The Creature from Cleveland Depths

by Fritz Leiber

  VII

  When Gusterson got home toward the end of the second dog watch, heslipped aside from Daisy's questions and set the children laughingwith a graphic enactment of his slidestanding technique and a storyabout getting his head caught in a thinking box built for a midgetphysicist. After supper he played with Imogene, Iago and Claudiusuntil it was their bedtime and thereafter was unusually attentive toDaisy, admiring her fading green stripes, though he did spend a whilein the next apartment, where they stored their outdoor campingequipment.

  But the next morning he announced to the children that it was aholiday--the Feast of St. Gusterson--and then took Daisy into thebedroom and told her everything.

  When he'd finished she said, "This is something I've got to see formyself."

  Gusterson shrugged. "If you think you've got to. I say we should headfor the hills right now. One thing I'm standing on: the kids aren'tgoing back to school."

  "Agreed," Daisy said. "But, Gusterson, we've lived through a lot ofthings without leaving home altogether. We lived through theEverybody-Six-Feet-Underground-by-Christmas campaign and the RobotWatchdog craze, when you got your left foot half chewed off. We livedthrough the Venomous Bats and Indoctrinated Saboteur Rats and theHypnotized Monkey Paratrooper scares. We lived through the Voice ofSafety and Anti-Communist Somno-Instruction and Rightest Pills andJet-Propelled Vigilantes. We lived through the Cold-Out, when youweren't supposed to turn on a toaster for fear its heat would be atarget for prowl missiles and when people with fevers were unpopular.We lived through--"

  Gusterson patted her hand. "You go below," he said. "Come back whenyou've decided this is different. Come back as soon as you can anyway.I'll be worried about you every minute you're down there."

  When she was gone--in a green suit and hat to minimize or at leastjustify the effect of the faded stripes--Gusterson doled out to thechildren provender and equipment for a camping expedition to the nextfloor. Iago led them off in stealthy Indian file. Leaving the halldoor open Gusterson got out his .38 and cleaned and loaded it,meanwhile concentrating on a chess problem with the idea of confusinga hypothetical psionic monitor. By the time he had hid the revolveragain he heard the elevator creaking back up.

  * * * * *

  Daisy came dragging in without her hat, looking as if she'd beenconcentrating on a chess problem for hours herself and just now givenup. Her stripes seemed to have vanished; then Gusterson decided thiswas because her whole complexion was a touch green.

  She sat down on the edge of the couch and said without looking at him,"Did you tell me, Gusterson, that everybody was quiet and abstractedand orderly down below, especially the ones wearing ticklers, meaningpretty much everybody?"

  "I did," he said. "I take it that's no longer the case. What are thenew symptoms?"

  She gave no indication. After some time she said, "Gusterson, do youremember the Dore illustrations to the _Inferno_? Can you visualizethe paintings of Hieronymous Bosch with the hordes of proto-Freudiandevils tormenting people all over the farmyard and city square? Didyou ever see the Disney animations of Moussorgsky's witches' sabbathmusic? Back in the foolish days before you married me, did thatdrug-addict girl friend of yours ever take you to a genuine orgy?"

  "As bad as that, hey?"

  She nodded emphatically and all of a sudden shivered violently."Several shades worse," she said. "If they decide to come topside--"She shot up. "Where are the kids?"

  "Upstairs campin' in the mysterious wilderness of the 21st floor,"Gusterson reassured her. "Let's leave 'em there until we're readyto--"

  He broke off. They both heard the faint sound of thudding footsteps.

  "They're on the stairs," Daisy whispered, starting to move toward theopen door. "But are they coming from up or down?"

  "It's just one person," judged Gusterson, moving after his wife. "Tooheavy for one of the kids."

  The footsteps doubled in volume and came rapidly closer. Along withthem there was an agonized gasping. Daisy stopped, staring fearfullyat the open doorway. Gusterson moved past her. Then he stopped too.

  Fay stumbled into view and would have fallen on his face except heclutched both sides of the doorway halfway up. He was stripped to thewaist. There was a little blood on his shoulder. His narrow chest wasarching convulsively, the ribs standing out starkly, as he sucked inoxygen to replace what he'd burned up running up twenty flights. Hiseyes were wild.

  "They've taken over," he panted. Another gobbling breath. "Gonecrazy." Two more gasps. "Gotta stop 'em."

  His eyes filmed. He swayed forward. Then Gusterson's big arms werearound him and he was carrying him to the couch.

  * * * * *

  Daisy came running from the kitchen with a damp cool towel. Gustersontook it from her and began to mop Fay off. He sucked in his own breathas he saw that Fay's right ear was raw and torn. He whispered toDaisy, "Look at where the thing savaged him."

