers without
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: palming humans, sos mars and venus, dope the shelter water supply.
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: Do something. Gussie you don't realize what people are going
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: through down there. Every second. I think they're experiencing the
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: ultimate in outer directedness, Gusterson said, gruffly. Have you no heart,
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: Fade demanded, his eyes widened as if he were seeing
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: Gusterson for the first time, then accusingly pointing a shaking finger.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: You invented the tickler, George Gusterson. It's all your fault.
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: You've got to do something about it. Before Gusterson could
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: retort to that, or begin to think of a reply,
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: or even assimilate the full enormity of Fay's statement, he
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: was grabbed from behind and frog marched away from Faye,
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: and something that felt remarkably like the muzzle of a
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: large caliber gun was shoved in the small of his back.
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: Under cover of phase outburst. A huge crowd of people
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: had entered the room from the hall eight to be exact.
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: But the weirdest the thing about them to Gusterson was
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: that from the first instant he had the impression that
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: only one mind had entered the room, and that it
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: did not reside in any of the eight persons, even
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: though he recognized three of them, but in something that
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: they were carrying Several things contributed to this impression. The
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: eight people all had the same blank expression, watchful yet
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: empty eyed, They all moved in the same slithery crouch,
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: and they all had taken off their shoes. Perhaps, Gusterson
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: thought wildly, they believed he and Daisy ran a Japanese flat.
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: Gusterson was being held by two burly women, one of
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: them quite pimply. He considered stamping on her toes, but
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: just at that moment the gun dug in his back
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: with a corkscrew movement. The man holding the gun on
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: him was Fay's colleague Davidson. Some yards beyond, phayse couch
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: Kester was holding a gun on Daisy without digging it
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: into her, while the single strange man holding Daisy herself
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: was doing so quite decoriously a circle, which afforded Gusterson
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: minor relief, since it made him feel less guilty about
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: not going berserk. Two more strange men, one of them
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: in purple lounging pajamas, the other in the gray uniform
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: of a slidewalk inspector, had grabbed Fay's skinny upper arms,
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: one on either side, and were lifting him to his feet.
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: While Fay was struggling with such desperate futility and gibbering
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: so pitifully that Gusterson momentarily had second thoughts about the
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: moral imperative to go berserk when menaced by hostile force.
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: But again the gun dug into him with a twist,
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: approaching Fay face on was the third Microman Gusterson had
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: met yesterday, Hazen. It was Hazen who was carrying, quite reverently,
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: or solemnly, or at any rate, very carefully, the object
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: that seemed to Gusterson to be the mind of the
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: little storm troop presently desecrating the sanctity of his own
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: individual home. All of them were wearing ticklers, of course,
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: the three Microman, the heavy emergent Mark sixes with their
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: clawed and jointed arms and monocular cephalic turrets. The rest
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: lower numbered marks of the sort that merely made Richard
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: the third humps under clothing. The object that Hazen was
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: carrying was the Mark six tickler Gusterson had seen Fay
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: wearing yesterday. Gusterson was sure it was Puba because of
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: its air of command, and because he would have sworn
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: on a mountain of bibles that he recognized the red
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: fleck lurking in the back of its single eye, and
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: Pooba alone had the aura of full conscious thought. Poohba
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: alone had mana. It is not good to see an
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: evil legless child robot with dangling straps, bossing, apparently by
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: telepathic power, not only three objects of its own kind
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: and five close primitive relatives, but also eight human beings,
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: and in addition throwing into a state of twitching terror.
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: One miserable, thin chested, half crazy Research and development director
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: Pouba pointed a claw at Faye Fase handlers dragged him forward,
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: still resisting, but more feebly now, as if half hypnotized
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: or at least cowed. Gusterson grunted and outraged a and
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: automatically struggled a bit, but once more the gun dug in.
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: Daisy shut her eyes, then firmed her mouth and opened
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: them again to look. Seating the tickler on Fay's shoulder
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: took a little time because two blunt spikes in the
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: bottom had to be fitted into the valved holes in
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: the flush skin plastic disk. When at last they plunged home,
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: Gusterson felt very sick, indeed, and then even more so
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: as the tickler itself poked a tiny pellet on a
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: fine wire into Fay's ear. The next moment, Fay had
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: straightened up and motioned his handlers aside. He tightened the
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: straps of his tickler around his chest and under his armpits,
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: and he held out a hand, and somebody gave him
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: a shoulderless shirt and coat. He slipped into them smoothly.
