survey. "You'll
do. Come on, Gussy. I got lots to brief you on." Three rapid paces and
then Gusterson's feet would have gone out from under him except that
Fay gave him a mighty shove. The small man sprang onto the slidewalk
after him and then they were skimming effortlessly side by side.

Gusterson felt frightened and twice as hunchbacked as the
slidestanders around him--morally as well as physically.

Nevertheless he countered bravely, "I got things to brief _you_ on. I
got six pages of cautions on ti--"

"Shh!" Fay stopped him. "Let's use my hushbox."

He drew out his pancake phone and stretched it so that it covered both
their lower faces, like a double yashmak. Gusterson, his neck pushing
into the ribbed bulge of the shoulder cape so he could be cheek to
cheek with Fay, felt horribly conspicuous, but then he noticed that
none of the slidestanders were paying them the least attention. The
reason for their abstraction occurred to him. They were listening to
their ticklers! He shuddered.

"I got six pages of caution on ticklers," he repeated into the hot,
moist quiet of the pancake phone. "I typed 'em so I wouldn't forget
'em in the heat of polemicking. I want you to read every word. Fay,
I've had it on my mind ever since I started wondering whether it was
you or your tickler made you duck out of our place last time you were
there. I want you to--"

"Ha-ha! All in good time." In the pancake phone Fay's laugh was
brassy. "But I'm glad you've decided to lend a hand, Gussy. This thing
is moving faaaasst. Nationwise, adult underground ticklerization is 90
per cent complete."

"I don't believe that," Gusterson protested while glaring at the
hunchbacks around them. The slidewalk was gliding down a low
glow-ceiling tunnel lined with doors and advertisements. Rapt-eyed
people were pirouetting on and off. "A thing just can't develop that
fast, Fay. It's against nature."

"Ha, but we're not in nature, we're in culture. The progress of an
industrial scientific culture is geometric. It goes n-times as many
jumps as it takes. More than geometric--exponential. Confidentially,
Micro's Math chief tells me we're currently on a fourth-power progress
curve trending into a fifth."

"You mean we're goin' so fast we got to watch out we don't bump
ourselves in the rear when we come around again?" Gusterson asked,
scanning the tunnel ahead for curves. "Or just shoot straight up to
infinity?"

"Exactly! Of course most of the la