The Creature from Cleveland Depths

by Fritz Leiber

  V

  Next day Daisy cashed the Micro check for ten hundred silver smackers,which she hid in a broken radionic coffee urn. Gusterson sold hisinsanity novel and started a new one about a mad medic with a hiccupyhysterical chuckle, who gimmicked Moodmasters to turn mental patientsinto nymphomaniacs, mass murderers and compulsive saints. But thistime he couldn't get Fay out of his mind, or the last chilling wordsthe nervous little man had spoken.

  For that matter, he couldn't blank the underground out of his mind aseffectively as usually. He had the feeling that a new kind of mole wasloose in the burrows and that the ground at the foot of theirskyscraper might start humping up any minute.

  Toward the end of one afternoon he tucked a half dozen newly typedsheets in his pocket, shrouded his typer, went to the hatrack and tookdown his prize: a miner's hard-top cap with electric headlamp.

  "Goin' below, Cap'n," he shouted toward the kitchen.

  "Be back for second dog watch," Daisy replied. "Remember what I toldyou about lassoing me some art-conscious girl neighbors."

  "Only if I meet a piebald one with a taste for Scotch--or maybe apearl gray biped jaguar with violet spots," Gusterson told her,clapping on the cap with a We-Who-Are-About-To-Die gesture.

  Halfway across the park to the escalator bunker Gusterson's heartbegan to tick. He resolutely switched on his headlamp.

  As he'd known it would, the hatch robot whirred an extra andhigher-pitched ten seconds when it came to his topside address, but itultimately dilated the hatch for him, first handing him a claim checkfor his ID card.

  Gusterson's heart was ticking like a sledgehammer by now. He hoppedclumsily onto the escalator, clutched the moving guard rail to eitherside, then shut his eyes as the steps went over the edge and becamewhat felt like vertical. An instant later he forced his eyes open,unclipped a hand from the rail and touched the second switch besidehis headlamp, which instantly began to blink whitely, as if he were acivilian plane flying into a nest of military jobs.

  With a further effort he kept his eyes open and flinchingly surveyedthe scene around him. After zigging through a bombproof half-furlongof roof, he was dropping into a large twilit cave. The blue-blackceiling twinkled with stars. The walls were pierced at floor level bya dozen archways with busy niche stores and glowing advertisementscrowded between them. From the archways some three dozen slidewalkscurved out, tangenting off each other in a bewildering multiplecloverleaf. The slidewalks were packed with people, travelingmotionless like purposeful statues or pivoting with practiced gracefrom one slidewalk to another, like a thousand toreros doingveronicas.

  * * * * *

  The slidewalks were moving faster than he recalled from his lastventure underground and at the same time the whole pedestrianconcourse was quieter than he remembered. It was as if the fivethousand or so moles in view were all listening--for what? But therewas something else that had changed about them--a change that hecouldn't for a moment define, or unconsciously didn't want to.Clothing style? No ... My God, they weren't all wearing identicalmonster masks? No ... Hair color?... Well....

  He was studying them so intently that he forgot his escalator waslanding. He came off it with a heel-jarring stumble and bumped into aknot of four men on the tiny triangular hold-still. These four atleast sported a new style-wrinkle: ribbed gray shoulder-capes thatmade them look as if their heads were poking up out of the center ofbulgy umbrellas or giant mushrooms.

  One of them grabbed hold of Gusterson and saved him from staggeringonto a slidewalk that might have carried him to Toledo.

  "Gussy, you dog, you must have esped I wanted to see you," Fay cried,patting him on the elbows. "Meet Davidson and Kester and Hazen,colleagues of mine. We're all Micro-men." Fay's companions werestaring strangely at Gusterson's blinking headlamp. Fay explainedrapidly, "Mr. Gusterson is an insanity novelist. You know, I-D."

  "Inner-directed spells _id_," Gusterson said absently, still staringat the interweaving crowd beyond them, trying to figure out what madethem different from last trip. "Creativity fuel. Cranky. Explodesthrough the parietal fissure if you look at it cross-eyed."

  "Ha-ha," Fay laughed. "Well, boys, I've found my man. How's the newnovel perking, Gussy?"

  "Got my climax, I think," Gusterson mumbled, still peering puzzledlyaround Fay at the slidestanders. "Moodmaster's going to come alive.Ever occur to you that 'mood' is 'doom' spelled backwards? Andthen...." He let his voice trail off as he realized that Kester andDavidson and Hazen had made their farewells and were sliding into thedistance. He reminded himself wryly that nobody ever wants to hear anauthor talk--he's much too good a listener to be wasted that way.Let's see, was it that everybody in the crowd had the same facialexpression...? Or showed symptoms of the same disease...?