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: Poobah dexterously using its little claws to help put its
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: tarret and body through the neatly hemmed holes. The small
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: storm troop looked at Fay with deferential expectation. He held
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: still for a moment, as if thinking, and then walked
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: over to Gusterson and looked him in the face, and
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: again held still. Fay's expression was jaunty on the surface,
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: agonized underneath. Gusterson knew that he wasn't thinking at all,
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: but only listening for instructions from something that was whispering
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: on the very threshold of his inner ear. Gussie old
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: Boy Fay said, twitching a depthless grin, I'd be very
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: much obliged if you'd answer a few simple questions. His
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: voice was hoarse at first, but he swallowed twice and
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: corrected that what exactly did you have in mind when
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: you invented the ticklers? What exactly are they supposed to be?
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: Why you miserable? Gusterson began in a kind of confused horror.
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: Then he got hold of himself and said, curtly, they
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: were supposed to be mech reminder, were supposed to record memoranda.
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: And Fay held up a palm and shook his head
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: and again listened for a space. Then that's how ticklers
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: were supposed to be of use to humans, he said,
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: I don't mean that at all. I mean how ticklers
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: were supposed to be of use to themselves. Surely you
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: had some notion. Fay wet his lips. If it's any help,
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: he added, keep in mind that it's not Fay who's
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: asking this question, but pooh Ba. Gusterson hesitated. He had
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: the feeling that every one of the eight dual beings
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: in the room was hanging on his answer, and that
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: something was boring into his mind and turning over his
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: next thoughts and peering at and under them before he
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: had a chance to scan them himself. Poohba's eye was
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: like a red searchlight. Go on, Fay prompted, what were
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: ticklers supposed to be for themselves? Nothing, Gusterson said, softly,
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: nothing at all. He could feel the disappointment well up
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: in the room, and with it a touch of something
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: like panic. This time, Fay listened for quite a long while.
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: I hope you don't mean that, Gussie, he said, at last,
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: very earnestly. I mean I hope you hunt deep and
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: find some ideas you forgot or maybe never realized you
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: had at the time. Let me put it to you differently.
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: What's the place of tickler's in the natural scheme of things?
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: What's their aim in life? Their special reason, their genius,
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: their final cause? What gods should ticklers worship? But Gusterson
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: was already shaking his head. He said, I don't know
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: anything about that at all. Fay sighed and gave, simultaneously
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: with pooh bah, the now familiar triple jointed shrug. Then
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: the man brisked himself. I guess that's as far as
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: we can get right now, he said, Keep thinking, Gussie,
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: try to remember something. You won't be able to leave
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: your apartment. And I'm setting guards. If you want to
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: see me, tell them or just think. In due course
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: you'll be questioned further. In any case, perhaps by special methods,
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: perhaps you'll be particularized. That's all. Come on, everybody, let's
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: get going. The pimply woman and her pal let go
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: of Gusterson. Daisy's man loosened his decorious hold. Davidson and
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: Kester sidled away with an eye behind them, and the
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: little storm troop trudged out. Fay looked back in the doorway.
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Gussie, he said, and for a moment his
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: old self looked out of his eyes. I wish I could.
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: A claw reached for his ear. A spasm of pain
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: crossed his face. He stiffened and marched off. The door shut.
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: Gusterson took two deep breaths that were close to angry sobs. Then,
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: still breathing stentoriously, he stamped into the bedroom. What, Daisy asked,
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: looking after him. He came back, carrying his thirty eight
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: and headed for the door. What are you up to,
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: she demanded, knowing very well, I'm going to blast that
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: iron monkey off phase back if it's the last thing
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: I do. She threw her arms around him. Now let
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: me go, Gusterson growled, I gotta be a man one time. Anyway,
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: As they struggled for the gun. The door opened noiselessly.
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: Davidson slipped in and deftly snatched the weapon out of
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: their hands before they realized he was there. He said nothing,
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: only smiled at the men, shook his head in sad reproof.
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: As he went out, Gusterson slumped. I knew they were
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: all psionic, he said, softly, I just got out of control.
