as carrying was the Mark 6 tickler Gusterson
had seen Fay wearing yesterday. Gusterson was sure it was Pooh-Bah
because of its air of command, and because he would have sworn on a
mountain of Bibles that he recognized the red fleck lurking in the
back of its single eye. And Pooh-Bah alone had the aura of full
conscious thought. Pooh-Bah alone had mana.

* * * * *

It is not good to see an evil legless child robot with dangling straps
bossing--apparently by telepathic power--not only three objects of its
own kind and five close primitive relatives, but also eight human
beings ... and in addition throwing into a state of twitching terror
one miserable, thin-chested, half-crazy research-and-development
director.

Pooh-Bah pointed a claw at Fay. Fay's handlers dragged him forward,
still resisting but more feebly now, as if half-hypnotized or at least
cowed.

Gusterson grunted an outraged, "Hey!" and automatically struggled a
bit, but once more the gun dug in. Daisy shut her eyes, then firmed
her mouth and opened them again to look.

Seating the tickler on Fay's shoulder took a little time, because two
blunt spikes in its bottom had to be fitted into the valved holes in
the flush-skin plastic disk. When at last they plunged home Gusterson
felt very sick indeed--and then even more so, as the tickler itself
poked a tiny pellet on a fine wire into Fay's ear.

The next moment Fay had straightened up and motioned his handlers
aside. He tightened the straps of his tickler around his chest and
under his armpits. He held out a hand and someone gave him a
shoulderless shirt and coat. He slipped into them smoothly, Pooh-Bah
dexterously using its little claws to help put its turret and body
through the neatly hemmed holes. The small storm troop looked at Fay
with deferential expectation. He held still for a moment, as if
thinking, and then walked over to Gusterson and looked him in the face
and again held still.

Fay's expression was jaunty on the surface, agonized underneath.
Gusterson knew that he wasn't thinking at all, but only listening for
instructions from something that was whispering on the very threshold
of his inner ear.

"Gussy, old boy," Fay said, twitching a depthless grin, "I'd be very
much obliged if you'd answer a few simple questions." His voice was
hoarse at first but he swallowed twice and corrected that. "What
exactly did you have in mind when you invented ticklers? What ex