with the sigh of
one who has escaped a great, if symbolic, danger. Then he remembered
something Fay had mentioned. He straightened again.

"Hey, you said it's got scanning and decision-making elements. That
means your tickler thinks, even by your fancy standards. And if it
thinks, it's conscious."

"Gussy," Fay said wearily, frowning, "all sorts of things nowadays
have S&DM elements. Mail sorters, missiles, robot medics, high-style
mannequins, just to name some of the Ms. They 'think,' to use that
archaic word, but it's neither here nor there. And they're certainly
not conscious."

"Your tickler thinks," Gusterson repeated stubbornly, "just like I
warned you it would. It sits on your shoulder, ridin' you like you was
a pony or a starved St. Bernard, and now it thinks."

"Suppose it does?" Fay yawned. "What of it?" He gave a rapid sinuous
one-sided shrug that made it look for a moment as if his left arm had
three elbows. It stuck in Gusterson's mind, for he had never seen Fay
use such a gesture and he wondered where he'd picked it up. Maybe
imitating a double-jointed Micro Finance chief? Fay yawned again and
said, "Please, Gussy, don't disturb me for a minute or so." His eyes
half closed.

Gusterson studied Fay's sunken-cheeked face and the great puff of his
shoulder cape.

"Say, Fay," he asked in a soft voice after about five minutes, "are
you meditating?"

"Why, no," Fay responded, starting up and then stifling another yawn.
"Just resting a bit. I seem to get more tired these days, somehow.
You'll have to excuse me, Gussy. But what made you think of
meditation?"

"Oh, I just got to wonderin' in that direction," Gusterson said. "You
see, when you first started to develop Tickler, it occurred to me that
there was one thing about it that might be real good even if you did
give it S&DM elements. It's this: having a mech secretary to take
charge of his obligations and routine in the real world might allow a
man to slide into the other world, the world of thoughts and feelings
and intuitions, and sort of ooze around in there and accomplish
things. Know any of the people using Tickler that way, hey?"

"Of course not," Fay denied with a bright incredulous laugh. "Who'd
want to loaf around in an imaginary world and take a chance of
_missing out on what his tickler's doing_?--I mean, on what his
tickler has in store for him--what he's _told_ his tickler to have in
store for him."

Ignoring Gusterson's shiver, Fay