ng with the medical profession
from the start. They love the tickler because it'll remind people to
take their medicine on the dot ... and rest and eat and go to sleep
just when and how doc says. This is a big operation, Gussy--a biiiiiiig
operation! 'By!"

Daisy hurried to the wall to watch him cross the park. Deep down she
was a wee bit worried that he might linger to attach a micro-resonator
to _this_ building and she wanted to time him. But Gusterson settled
down to his typewriter and began to bat away.

"I want to have another novel started," he explained to her, "before
the ant marches across this building in about four and a half weeks
... or a million sharp little gutsy guys come swarming out of the
ground and heave it into Lake Erie."

IV

Early next morning windowless walls began to crawl up the stripped
skyscraper between them and the lake. Daisy pulled the black-out
curtains on that side. For a day or two longer their thoughts and
conversations were haunted by Gusterson's vague sardonic visions of a
horde of tickler-energized moles pouring up out of the tunnels to tear
down the remaining trees, tank the atmosphere and perhaps somehow
dismantle the stars--at least on this side of the world--but then they
both settled back into their customary easy-going routines. Gusterson
typed. Daisy made her daily shopping trip to a little topside daytime
store and started painting a mural on the floor of the empty apartment
next theirs but one.

"We ought to lasso some neighbors," she suggested once. "I need
somebody to hold my brushes and admire. How about you making a trip
below at the cocktail hours, Gusterson, and picking up a couple of
girls for a starter? Flash the old viriler charm, cootch them up a
bit, emphasize the delights of high living, but make sure they're
compatible roommates. You could pick up that two-yard check from Micro
at the same time."

"You're an immoral money-ravenous wench," Gusterson said absently,
trying to dream of an insanity beyond insanity that would make his
next novel a real id-rousing best-vender.

"If that's your vision of me, you shouldn't have chewed up the VV
mask."

"I'd really prefer you with green stripes," he told her. "But stripes,
spots, or sun-bathing, you're better than those cocktail moles."

Actually both of them acutely disliked going below. They much
preferred to perch in their eyrie and watch the people of Cleveland
Depths, as they privately called