Fritz Leiber: The Creature from Cleveland Depths

“I’ll take that memo now,” Fay said coolly, reaching out his hand. He caught the rustling sheets as they slipped from Gusterson’s fingers, evened them up very precisely by tapping them on his knee … and then handed them over his shoulder to his tickler, which clicked its claws around either margin and then began rather swiftly to lift the top sheet past its single eye at a distance of about six inches.

“The first matter I want to take up with you, Gussy,” Fay began, paying no attention whatsoever to the little scene on his shoulder, “—or warn you about, rather — is the imminent ticklerization of schoolchildren, geriatrics, convicts and topsiders. At three zero zero tomorrow ticklers become mandatory for all adult shelterfolk. The mop-up operations won’t be long in coming — in fact, these days we find that the square root of the estimated time of a new development is generally the best time estimate. Gussy, I strongly advise you to start wearing a tickler now. And Daisy and your moppets. If you heed my advice, your kids will have the jump on your class. