"Come on, Gussy," Fay prodded quietly, "quit stalking around like a
neurotic bear and suggest something for my invention team to work on.
I enjoy visiting you and Daisy, but I can't stay aboveground all
night."
"If being outside the shelters makes you nervous, don't come around
any more," Gusterson told him, continuing to stalk. "Why doesn't your
invention team think of something to invent? Why don't you? Hah!" In
the "Hah!" lay triumphant condemnation of a whole way of life.
"We do," Fay responded imperturbably, "but a fresh viewpoint sometimes
helps."
"I'll say it does! Fay, you burglar, I'll bet you've got twenty people
like myself you milk for free ideas. First you irritate their bark and
then you make the rounds every so often to draw off the latex or the
maple gloop."
Fay smiled. "It ought to please you that society still has a use for
you outre inner-directed types. It takes something to make a junior
executive stay aboveground after dark, when the missiles are on the
prowl."
"Society can't have much use for us or it'd pay us something,"
Gusterson sourly asserted, staring blankly at the tankless TV and
kicking it lightly as he passed on.
"No, you're wrong about that, Gussy. Money's not the key goad with you
inner-directeds. I got that straight from our Motivations chief."
"Did he tell you what we should use instead to pay the grocer? A deep
inner sense of achievement, maybe? Fay, why should I do any free
thinking for Micro Systems?"
"I'll tell you why, Gussy. Simply because you get a kick out of
insulting us with sardonic ideas. If we take one of them seriously,
you think we're degrading ourselves, and that pleases you even more.
Like making someone laugh at a lousy pun."
* * * * *
Gusterson held still in his roaming and grinned. "That the reason,
huh? I suppose my suggestions would have to be something in the line
of ultra-subminiaturized computers, where one sinister fine-etched
molecule does the work of three big bumbling brain cells?"
"Not necessarily. Micro Systems is branching out. Wheel as free as a
rogue star. But I'll pass along to Promotion your one molecule-three
brain cell sparkler. It's a slight exaggeration, but it's catchy."
"I'll have my kids watch your ads to see if you use it and then I'll
sue the whole underworld." Gusterson frowned as he resumed his
stalking. He stared puzzledly at the antique TV. "How about inventing
a plutonium termite?" he said suddenly. "It would get rid of those
stockpiles that are worrying you moles to death."
Fay grimaced noncommittally and cocked his head.
"Well, then, how about a beauty mask? How about that, hey? I don't
mean one to repair a woman's complexion, but one she'd wear all the
time that'd make her look like a 17-year-old sexpot. That'd end _her_
worries."
"Hey, that's for me," Daisy called from the kitchen. "I'll make
Gusterson suffer. I'll make him crawl around on his hands and knees
begging my immature favors."
[Illustration]
"No, you won't," Gusterson called back. "You having a face like that
would scare the kids. Better cancel that one, Fay. Half the adult race
looking like Vina Vidarsson is too awful a thought."
"Yah, you're just scared of making a million dollars," Daisy jeered.
"I sure am," Gusterson said solemnly, scanning the fuzzy floor from
one murky glass wall to the other, hesitating at the TV. "How about
something homey now, like a flock of little prickly cylinders that
roll around the floor collecting lint and flub? They'd work by
electricity, or at a pinch cats could bat 'em around. Every so often
they'd be automatically herded together and the lint cleaned off the
bristles."
"No good," Fay said. "There's no lint underground and cats are
_verboten_. And the aboveground market doesn't amount to more
moneywise than the state of Southern Illinois. Keep it grander, Gussy,
and more impractical--you can't sell people merely useful ideas." From
his hassock in the center of the room he looked uneasily around. "Say,
did that violet tone in the glass come from the high Cleveland
hydrogen bomb or is it just age and ultraviolet, like desert glass?"
* * * * *
"No, somebody's grandfather liked it that color," Gusterson informed
him with happy bitterness. "I like it too--the glass, I mean, not the
tint. People who live in glass houses can see the stars--especially
when there's a window-washing streak in their germ-plasm."
"Gussy, why don't you move underground?" Fay asked, his voice taking
on a missionary note. "It's a lot easier living in one room, believe
me. You don't have to tramp from room to room hunting things."
"I like the exercise," Gusterson said stoutly.
"But I bet Daisy'd prefer it underground. And your kids wouldn't have
to explain why their father lives like a Red Indian. Not to mention
the safety factor and insurance savings and a crypt church within easy
slidewalk distance. Incidentally, we see the stars all the time,
better than you do--by repeater."