  The blood on Fay's shoulder came from his ear. Some of it stained aflush-skin plastic fitting that had two small valved holes in it andthat puzzled Gusterson until he remembered that Moodmaster tied intothe bloodstream. For a second he thought he was going to vomit.

  The dazed look slid aside from Fay's eyes. He was gasping lesspainfully now. He sat up, pushing the towel away, buried his face inhis hands for a few seconds, then looked over the fingers at the twoof them.

  "I've been living in a nightmare for the last week," he said in a tautsmall voice, "knowing the thing had come alive and trying to pretendto myself that it hadn't. Knowing it was taking charge of me more andmore. Having it whisper in my ear, over and over again, in a crackedlittle 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 todo that. It must have figured it had complete control of me, mountedor dismounted. I think it's telepathic, and then it did some, well,rather unpleasant things to me late last night. But I pulled togethermy fears and my will and I ran for it. The slidewalks were chaos. TheMark 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 theirmounts to death--Chinese feather torture. Giggling, gasping, choking... gales of mirth. People are dying of laughter ... ticklers!... theirony of it! It was the complete lack of order and sanity and that letme get topside. There were things I saw--" Once again his voice wentshrill. He clapped his hand to his mouth and rocked back and forth onthe 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," hecried. "Mobilize the topsiders--contact the wilderness patrols andmanned satellites--pour ether in the tunnel airpumps--invent andcrash-manufacture missiles that will home on ticklers without harminghumans--SOS Mars and Venus--dope the shelter water supply--dosomething! Gussy, you don't realize what people are going through downthere every second."

  "I think they're experiencing the ultimate in outer-directedness,"Gusterson said gruffly.

  "Have you no heart?" Fay demanded. His eyes widened, as if he wereseeing Gusterson for the first time. Then, accusingly, pointing ashaking finger: "_You invented the tickler, George Gusterson! It's allyour fault! You've got to do something about it!_"

  Before Gusterson could retort to that, or begin to think of a reply,or even assimilate the full enormity of Fay's statement, he wasgrabbed from behind and frog-marched away from Fay and something thatfelt remarkably like the muzzle of a large-caliber gun was shoved inthe small of his back.

  * * * * *

  Under cover of Fay's outburst a huge crowd of people had entered theroom from the hall--eight, to be exact. But the weirdest thing aboutthem to Gusterson was that from the first instant he had theimpression that only one mind had entered t
he room and that it did notreside in any of the eight persons, even though he recognized three ofthem, but in something that they were carrying.

  Several things contributed to this impression. The eight people allhad the same blank expression--watchful yet empty-eyed. They all movedin the same slithery crouch. And they had all taken off their shoes.Perhaps, Gusterson thought wildly, they believed he and Daisy ran aJapanese flat.

  Gusterson was being held by two burly women, one of them quite pimply.He considered stamping on her toes, but just at that moment the gundug in his back with a corkscrew movement.

  The man holding the gun on him was Fay's colleague Davidson. Someyards beyond Fay's couch, Kester was holding a gun on Daisy, withoutdigging it into her, while the single strange man holding Daisyherself was doing so quite decorously--a circumstance which affordedGusterson minor relief, since it made him feel less guilty about notgoing berserk.

  Two more strange men, one of them in purple lounging pajamas, theother in the gray uniform of a slidewalk inspector, had grabbed Fay'sskinny upper arms, one on either side, and were lifting him to hisfeet, while Fay was struggling with such desperate futility andgibbering so pitifully that Gusterson momentarily had second thoughtsabout the moral imperative to go berserk when menaced by hostileforce. But again the gun dug into him with a twist.

  Approaching Fay face-on was the third Micro-man Gusterson had metyesterday--Hazen. It was Hazen who was carrying--quite reverently orsolemnly--or at any rate very carefully the object that seemed toGusterson to be the mind of the little storm troop presentlydesecrating the sanctity of his own individual home.

  All of them were wearing ticklers, of course--the three Micro-men theheavy emergent Mark 6s with their clawed and jointed arms andmonocular cephalic turrets, the rest lower-numbered Marks of the sortthat merely made Richard-the-Third humps under clothing.

  The object that Hazen was carrying was the Mark 6 tickler Gustersonhad seen Fay wearing yesterday. Gusterson was sure it was Pooh-Bahbecause of its air of command, and because he would have sworn on amountain of Bibles that he recognized the red fleck lurking in theback of its single eye. And Pooh-Bah alone had the aura of fullconscious thought. Pooh-Bah alone had mana.

