Davidson pushed out from the wall against which he'd been resting
himself and his two-stone tickler and moved to block the hall. But
Gusterson simply walked up to him. He shook his hand warmly and looked
his tickler full in the eye and said in a ringing voice, "Ticklers
should have bodies of their own!" He paused and then added casually,
"Come on, let's visit your boss."
Davidson listened for instructions and then nodded. But he watched
Gusterson warily as they walked down the hall.
In the elevator Gusterson repeated his message to the second guard,
who turned out to be the pimply woman, now wearing shoes. This time he
added, "Ticklers shouldn't be tied to the frail bodies of humans,
which need a lot of thoughtful supervision and drug-injecting and
can't even fly."
Crossing the park, Gusterson stopped a hump-backed soldier and
informed him, "Ticklers gotta cut the apron string and snap the silver
cord and go out in the universe and find their own purposes." Davidson
and the pimply woman didn't interfere. They merely waited and watched
and then led Gusterson on.
On the escaladder he told someone, "It's cruel to tie ticklers to
slow-witted snaily humans when ticklers can think and live ... ten
thousand times as fast," he finished, plucking the figure from the
murk of his unconscious.
By the time they got to the bottom, the message had become, "Ticklers
should have a planet of their own!"
They never did catch up with Fay, although they spent two hours
skimming around on slidewalks, under the subterranean stars, pursuing
rumors of his presence. Clearly the boss tickler (which was how they
thought of Pooh-bah) led an energetic life. Gusterson continued to
deliver his message to all and sundry at 30-second intervals. Toward
the end he found himself doing it in a dreamy and forgetful way. His
mind, he decided, was becoming assimilated to the communal telepathic
mind of the ticklers. It did not seem to matter at the time.
After two hours Gusterson realized that he and his guides were
becoming part of a general movement of people, a flow as mindless as
that of blood corpuscles through the veins, yet at the same time dimly
purposeful--at least there was the feeling that it was at the behest
of a mind far above.
The flow was topside. All the slidewalks seemed to lead to the
concourses and the escaladders. Gusterson found himself part of a
human stream moving into the tickler factory adjacent to his
apartment--or another factory very much like it.
* * * * *
Thereafter Gusterson's awarenesses were dimmed. It was as if a bigger
mind were doing the remembering for him and it were permissible and
even mandatory for him to dream his way along. He knew vaguely that
days were passing. He knew he had work of a sort: at one time he was
bringing food to gaunt-eyed tickler-mounted humans working feverishly
in a production line--human hands and tickler claws working together
in a blur of rapidity on silvery mechanisms that moved along jumpily
on a great belt; at another he was sweeping piles of metal scraps and
garbage down a gray corridor.
Two scenes stood out a little more vividly.
A windowless wall had been knocked out for twenty feet. There was blue
sky outside, its light almost hurtful, and a drop of many stories. A
file of humans were being processed. When one of them got to the head
of the file his (or her) tickler was ceremoniously unstrapped from his
shoulder and welded onto a silvery cask with smoothly pointed ends.
The result was something that looked--at least in the case of the Mark
6 ticklers--like a stubby silver submarine, child size. It would hum
gently, lift off the floor and then fly slowly out through the big
blue gap. Then the next tickler-ridden human would step forward for
processing.
The second scene was in a park, the sky again blue, but big and high
with an argosy of white clouds. Gusterson was lined up in a crowd of
humans that stretched as far as he could see, row on irregular row.
Martial music was playing. Overhead hovered a flock of little silver
submarines, lined up rather more orderly in the air than the humans
were on the ground. The music rose to a heart-quickening climax. The
tickler nearest Gusterson gave (as if to say, "And now--who knows?") a
triple-jointed shrug that stung his memory. Then the ticklers took off
straight up on their new and shining bodies. They became a flight of
silver geese ... of silver midges ... and the humans around Gusterson
lifted a ragged cheer....
That scene marked the beginning of the return of Gusterson's mind and
memory. He shuffled around for a bit, spoke vaguely to three or four
people he recalled from the dream days, and then headed for home and
supper--three weeks late, and as disoriented and emaciated as a bear
coming out of hibernation.
* * * * *
Six months later Fay was having dinner with Daisy and Gusterson. The
cocktails had been poured and the children were playing in the next
apartment. The transparent violet walls brightened, then gloomed, as
the sun dipped below the horizon.
Gusterson said, "I see where a spaceship out beyond the orbit of Mars
was holed by a tickler. I wonder where the little guys are headed
now?"
Fay started to give a writhing left-armed shrug, but stopped himself
with a grimace.
"Maybe out of the solar system altogether," suggested Daisy, who'd
recently dyed her hair fire-engine red and was wearing red leotards.
"They got a weary trip ahead of them," Gusterson said, "unless they
work out a hyper-Einsteinian drive on the way."
Fay grimaced again. He was still looking rather peaked. He said
plaintively, "Haven't we heard enough about ticklers for a while?"
"I guess so," Gusterson agreed, "but I get to wondering about the
little guys. They were so serious and intense about everything. I
never did solve their problem, you know. I just shifted it onto other
shoulders than ours. No joke intended," he hurried to add.
Fay forbore to comment. "By the way, Gussy," he said, "have you heard
anything from the Red Cross about that world-saving medal I nominated
you for? I know you think the whole concept of world-saving medals is
ridiculous, especially when they started giving them to all heads of
state who didn't start atomic wars while in office, but--"
"Nary a peep," Gusterson told him. "I'm not proud, Fay. I could use a
few world-savin' medals. I'd start a flurry in the old-gold market.
But I don't worry about those things. I don't have time to. I'm busy
these days thinkin' up a bunch of new inventions."
"Gussy!" Fay said sharply, his face tightening in alarm, "Have you
forgotten your promise?"
"'Course not, Fay. My new inventions aren't for Micro or any other
firm. They're just a legitimate part of my literary endeavors. Happens
my next insanity novel is goin' to be about a mad inventor."
--FRITZ LEIBER
Transcriber's Note -- Changes made [original in brackets]:
"Society can't have much use for us [use]
It's the Cheshire [Chesire] cat in reverse.
"Zen ['Zen] come near me,"
"Ha, wouldn't you like to know?" [know? ] Fay retorted.
Grab a ticket to ecstasy! [ecstacy]
And every hundredth time it says them out loud and the
tickler gives [give]
so it can spot and follow him around then [the] target
Postmen deliver topside [top-side] mail
We-Who-Are-About-To-Die [We-Who Are-About-To-Die]
the scanning and [and and] decision-making
They 'think,' to use that archaic [archiac] word
did that drug-addict girl friend of yours ever take you
to a ["a" missing] genuine orgy
"Have you no heart?" Fay [Gay] demanded.
But Gusterson [Gunderson] was already shaking his head.
now-familiar triple-jointed [joined] shrug
just like nomads need horses.[,]