  "I was coming to visit you, but now you can pay me a call," Fay wassaying. "There are two matters I want to--"

  Gusterson stiffened. "My God, _they're all hunchbacked_!" he yelled.

  "Shh! Of course they are," Fay whispered reprovingly. "They're allwearing their ticklers. But you don't need to be insulting about it."

  "_I'm gettin' out o' here._" Gusterson turned to flee as if from fivethousand Richard the Thirds.

  "Oh no you're not," Fay amended, drawing him back with one hand.Somehow, underground, the little man seemed to carry more weight."You're having cocktails in my thinking box. Besides, climbing a downescaladder will give you a heart attack."

  * * * * *

  In his home habitat Gusterson was about as easy to handle as a roguerhinoceros, but away from it--and especially if underground--he becamemore like a pliable elephant. All his bones dropped out through his feet,as he described it to Daisy. So now he submitted miserably as Faysurveyed him up and down, switched off his blinking headlamp ("Thatcoalminer caper is corny, Gussy.") and then--surprisingly--rapidlystuffed his belt-bag under the right shoulder of Gusterson's coat andbuttoned the latter to hold it in place.

  "So you won't stand out," he explained. Another swift survey. "You'lldo. Come on, Gussy. I got lots to brief you on." Three rapid paces andthen Gusterson's feet would have gone out from under him except thatFay gave him a mighty shove. The small man sprang onto the slidewalkafter him and then they were skimming effortlessly side by side.

  Gusterson felt frightened and twice as hunchbacked as theslidestanders around him--morally as well as physically.

  Nevertheless he countered bravely, "I got things to brief _you_ on. Igot six pages of cautions on ti--"

  "Shh!" Fay stopped him. "Let's use my hushbox."

  He drew out his pancake phone and stretched it so that it covered boththeir lower faces, like a double yashmak. Gusterson, his neck pushinginto the ribbed bulge of the shoulder cape so he could be cheek tocheek with Fay, felt horribly conspicuous, but then he noticed thatnone of the slidestanders were paying them the least attention. Thereason for their abstraction occurred to him. They were listening totheir ticklers! He shuddered.

  "I got six pages of caution on ticklers," he repeated into the hot,moist quiet of the pancake phone. "I typed 'em so I wouldn't forget'em in the heat of polemicking. I want you to read every word. Fay,I've had it on my mind ever since I started wondering whether it wasyou or your tickler made you duck out of our place last time you werethere. I want you to--"

  "Ha-ha! All in good time." In the pancake phone Fay's laugh wasbrassy. "But I'm glad you've decided to lend a hand, Gussy. This thingis moving faaaasst. Nationwise, adult underground ticklerization is 90per cent complete."

  "I don't believe that," Gusterson protested while glaring at thehunchbacks around them. The slidewalk was gliding down a lowglow-ceiling tunnel lined with doors and advertisements. Rapt-eyedpeople were pirouetting on and off. "A thing just can't develop thatfast, Fay. It's against nature."

  "Ha, but we're not in nature, we're in culture. The progress of anindustrial scientific culture is geometric. It goes n-times as manyjumps as it takes. More than geometric--exponential. Confiden
tially,Micro's Math chief tells me we're currently on a fourth-power progresscurve trending into a fifth."

  "You mean we're goin' so fast we got to watch out we don't bumpourselves in the rear when we come around again?" Gusterson asked,scanning the tunnel ahead for curves. "Or just shoot straight up toinfinity?"

  "Exactly! Of course most of the last power and a half is due toTickler itself. Gussy, the tickler's already eliminated absenteeism,alcoholism and aboulia in numerous urban areas--and that's just oneletter of the alphabet! If Tickler doesn't turn us into a nation ofphoto-memory constant-creative-flow geniuses in six months, I'll comelive topside."

  * * * * *

  "You mean because a lot of people are standing around glassy-eyedlistening to something mumbling in their ear that it's a good thing?"

  "Gussy, you don't know progress when you see it. Tickler is thegreatest invention since language. Bar none, it's the greatestinstrument ever devised for integrating a man into all phases of hisenvironment. Under the present routine a newly purchased tickler firstgoes to government and civilian defense for primary patterning, thento the purchaser's employer, then to his doctor-psycher, then to hislocal bunker captain, then to _him_. _Everything_ that's needful for aman's welfare gets on the spools. Efficiency cubed! Incidentally,Russia's got the tickler now. Our dip-satellites have photographed it.It's like ours except the Commies wear it on the left shoulder ... butthey're two weeks behind us developmentwise and they'll never closethe gap!"

