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