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: Now that last look Faye gave us. He touched Daisy's arm.
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: Thanks kid. He walked to the glass wall and looked
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: out desultorily. After a while, he turned and said, maybe
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: you'd better be with the kids, eh, I imagine the
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: guards will let you through. Daisy shook her head. The
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: kids never come home until supper. For the next few hours,
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: they'll be safer without me. Gusterson nodded vaguely, sat down
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: on the couch and propped his chin on the base
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: of his palm. After a while, his brow smoothed, and
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: Daisy knew that the wheels had started to turn inside
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: and the electrons to jump around, except that she reminded
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: herself to permanently cross out those particular figures of speech
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: from her vocabulary. After about half an hour, Gusterson said softly.
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: I think that ticklers are so psionic that it's as
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: if they have just one mind. If I were with
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: them very long, I'd start to be part of that mind.
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: Say something to one of them, and you say it
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: to all fifteen minutes later. They're not crazy, They're just newborn.
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: Like ones that were creating a coaching chaos downstairs were
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: like babies, kicking their legs and waving their eyes, trying
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: to see what their bodies could do. Too bad, their
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: bodies or us. Ten minutes more, got to do something
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: about it. Phase right, it's all my fault. He's just
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: the apprentice. I'm the old sorcerer himself. Five minutes more, gloomily,
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: maybe it's man's destiny to build live machines and then
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: bow out of the cosmic picture. Except the ticklers need us,
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: damn it, just like no mads need horses. Another five minutes.
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: Maybe somebody could dream up a purpose in life for
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: the ticklers, even a religion, the first Church of Pooh
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: Bah Tickler. But I hate selling other people's spiritual ideas,
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: and that would still leave Tickler's parasitic on humans. As
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: he murmured those last words, Gusterson's eyes got wide as
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: a maniax and a big smile reached for his ears.
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: He stood up and faced himself toward the door. What
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: are you intending to do now, Daisy asked flatly. I'm
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: merely going out and save the world. He told her.
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: I may be back for supper, and I'm may not.
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: Chapter eight. Davidson pulled out from the wall against which
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: he'd been resting himself and his two stone tickler, and
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: moved to block the hall, but Gusterson simply walked up
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: to him. He shook his hand warmly and looked his
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: tickler full in the eye and said, in a ringing voice,
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: ticklers should have bodies of their own. He paused, and
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: then added casually, come on, let's visit your boss. Davidson
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: listened for instructions and then nodded, but he watched Gusterson
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: warily as they walked down the hall. In the elevator,
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: Gusterson repeated his message to the second guard, who turned
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: out to be the pimply woman, now wearing shoes. This time,
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: he added, ticklers shouldn't be tied to the frail bodies
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: of humans, which need a lot of thoughtful supervision. And
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: drug injecting, and can't even fly. Crossing the park, Gusterson
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: stopped a humpbacked soldier and informed him tickler's got to
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: cut the apron string and snap the silver cord and
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: go out into the universe and find their own purposes.
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: Davidson and the pimply woman didn't interfere. They merely waited
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: and watched, and then led Gusterson on on the escalator.
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: He told someone it's cruel to tie ticklers to slow
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: witted snailly humans when ticklers can think and live ten
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: thousand times as fast. He finished plucking the figure from
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: the murk of his unconscious. By the time they got
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: to the bottom, the message had become ticklers should have
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: a planet of their own. They never did catch up
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: with Fay, although they spent two hours skimming around on
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: sidewalks under the subterranean stars, pursuing rumors of his presence.
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: Clearly the boss Tickler, which was how they thought of Pouba,
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: led an energetic life. Gusterson continued to deliver his message
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: to all and sundry at thirty second intervals. Toward the end,
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: he found himself doing it in a dreamy and forgetful way.
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: His mind, he decided, was becoming assimilated to the communal,
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: telepathic mind of the ticklers. It did not seem to
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: matter at the time. After two hours, Gusterson realized that
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: he and his guides were becoming part of a general
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: movement of people, a flow as mindless as that of
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: blood corpuscles through the veins, yet at the same time
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: dimly purposeful. At least, there was the feeling that it
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: was at the behest of a mind far above the
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: flow was topside. All the sidewalks seemed to lead to
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: the concourses and the escalators. Gusterson found himself part of
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: a human stream, moving into the tickler factory adjacent to
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: his apartment, or another factory very much like it. Thereafter,
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: Gusterson's awarenesses were dimmed. It was as if a bigger
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: mind were doing the remembering for him, and it were
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: permissible and even mandatory for him to dream his way along.
