son wondered
momentarily if he still had his heels and the seat of his pants.

Fay, tucking away his badge and pancake phone, dropped the button in
Gusterson's vest pocket. "Use it when you leave," he said casually.
"That is, if you leave."

Gusterson, who was trying to read the Do and Don't posters papering
the walls they were passing, started to probe that last sinister
supposition, but just then the ribbon slowed, a swinging door opened
and closed behind them and they found themselves in a luxuriously
furnished thinking box measuring at least eight feet by five.

* * * * *

"Hey, this is something," Gusterson said appreciatively to show he
wasn't an utter yokel. Then, drawing on research he'd done for period
novels, "Why, it's as big as a Pullman car compartment, or a first
mate's cabin in the War of 1812. You really must rate."

Fay nodded, smiled wanly and sat down with a sigh on a compact
overstuffed swivel chair. He let his arms dangle and his head sink
into his puffed shoulder cape. Gusterson stared at him. It was the
first time he could ever recall the little man showing fatigue.

"Tickler currently does have one serious drawback," Fay volunteered.
"It weighs 28 pounds. You feel it when you've been on your feet a
couple of hours. No question we're going to give the next model that
antigravity feature you mentioned for pursuit grenades. We'd have had
it in this model except there were so many other things to be
incorporated." He sighed again. "Why, the scanning and decision-making
elements alone tripled the mass."

"Hey," Gusterson protested, thinking especially of the sulky-lipped
girl, "do you mean to tell me all those other people were toting two
stone?"

Fay shook his head heavily. "They were all wearing Mark 3 or 4. I'm
wearing Mark 6," he said, as one might say, "I'm carrying the genuine
Cross, not one of the balsa ones."

But then his face brightened a little and he went on. "Of course the
new improved features make it more than worth it ... and you hardly
feel it at all at night when you're lying down ... and if you remember
to talcum under it twice a day, no sores develop ... at least not very
big ones...."

Backing away involuntarily, Gusterson felt something prod his right
shoulderblade. Ripping open his coat, he convulsively plunged his hand
under it and tore out Fay's belt-bag ... and then set it down very
gently on the top of a shallow cabinet and relaxed