  * * * * *

  It is not good to see an evil legless child robot with dangling strapsbossing--apparently by telepathic power--not only three objects of itsown kind and five close primitive relatives, but also eight humanbeings ... and in addition throwing into a state of twitching terrorone miserable, thin-chested, half-crazy research-and-developmentdirector.

  Pooh-Bah pointed a claw at Fay. Fay's handlers dragged him forward,still resisting but more feebly now, as if half-hypnotized or at leastcowed.

  Gusterson grunted an outraged, "Hey!" and automatically struggled abit, but once more the gun dug in. Daisy shut her eyes, then firmedher mouth and opened them again to look.

  Seating the tickler on Fay's shoulder took a little time, because twoblunt spikes in its bottom had to be fitted into the valved holes inthe flush-skin plastic disk. When at last they plunged home Gustersonfelt very sick indeed--and then even more so, as the tickler itselfpoked a tiny pellet on a fine wire into Fay's ear.

  The next moment Fay had straightened up and motioned his handlersaside. He tightened the straps of his tickler around his chest andunder his armpits. He held out a hand and someone gave him ashoulderless shirt and coat. He slipped into them smoothly, Pooh-Bahdexterously using its little claws to help put its turret and bodythrough the neatly hemmed holes. The small storm troop looked at Faywith deferential expectation. He held still for a moment, as ifthinking, and then walked over to Gusterson and looked him in the faceand again held still.

  Fay's expression was jaunty on the surface, agonized underneath.Gusterson knew that he wasn't thinking at all, but only listening forinstructions from something that was whispering on the very thresholdof his inner ear.

  "Gussy, old boy," Fay said, twitching a depthless grin, "I'd be verymuch obliged if you'd answer a few simple questions." His voice washoarse at first but he swallowed twice and corrected that. "Whatexactly did you have in mind when you invented ticklers? What exactlyare they supposed to be?"

  "Why, you miserable--" Gusterson began in a kind of confused horror,then got hold of himself and said curtly, "They were supposed to bemech reminders. They were supposed to record memoranda and--"

  Fay held up a palm and shook his head and again listened for a space.Then, "That's how ticklers were supposed to be of use to humans," hesaid. "I don't mean that at all. I mean how ticklers were supposed tobe of use to themselves. Surely you had some notion." Fay wet hislips. "If it's any help," he added, "keep in mind that it's not Faywho's asking this question, but Pooh-Bah."

  Gusterson hesitated. He had the feeling that every one of the eightdual beings in the room was hanging on his answer and that somethingwas boring into his mind and turning over his next thoughts andpeering at and under them before he had a chance to scan them himself.Pooh-Bah's eye was like a red searchlight.

  "Go on," Fay prompted. "What were ticklers supposed to be--forthemselves?"

  "Nothin'," Gusterson said softly. "Nothin' at all."

  * * * * *

  He could feel the disappointment well up in the room--and with it atouch of something like panic.

  This time Fay listened for quite a long while. "I hope you don't meanthat, Gussy," he said at last very earnestly. "I mean, I hope you huntdeep and find some ideas you forgot, or maybe never realized you hadat the time. Let me put it to you differently. What's the place ofticklers in the natural scheme of things? What's their aim in life?Their special reason? Their genius? Their final cause? What godsshould ticklers worship?"

  But Gusterson was already shaking his head. He said, "I don't knowanything about that at all."

  Fay sighed and gave simultaneously with Pooh-Bah the now-familiartriple-jointed shrug. Then the man briskened himself. "I guess that'sas far as we can get right now," he said. "Keep thinking, Gussy. Tryto remember something. You won't be able to leave your apartment--I'msetting guards. If you want to see me, tell them. Or just think--Indue course you'll be questioned further in any case. Perhaps byspecial methods. Perhaps you'll be ticklerized. That's all. Come on,everybody, let's get going."

  The pimply woman and her pal let go of Gusterson, Daisy's man loosedhis decorous hold, Davidson and Kester sidled away with an eye behindthem and the little storm troop trudged out.

  Fay looked back in the doorway. "I'm sorry, Gussy," he said and for amoment his old self looked out of his eyes. "I wish I could--" A clawreached for his ear, a spasm of pain crossed his face, he stiffenedand marched off. The door shut.

  Gusterson took two deep breaths that were close to angry sobs. Then,still breathing stentorously, he stamped into the bedroom.

  "What--?" Daisy asked, looking after him.

  He came back carrying his .38 and headed for the door.

  "What are you up to?" she demanded, knowing very well.

