p there's all these things he's got to
keep in mind to do or he'll lose his turn three times in a row and
maybe a terrible black rook in iron armor'll loom up and bang him off
the chessboard. But now, look, now he's got his tickler and he tells
his sweet silver tickler all these things and the tickler's got to
remember them. Of course he'll have to do them eventually but
meanwhile the pressure's off him, the hook's out of his short hairs.
He's shifted the responsibility...."

"Well, what's so bad about that?" Fay broke in loudly. "What's wrong
with taking the pressure off little guys? Why shouldn't Tickler be a
super-ego surrogate? Micro's Motivations chief noticed that positive
feature straight off and scored it three pluses. Besides, it's nothing
but a gaudy way of saying that Tickler backstops the memory.
Seriously, Gussy, what's so bad about it?"

"I don't know," Gusterson said slowly, his eyes still far away. "I
just know it feels bad to me." He crinkled his big forehead. "Well for
one thing," he said, "it means that a man's taking orders from
something else. He's got a kind of master. He's sinking back into a
slave psychology."

"He's only taking orders from himself," Fay countered disgustedly.
"Tickler's just a mech reminder, a notebook, in essence no more than
the back of an old envelope. It's no master."

"Are you absolutely sure of that?" Gusterson asked quietly.

"Why, Gussy, you big oaf--" Fay began heatedly. Suddenly his features
quirked and he twitched. "'Scuse me, folks," he said rapidly, heading
for the door, "but my tickler told me I gotta go."

"Hey Fay, don't you mean you told your tickler to tell you when it was
time to go?" Gusterson called after him.

Fay looked back in the doorway. He wet his lips, his eyes moved from
side to side. "I'm not quite sure," he said in an odd strained voice
and darted out.

* * * * *

Gusterson stared for some seconds at the pattern of emptiness Fay had
left. Then he shivered. Then he shrugged. "I must be slipping," he
muttered. "I never even suggested something for him to invent." Then
he looked around at Daisy, who was still standing poker-faced in her
doorway.

"Hey, you look like something out of the Arabian Nights," he told her.
"Are you supposed to be anything special? How far do those stripes go,
anyway?"

"You could probably find out," she told him coolly. "All you have to
do is kill me a dragon or two first."

He