  Gusterson reared up out of the pancake phone to take a deep breath. Asulky-lipped sylph-figured girl two feet from him twitched--mediumcootch, he judged--then fumbled in her belt-bag for a pill and poppedit in her mouth.

  "Hell, the tickler's not even efficient yet about little things,"Gusterson blatted, diving back into the privacy-yashmak he was sharingwith Fay. "Whyn't that girl's doctor have the Moodmaster component ofher tickler inject her with medicine?"

  "Her doctor probably wants her to have the discipline ofpill-taking--or the exercise," Fay answered glibly. "Look sharp now.Here's where we fork. I'm taking you through Micro's postern."

  A ribbon of slidewalk split itself from the main band and angled offinto a short alley. Gusterson hardly felt the constant-speed junctureas they crossed it. Then the secondary ribbon speeded up, carryingthem at about 30 feet a second toward the blank concrete wall in whichthe alley ended. Gusterson prepared to jump, but Fay grabbed him withone hand and with the other held up toward the wall a badge and abutton. When they were about ten feet away the wall whipped aside,then whipped shut behind them so fast that Gusterson wonderedmomentarily if he still had his heels and the seat of his pants.

  Fay, tucking away his badge and pancake phone, dropped the button inGusterson'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 paperingthe walls they were passing, started to probe that last sinistersupposition, but just then the ribbon slowed, a swinging door openedand closed behind them and they found themselves in a luxuriouslyfurnished thinking box measuring at least eight feet by five.

  * * * * *

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

  Fay nodded, smiled wanly and sat down with a sigh on a compactoverstuffed swivel chair. He let his arms dangle and his head sinkinto his puffed shoulder cape. Gusterson stared at him. It was thefirst 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 acouple of hours. No question we're going to give the next model thatantigravity feature you mentioned for pursuit grenades. We'd have hadit in this model except there were so many other things to beincorporated." He sighed again. "Why, the scanning and decision-makingelements alone tripled the mass."

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

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

  But then his face brightened a little and he went on. "Of course thenew improved features make it more than worth it ... and you hardlyfeel it at all at night when you're lying down ... and if you rememberto talcum under it twice a day, no sores develop ... at least not verybig ones...."

  Backing away involuntarily, Gusterson felt something prod his rightshoulderblade. Ripping open his coat, he convulsively plunged his handunder it and tore out Fay's belt-bag ... and then set it down verygently on the top of a shallow cabinet and relaxed with the sigh ofone who has escaped a great, if symbolic, danger. Then he rememberedsomething Fay had mentioned. He straightened again.

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

  "Gussy," Fay said wearily, frowning, "all sorts of things nowadayshave S&DM elements. Mail sorters, missiles, robot medics, high-stylemannequins, just to name some of the Ms. They 'think,' to use thatarchaic word, but it's neither here nor there. And they're certainlynot conscious."

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

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

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

  "Say, Fay," he asked in a soft voice after about five minutes, "areyou 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 ofmeditation?"

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

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

  Ignoring Gusterson's shiver, Fay straightened up and seemed to briskenhimself. "Ha, that little slump did me good. A tickler _makes_ yourest, you know--it's one of the great things about it. Pooh-Bah'skinder to me than I ever was to myself." He buttoned open a tinyrefrigerator and took out two waxed cardboard cubes and handed one toGusterson. "Martini? Hope you don't mind drinking from the carton.Cheers. Now, Gussy old pal, there are two matters I want to take upwith you--"

  "Hold it," Gusterson said with something of his old authority."There's something I got to get off my mind first." He pulled thetyped pages out of his inside pocket and straightened them. "I toldyou about these," he said. "I want you to read them before you doanything else. Here."

  Fay looked toward the pages and nodded, but did not take them yet. Helifted his hands to his throat and
unhooked the clasp of his cape,then hesitated.

  "You wear that thing to hide the hump your tickler makes?" Gustersonfilled in. "You got better taste than those other moles."

  "Not to hide it, exactly," Fay protested, "but just so the otherswon't be jealous. I wouldn't feel comfortable parading a free-scanningdecision-capable Mark 6 tickler in front of people who can't buyit--until it goes on open sale at twenty-two fifteen tonight. Lot ofshelterfolk won't be sleeping tonight. They'll be queued up to tradein their old tickler for a Mark 6 almost as good as Pooh-Bah."

  He started to jerk his hands apart, hesitated again with an oddlyapprehensive look at the big man, then whirled off the cape.