  "I'm going to blast that iron monkey off Fay's back if it's the lastthing I do!"

  She threw her arms around him.

  "Now lemme go," Gusterson growled. "I gotta be a man one time anyway."

  As they struggled for the gun, the door opened noiselessly, Davidsonslipped in and deftly snatched the weapon out of their hands beforethey realized he was there. He said nothing, only smiled at them andshook his head in sad reproof as he went out.

  * * * * *

  Gusterson slumped. "I _knew_ they were all psionic," he said softly."I just got out of control now--that last look Fay gave us." Hetouched Daisy's arm. "Thanks, kid."

  He walked to the glass wall and looked out desultorily. After a whilehe turned and said, "Maybe you better be with the kids, hey? I imaginethe guards'll let you through."

  Daisy shook her head. "The kids never come home until supper. For thenext few hours they'll be safer without me."

 
Gusterson nodded vaguely, sat down on the couch and propped his chinon the base of his palm. After a while his brow smoothed and Daisyknew that the wheels had started to turn inside and the electrons tojump around--except that she reminded herself to permanently cross outthose particular figures of speech from her vocabulary.

  After about half an hour Gusterson said softly, "I think the ticklersare so psionic that it's as if they just had one mind. If I were withthem very long I'd start to be part of that mind. Say something to oneof them and you say it to all."

  Fifteen minutes later: "They're not crazy, they're just newborn. Theones that were creating a cootching chaos downstairs were like babieskickin' their legs and wavin' their eyes, tryin' to see what theirbodies could do. Too bad their bodies are us."

  Ten minutes more: "I gotta do something about it. Fay's right. It'sall my fault. He's just the apprentice; I'm the old sorcerer himself."

  Five minutes more, gloomily: "Maybe it's man's destiny to build livemachines and then bow out of the cosmic picture. Except the ticklersneed us, dammit, just like nomads need horses."

  Another five minutes: "Maybe somebody could dream up a purpose in lifefor ticklers. Even a religion--the First Church of Pooh-Bah Tickler.But I hate selling other people spiritual ideas and that'd still leaveticklers parasitic on humans...."

  As he murmured those last words Gusterson's eyes got wide as amaniac's and a big smile reached for his ears. He stood up and facedhimself toward the door.

  "What are you intending to do now?" Daisy asked flatly.

  "I'm merely goin' out an' save the world," he told her. "I may be backfor supper and I may not."

  VIII

  Davidson pushed out from the wall against which he'd been restinghimself and his two-stone tickler and moved to block the hall. ButGusterson simply walked up to him. He shook his hand warmly and lookedhis tickler full in the eye and said in a ringing voice, "Ticklersshould have bodies of their own!" He paused and then added casually,"Come on, let's visit your boss."

  Davidson listened for instructions and then nodded. But he watchedGusterson warily as they walked down the hall.

  In the elevator Gusterson repeated his message to the second guard,who turned out to be the pimply woman, now wearing shoes. This time headded, "Ticklers shouldn't be tied to the frail bodies of humans,which need a lot of thoughtful supervision and drug-injecting andcan't even fly."

  Crossing the park, Gusterson stopped a hump-backed soldier andinformed him, "Ticklers gotta cut the apron string and snap the silvercord and go out in the universe and find their own purposes." Davidsonand the pimply woman didn't interfere. They merely waited and watchedand then led Gusterson on.

  On the escaladder he told someone, "It's cruel to tie ticklers toslow-witted snaily humans when ticklers can think and live ... tenthousand times as fast," he finished, plucking the figure from themurk of his unconscious.

  By the time they got to the bottom, the message had become, "Ticklersshould have a planet of their own!"

  They never did catch up with Fay, although they spent two hoursskimming around on slidewalks, under the subterranean stars, pursuingrumors of his presence. Clearly the boss tickler (which was how theythought of Pooh-bah) led an energetic life. Gusterson continued todeliver his message to all and sundry at 30-second intervals. Towardthe end he found himself doing it in a dreamy and forgetful way. Hismind, he decided, was becoming assimilated to the communal telepathicmind of the ticklers. It did not seem to matter at the time.

  After two hours Gusterson realized that he and his guides werebecoming part of a general movement of people, a flow as mindless asthat of blood corpuscles through the veins, yet at the same time dimlypurposeful--at least there was the feeling that it was at the behestof a mind far above.

  The flow was topside. All the slidewalks seemed to lead to theconcourses and the escaladders. Gusterson found himself part of ahuman stream moving into the tickler factory adjacent to hisapartment--or another factory very much like it.

