st power and a half is due to
Tickler itself. Gussy, the tickler's already eliminated absenteeism,
alcoholism and aboulia in numerous urban areas--and that's just one
letter of the alphabet! If Tickler doesn't turn us into a nation of
photo-memory constant-creative-flow geniuses in six months, I'll come
live topside."

* * * * *

"You mean because a lot of people are standing around glassy-eyed
listening to something mumbling in their ear that it's a good thing?"

"Gussy, you don't know progress when you see it. Tickler is the
greatest invention since language. Bar none, it's the greatest
instrument ever devised for integrating a man into all phases of his
environment. Under the present routine a newly purchased tickler first
goes to government and civilian defense for primary patterning, then
to the purchaser's employer, then to his doctor-psycher, then to his
local bunker captain, then to _him_. _Everything_ that's needful for a
man's welfare gets on the spools. Efficiency cubed! Incidentally,
Russia's got the tickler now. Our dip-satellites have photographed it.
It's like ours except the Commies wear it on the left shoulder ... but
they're two weeks behind us developmentwise and they'll never close
the gap!"

Gusterson reared up out of the pancake phone to take a deep breath. A
sulky-lipped sylph-figured girl two feet from him twitched--medium
cootch, he judged--then fumbled in her belt-bag for a pill and popped
it in her mouth.

"Hell, the tickler's not even efficient yet about little things,"
Gusterson blatted, diving back into the privacy-yashmak he was sharing
with Fay. "Whyn't that girl's doctor have the Moodmaster component of
her tickler inject her with medicine?"

"Her doctor probably wants her to have the discipline of
pill-taking--or the exercise," Fay answered glibly. "Look sharp now.
Here's where we fork. I'm taking you through Micro's postern."

A ribbon of slidewalk split itself from the main band and angled off
into a short alley. Gusterson hardly felt the constant-speed juncture
as they crossed it. Then the secondary ribbon speeded up, carrying
them at about 30 feet a second toward the blank concrete wall in which
the alley ended. Gusterson prepared to jump, but Fay grabbed him with
one hand and with the other held up toward the wall a badge and a
button. When they were about ten feet away the wall whipped aside,
then whipped shut behind them so fast that Guster