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head of the file his (or her) tickler was ceremoniously unstrapped from his shoulder and welded onto a
silvery cask with smoothly pointed ends. The welding sparks were red stars. The result was something
that looked at least in the case of the Mark 6 ticklers like a stubby silver submarine, child size. It
would hum gently, lift off the floor and then fly slowly out through the big blue gap. Then the next
tickler-ridden human would step forward for processing.
The second scene was in a park, the sky again blue, but big and high with an argosy of white clouds.
Gusterson was lined up in a crowd of humans that stretched as far as he could see, row on irregular row.
Martial music was playing. Overhead hovered a flock of little silver submarines lined up rather more
orderly in the air than the humans were on the ground. The music rose to a heart-quickening climax. The
tickler nearest above Gusterson gave (as if to say,  And now who knows?") a triple-jointed shrug that
stung his memory. Then the ticklers took off straight up on their new and shining bodies. They became a
flight of silver geese ... of silver midges ... and the humans around Gusterson lifted a ragged cheer ...
That scene marked the beginning of the return of Gusterson's mind and memory. He shuffled around for
a bit, spoke vaguely to three or four people he recalled from the dream days, and then headed for home
and supper three weeks late, and as disoriented and emaciated as a bear coming out of hibernation.
IX
Six months later Fay was having dinner with Daisy and Gusterson. The cocktails had been poured and
the children were playing in the next apartment. The transparent violent walls brightened, then gloomed,
as the sun dipped below the horizon.
Gusterson said,  I see where a spaceship out beyond the orbit of Mars was holed by a tickler. I wonder
where the little guys are headed now?"
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TheBlackGondolierandOtherStories
Fay started to give a writhing left-armed shrug, but stopped himself with a grimace.
 Maybe out of the solar system altogether, suggested Daisy, who'd recently dyed her hair fire-engine
red and was wearing red leotards.
 They got a weary trip ahead of them, Gusterson said,  unless they work out a hyper-Einsteinian drive
on the way."
Fay grimaced again. He was still looking rather peaked. He said plaintively,  Haven't we heard enough
about ticklers for a while?"
 I guess so, Gusterson agreed,  but I get to wondering about the little guys. They were so serious and
intense about everything. I never did solve their problem, you know. I just shifted it onto other shoulders
than ours. No joke intended, he hurried to add.
Fay forbore to comment.  By the way, Gussy, he said,  have you heard anything from the Red Cross
about that world-saving medal I nominated you for? I know you think the whole concept of world-
saving medals is ridiculous, especially when they started giving them to all heads of state who didn't
start atomic wars while in office, but "
 Nary a peep, Gusterson told him.  I'm not proud, Fay. I could use a few world-savin medals. I'd start
a flurry in the old-gold market. But I don't worry about those things. I don't have time to. I'm busy these
days thinkin up a bunch of new inventions."
 Gussy! Fay said sharply, his face tightening in alarm,  Have you forgotten your promise?"
 'Course not, Fay. My new inventions aren't for Micro or any other firm. They're just a legitimate part of
my literary endeavors. Happens my next insanity novel is goin to be about a mad inventor."
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TheBlackGondolierandOtherStories
THE CASKET-DEMON
 There's nothing left for it I've got to open the casket, said Vividy Sheer, glaring at the ugly thing on
its square of jeweled and gold-worked altar cloth. The most photogenic face in the world was grim as a
Valkyrie's this Malibu morning.
 No, shuddered Miss Bricker, her secretary.  Vividy, you once let me peek in through the little window
and I didn't sleep for a week."
 It would make the wrong sort of publicity, said Maury Gender, the Nordic film-queen's press chief.
 Besides that, I value my life. His gaze roved uneasily across the gray  Pains of the Damned tapestries
lining three walls of the conference room up to its black-beamed 20-foot ceiling.
 You forget, baroness, the runic rhymes of the Prussian Nostradamus, said Dr. Rumanescue, Vividy's
astrologist and family magician.  Wenn der Kassette-Teufel ...  or, to translate roughly,  When the
casket-demon is let out, The life of the Von Sheer is in doubt. 
 My triple-great grandfather held out against the casket-demon for months, Vividy Sheer countered.
 Yes, with a demi-regiment of hussars for bodyguard, and in spite of their sabers and horse pistols he
was found dead in bed at his Silesian hunting lodge within a year. Dead in bed and black as a beetle
and the eight hussars in the room with him as night-guard permanently out of their wits with fear."
 I'm stronger than he was I've conquered Hollywood, Vividy said, her blue eyes sparking and her
face all Valkyrie.  But in any case if I'm to live weeks, let alone months, Imust keep my name in the
papers, as all three of you very well know."
 Hey, hey, what goes on here? demanded Max Rath, Vividy Sheer's producer, for whom the medieval
torture-tapestries had noiselessly parted and closed at the bidding of electric eyes. His own little shrewd
ones scanned the casket, no bigger than a cigar box, with its tiny peep-hole of cloudy glass set in the top,
and finally came to rest on the only really incongruous object in the monastically-appointed hall a
lavender-tinted bathroom scale.
Vividy glared at him, Dr. Rumanescue shrugged eloquently, Miss Bricker pressed her lips together,
Maury Gender licked his own nervously and at last said,  Well, Vividy thinks she ought to have more
publicity every-day-without-skips publicity in the biggest papers and on the networks. Also, she's got a
weight problem."
Max Rath surveyed in its flimsy dress of silk jersey the most voluptuous figure on six continents and any
number of islands, including Ireland and Bali.  You got no weight problem, Viv, he pronounced.  An
ounce either way would be 480 grains away from pneumatic perfection. Vividy flicked at her bosom
contemptuously. Rath's voice changed.  Now as for your name not being in the papers lately, that's a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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