"Stars by repeater," Gusterson murmured to the ceiling, pausing for God
to comment. Then, "No, Fay, even if I could afford it--and stand it--I'm
such a bad-luck Harry that just when I got us all safely stowed at the
N minus 1 sublevel, the Soviets would discover an earthquake bomb that
struck from below, and I'd have to follow everybody back to the
treetops. _Hey! How about bubble homes in orbit around earth?_ Micro
Systems could subdivide the world's most spacious suburb and all you
moles could go ellipsing. Space is as safe as there is: no air, no
shock waves. Free fall's the ultimate in restfulness--great health
benefits. Commute by rocket--or better yet stay home and do all your
business by TV-telephone, or by waldo if it were that sort of thing.
Even pet your girl by remote control--she in her bubble, you in yours,
whizzing through vacuum. Oh, damn-damn-_damn_-_damn_-DAMN!"
He was glaring at the blank screen of the TV, his big hands clenching
and unclenching.
"Don't let Fay give you apoplexy--he's not worth it," Daisy said,
sticking her trim head in from the kitchen, while Fay inquired
anxiously, "Gussy, what's the matter?"
"Nothing, you worm!" Gusterson roared, "Except that an hour ago I
forgot to tune in on the only TV program I've wanted to hear this
year--_Finnegans Wake_ scored for English, Gaelic and brogue. Oh,
damn-_damn_-DAMN!"
"Too bad," Fay said lightly. "I didn't know they were releasing it on
flat TV too."
* * * * *
"Well, they were! Some things are too damn big to keep completely
underground. And I had to forget! I'm always doing it--I miss
everything! Look here, you rat," he blatted suddenly at Fay, shaking
his finger under the latter's chin, "I'll tell you what you can have
that ignorant team of yours invent. They can fix me up a mechanical
secretary that I can feed orders into and that'll remind me when the
exact moment comes to listen to TV or phone somebody or mail in a
story or write a letter or pick up a magazine or look at an eclipse or
a new orbiting station or fetch the kids from school or buy Daisy a
bunch of flowers or whatever it is. It's got to be something that's
always with me, not something I have to go and consult or that I can
get sick of and put down somewhere. And it's got to remind me forcibly
enough so that I take notice and don't just shrug it aside, like I
sometimes do even when Daisy reminds me of things. That's what your
stupid team can invent for me! If they do a good job, I'll pay 'em as
much as fifty dollars!"
"That doesn't sound like anything so very original to me," Fay
commented coolly, leaning back from the wagging finger. "I think all
senior executives have something of that sort. At least, their
secretary keeps some kind of file...."
"I'm not looking for something with spiked falsies and nylons up to
the neck," interjected Gusterson, whose ideas about secretaries were a
trifle lurid. "I just want a mech reminder--that's all!"
"Well, I'll keep the idea in mind," Fay assured him, "along with the
bubble homes and beauty masks. If we ever develop anything along those
lines, I'll let you know. If it's a beauty mask, I'll bring Daisy a
pilot model--to use to scare strange kids." He put his watch to his
ear. "Good lord, I'm going to have to cut to make it underground
before the main doors close. Just ten minutes to Second Curfew! 'By,
Gus. 'By, Daze."
Two minutes later, living room lights out, they watched Fay's
foreshortened antlike figure scurrying across the balding ill-lit park
toward the nearest escalator.
Gusterson said, "Weird to think of that big bright space-poor glamor
basement stretching around everywhere underneath. Did you remind
Smitty to put a new bulb in the elevator?"
"The Smiths moved out this morning," Daisy said tonelessly. "They went
underneath."
"Like cockroaches," Gusterson said. "Cockroaches leavin' a sinkin'
apartment building. Next the ghosts'll be retreatin' to the shelters."
"Anyhow, from now on we're our own janitors," Daisy said.
He nodded. "Just leaves three families besides us loyal to this glass
death trap. Not countin' ghosts." He sighed. Then, "You like to move
below, Daisy?" he asked softly, putting his arm lightly across her
shoulders. "Get a woozy eyeful of the bright lights and all for a
change? Be a rat for a while? Maybe we're getting too old to be bats.
I could scrounge me a company job and have a thinking closet all to
myself and two secretaries with stainless steel breasts. Life'd be
easier for you and a lot cleaner. And you'd sleep safer."
"That's true," she answered and paused. She ran her fingertip slowly
across the murky glass, its violet tint barely perceptible against a
cold dim light across the park. "But somehow," she said, snaking her
arm around his waist, "I don't think I'd sleep happier--or one bit
excited."