“They’ve taken over,” he panted. Another gobbling breath. “Gone crazy.” Two more gasps. “Gotta stop ’em.”
His eyes filmed. He swayed forward. Then Gusterson’s big arms were around him and he was carrying him to the couch.
Daisy came running from the kitchen with a damp cool towel. Gusterson took it from her and began to mop Fay off. He sucked in his own breath as he saw that Fay’s right ear was raw and torn. He whispered to Daisy, “Look at where the thing savaged him.”
The blood on Fay’s shoulder came from his ear. Some of it stained a flush-skin plastic fitting that had two small valved holes in it and that puzzled Gusterson until he remembered that Moodmaster tied into the bloodstream. For a second he thought he was going to vomit.
The dazed look slid aside from Fay’s eyes. He was gasping less painfully now. He sat up, pushing the towel away, buried his face in his hands for a few seconds, then looked over the fingers at the two of them.
“I’ve been living in a nightmare for the last week,” he said in a taut small voice, “knowing the thing had come alive and trying to pretend to myself that it hadn’t. Knowing it was taking charge of me more and more. Having it whisper in my ear, over and over again, in a cracked little rhyme that I could only hear every hundredth time, ‘Day by day, in every way, you’re learning to listen … and obey. Day by day—’”
His voice started to go high. He pulled it down and continued harshly, “I ditched it this morning when I showered. It let me break contact to do that. It must have figured it had complete control of me, mounted or dismounted. I think it’s telepathic, and then it did some, well, rather unpleasant things to me late last night. But I pulled together my fears and my will and I ran for it. The slidewalks were chaos. The Mark 6 ticklers showed some purpose, though I couldn’t tell you what, but as far as I could see the Mark 3s and 4s were just cootching their mounts to death—Chinese feather torture. Giggling, gasping, choking … gales of mirth. People are dying of laughter … ticklers!… the irony of it! It was the complete lack of order and sanity and that let me get topside. There were things I saw—” Once again his voice went shrill. He clapped his hand to his mouth and rocked back and forth on the couch.
Gusterson gently but firmly laid a hand on his good shoulder. “Steady,” he said. “Here, swallow this.”
Fay shoved aside the short brown drink. “We’ve got to stop them,” he cried. “Mobilize the topsiders—contact the wilderness patrols and manned satellites—pour ether in the tunnel airpumps—invent and crash-manufacture missiles that will home on ticklers without harming humans—SOS Mars and Venus—dope the shelter water supply—do something! Gussy, you don’t realize what people are going through down there every second.”
“I think they’re experiencing the ultimate in outer-directedness,” Gusterson said gruffly.