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: He knew vaguely that days were passing. He knew he
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: had work of a sort. At one time, he was
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: bringing food to gaunt eyed tickler mounted humans working feverishly
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: in a production line, human hands and tickler claws working
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: together in a blur of rapidity on silvery mechanisms that
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: moved along jumpily on a great belt. At another he
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: was sweeping piles of metal scraps and garbage down a
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: gray corridor. Two scenes stood out a little more vividly.
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: A windowless wall had been knocked out for twenty feet.
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: There was blue sky outside, its light almost hurtful, and
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: a drop of many stories. A file of humans were
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: being processed. When one of them got to the head
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: of the file, his or her tickler was ceremoniously unstrapped
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: from his shoulder and welded into a silvery cask with
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: smoothly pointed ends. The result was something that looked, at
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: least in the case of the Mark six ticklers, like
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: a stubby silver submarine child size. It would hum gently
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: lift off the floor and then fly slowly out through
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: the big blue gap. Then the next tickler ridden human
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: would step forward for processing. The second scene was in
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: a park, the sky again blue, but big and high
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: with an argacy of white clouds. Gusterson was lined up
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: in a crowd of humans that stretched as far as
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: he could see. Row on irregular row, martial music was
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: playing overhead. Hovered a flock of little silver submarines lined
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: up rather more orderly in the air than the humans
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: were on the ground. The music rose to a heart
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: quickening climax. The tickler nearest Gusterson gave, as if to say,
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: and now who knows, a triple jointed shrug that stung
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: his memory. Then the ticklers took off straight up on
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: their new and shining bodies. They became a flight of
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: silver geese of silver midges, and the humans around Gusterson
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: lifted a ragged cheer. That scene marked the beginning of
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: the return of Gusterson's mind and memory. He shuffled around
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: a bit, spoke vaguely to three or four people he
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: recalled from the dream days, and then headed for home
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: and supper. Three weeks late, and as disoriented and emaciated
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: as a bear coming out of hibernation. Six months later,
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: Fay was having dinner with Daisy and Gusterson. The cocktails
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: had been poured and the children were playing in the
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: next apartment. The transparent violet walls brightened then gloomed as
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: the sun dipped below the horizon. Gusterson said, I see
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: where a space ship out beyond the orbit of Mars
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: was holed by a tickler. I wonder where the little
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: geys are headed now. Fay started to give a writhing,
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: left armed shrug, but stopped himself with a grimace. Maybe
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: out of the solar system altogether, suggested Daisy, who'd recently
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 1: dyed her hair fire engine red and was wearing red leotards.
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: They got a weary trip ahead of them, Gusterson said,
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: unless they work out a hyper Einsteinian drive on the way.
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: Fay grimaced again. He was still looking rather peaked. He said, plaintively,
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: haven't we heard enough about ticklers for a while? I
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: guess so. Gunderson agreed. But I get to wondering about
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: the little guys. They were so serious and intense about everything.
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: I never did solve their problem, you know, I just
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: shifted it onto other shoulders than ours, No joke intended,
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: he hurried to add. Faye forebode to comment. By the way, Gussie,
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 1: he said, have you heard anything from the Red Cross
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: about that World saving medal I nominated you for. I
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 1: know you think the whole concept of world saving medals
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: is ridiculous, especially when they started giving them to all
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: heads of state who didn't start atomic wars while in office,
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: but narry a peep. Gusterson told him, I'm not proud, Faye.
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: I could use a few world save in medals. I'd
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: start a flurry in the old gold market. But I
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: don't worry about those things. I don't have time to.
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: I'm busy these days thinking up a bunch of new inventions,
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: Gussie Fay said sharply, his face tightening and alarm. Have
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: you forgotten your promise? Course not, Faye. My new inventions
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: aren't for micro or any other firm. They're just a
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: legitimate part of my literary endeavors. Happens. My next insanity
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: novel is going to be about a mad inventor and
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: of part two of The Creature from Cleveland's Depths by
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 1: Fritz liber