"We could have bought more," the teenager maintained. The other kids wailed agreement. "Yeah! we could have bought more!"

"We were also out of money," the mother said.

"We didn't even get to see the Enchanted Tiki Birds. The kids at school simply will not believe it!"

"That we were out of money? Well, the kids at school had better believe it. And you better give it a rest if you know what's good for you – all of you!"

And all the while the father sat without comment, not moving, just the muscles in his forearms and his big workadaddy hands, gripping the back of the seat. I noticed he'd been able to get his wrists and knuckles clean for this occasion, but there was still carbon under the fingernails, the indelible tattoo left by the other fifty-one weeks of his year working a lathe in Detroit, or changing tires in Muncie, or scrabbling coal in Monongahela.

"In a recent worldwide survey," Annette's voice continued in a more serious vein, "it was found that twice as many people desire to go to Disney World than to any other attraction on earth. That's pretty impressive, don't you all agree?"

Nobody nodded agreement, not even the kids. Before we could hear more our driver returned to his controls; the doors hissed shut and the big tube hummed away toward the hotel. The hands continued their gripping and ungripping of the seatback, trying not to let it show how hard it was getting to be, this business of keeping a grip – Joe and I exchanged looks. The poor guy. Hadn't he done everything you're supposed to? Labored hard? made a home? raised a family? even saved enough for this most desired of all vacations? But it wasn't working. Something was wrong somewhere, and hanging on was getting harder all the time.

We never saw his face. They filed off forward of us at the hotel. As they left Joe shook his head:

"Just the tip of an enormous iceberg," he said, "heading toward a titanic industry."

I had no idea just how titanic until I saw the exhibits. While Joe rushed off to make his appearance at industry parties, I roamed the crowded exhibition hall, amazed at all the latest devices and potions designed to care for and control the upcoming hordes unable to care for or control themselves. Teenagers rented from the local high school were our guides through a vast maze of displays. They demonstrated long-snouted pitchers that could get nourishment down the most intractable throat. They showed us how new Velcro straps could strap down a big strapping lad as well as the bulky old buckle cuffs. They invited us to test the comfort of urine-proof mattresses, pointing out the slotless screwheads that held the bed-frame together: "to keep them nuts from eating the screws."

There were unrippable pajamas with padded mittens to prevent the hallucinator from plucking out an offending eye. There were impact-dispersing skullcaps for the clumsy, disposable looparound mouthpieces for the tongue gnashers, lockfast maxi-Pampers for the thrashing incontinent, and countless kinds of medication reminders that beeped and buzzed and chimed to remind the forgetful. The vast majority of the booths were manned by the many pharmaceutical laboratories supported by this industry. Most of these displays lacked the visual pizazz of the hardware shows. Pills and pamphlets just aren't as interesting to look at as restraining chairs featuring built-in commodes with automated enemas. The Szaabo display was the exception, attracting far the largest audience of all the booths. Company designers had mocked up a large cocktail lounge complete with plastic plants and free peanuts and waitresses in miniskirts. Above the bar was a big-screen TV monitor that played actual tapes of the company's products in action. Conventioneers could eat peanuts and drink and cheer like a Monday Night Football crowd as they watched big hyperactive hellraisers get wrestled down and turned meek as mice with a shot. I wondered if the display designers got the idea from the hippo show, or vice versa.

The trouble was once you got into the popular Szaabo lounge, it was next to impossible to get back out through the crush of the boisterous crowd. Harder than that to snag one of the free drinks. I was buffeted back and forth through the smoky clamor until I found myself near an exit along the far wall. It was marked for Emergency Use Only. I felt my smarting eyes and burning throat qualified so I pushed the lockbar and peeked out. To my great relief I saw I had found not only a private balcony with fresh air and a view of the sunset, but a tray of unclaimed martinis.

I squeezed through and heard the big door shut behind me over the noise. I grabbed the push bar but I was too late. "Let it lock," I decided, releasing the bar. "I can get by on olives if I miss the banquet."

I noticed these olives were skewered on clever little S-shaped silver swizzles, supposed to look like the Szaabo logo. It was also etched on the martini glasses, in red and yellow, like the crest on Superman's chest. About halfway through the tray I raised one of the glasses in a toast – to Szaabo Labs, original layers of those tiny blue eggs of enlightenment. Remember when we used to think that every egg would hatch cherubs in every head and that these fledglings would feather into the highest-flying Vision in mankind's history? Remember our conspiracy, Szaabo? You make 'em; we'll take 'em – as far as the Vision can see. Who's left to carry the colors of our crusade now? Where's the robin's-egg-blue banner of the Vision of Man now? In the hands of one little girl, that's where, some titless wonder who can see about as far as she can pee, and she's been captured, probably by now quelled with one of your latest designer formulas and watching a rerun of Happy Days, comparatively happy herself.

But, like Joe says, compared to what?

By the time the drinks were drained and the olives eaten, the din on the other side of the door had gone down considerably. For a keepsake I dropped the last glass in my shoulder bag with my Ching and my leftover ticket books and tried the door. I was able to attract one of the waitresses by rattling the tray between the bar and the metal. She let me back in, apologizing all over herself for not hearing my signal earlier; it had been just too dern noisy. I gave her the tray and a ten spot and told her not to worry – I hadn't been signaling earlier, anyhow.

The Szaabo bar and the convention hall were both almost empty. Everybody was off getting dressed for the evening's main event. I swung one more time by the main desk and saw my message to Woofner still folded in his box. The fresh peach behind the desk told me so many folks'd been asking she was curious herself what'd come of this missin' doctor.

Up in our room Dr. Mortimer was trying to find an answer to the same question. He was pacing to and fro in front of the telephone table in his rumpled tux and untied tie, talking into the receiver in a loud singsong German. I discerned he was a little drunk. When he saw me he put his hand over the receiver and shook his head forlornly.

Joe was also dressed for dinner, more rumpled than his boss and lots drunker. He was tilted back on a wastepaper basket. "You're burned bright as a beet," he said squinting at me. He held out the miniature bottle of Beefeater he was drinking. "Use some of this on your head. White wine's best but gin'll do."

I shook my head, explaining I had come to expect olives with my gin. Joe finished the bottle and dropped it between his legs into the wastebasket. I heard it clink against other bottles. He looked at his boss pacing foolishly with the phone, then started singing, "Who's afraid of the big bad wolf, the big bad wolf, the big bad wolf…"

Mortimer got the point and finally hung up. "I know you're both disappointed" – he sighed – "but it may be just as well. According to some of my colleagues our big bad wolf has long ago lost his fangs. And who wants to sit through a dull gumming? The program will be just fine, regardless. We've got last year's minutes, and the Bellevue Revue, and Dr. Bailey Toocter from Jamaica has already volunteered to fill in as keynote with his – what did he call it, Joe?"