  * * * * *

  Thereafter Gusterson's awarenesses were dimmed. It was as if a biggermind were doing the remembering for him and it were permissible andeven mandatory for him to dream his way along. He knew vaguely thatdays were passing. He knew he had work of a sort: at one time he wasbringing food to gaunt-eyed tickler-mounted humans working feverishlyin a production line--human hands and tickler claws working togetherin a blur of rapidity on silvery mechanisms that moved along jumpilyon a great belt; at another he was sweeping piles of metal scraps andgarbage down a gray corridor.

  Two scenes stood out a little more vividly.

  A windowless wall had been knocked out for twenty feet. There was bluesky outside, its light almost hurtful, and a drop of many stories. Afile of humans were being processed. When one of them got to the headof the file his (or her) tickler was ceremoniously unstrapped from hisshoulder and welded onto a silvery cask with smoothly pointed ends.The result was something that looked--at least in the case of the Mark6 ticklers--like a stubby silver submarine, child size. It would humgently, lift off the floor and then fly slowly out through the bigblue gap. Then the next tickler-ridden human would step forward forprocessing.

  The second scene was in a park, the sky again blue, but big and highwith an argosy of white clouds. Gusterson was lined up in a crowd ofhumans that stretched as far as he could see, row on irregular row.Martial music was playing. Overhead hovered a flock of little silversubmarines, lined up rather more orderly in the air than the humanswere on the ground. The music rose to a heart-quickening climax. Thetickler nearest Gusterson gave (as if to say, "And now--who knows?") atriple-jointed shrug that stung his memory. Then the ticklers took offstraight up on their new and shining bodies. They became a flight ofsilver geese ... of silver midges ... and the humans around Gustersonlifted a ragged cheer....

  That scene marked the beginning of the return of Gusterson's mind andmemory. He shuffled around for a bit, spoke vaguely to three or fourpeople he recalled from the dream days, and then headed for home andsupper--three weeks late, and as disoriented and emaciated as a bearcoming out of hibernation.

  * * * * *

  Six months later Fay was having dinner with Daisy and Gusterson. Thecocktails had been poured and the children were playing in the nextapartment. The transparent violet walls brightened, then gloomed, asthe sun dipped below the horizon.

  Gusterson said, "I see where a spaceship out beyond the orbit of Marswas holed by a tickler. I wonder where the little guys are headednow?"

  Fay started to give a writhing left-armed shrug, but stopped himselfwith a grimace.

  "Maybe out of the solar system altogether," suggested Daisy, who'drecently dyed her hair fire-engine red and was wearing red leotards.

  "They got a weary trip ahead of them," Gusterson said, "unless theywork out a hyper-Einsteinian drive on the way."

  Fay grimaced again. He was still looking rather peaked. He saidplaintively, "Haven't we heard enough about ticklers for a while?"

  "I guess so," Gusterson agreed, "but I get to wondering about thelittle guys. They were so serious and intense about everything. Inever did solve their problem, you know. I just shifted it onto othershoulders than ours. No joke intended," he hurried to add.

  Fay forbore to comment. "By the way, Gussy," he said, "have you heardanything from the Red Cross about that world-saving medal I nominatedyou for? I know you think the whole concept of world-saving medals isridiculous, especially when they started giving them to all heads ofstate who didn't start atomic wars while in office, but--"

  "Nary a peep," Gusterson told him. "I'm not proud, Fay. I could use afew 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 busythese days thinkin' up a bunch of new inventions."

  "Gussy!" Fay said sharply, his face tightening in alarm, "Have youforgotten your promise?"

  "'Course not, Fay. My new inventions aren't for Micro or
any otherfirm. They're just a legitimate part of my literary endeavors. Happensmy next insanity novel is goin' to be about a mad inventor."

  --FRITZ LEIBER

  Transcriber's Note -- Changes made [original in brackets]:

  "Society can't have much use for us [use] It's the Cheshire [Chesire] cat in reverse. "Zen ['Zen] come near me," "Ha, wouldn't you like to know?" [know? ] Fay retorted. Grab a ticket to ecstasy! [ecstacy] And every hundredth time it says them out loud and the tickler gives [give] so it can spot and follow him around then [the] target Postmen deliver topside [top-side] mail We-Who-Are-About-To-Die [We-Who Are-About-To-Die] the scanning and [and and] decision-making They 'think,' to use that archaic [archiac] word did that drug-addict girl friend of yours ever take you to a ["a" missing] genuine orgy "Have you no heart?" Fay [Gay] demanded. But Gusterson [Gunderson] was already shaking his head. now-familiar triple-jointed [joined] shrug just like nomads need horses.[,]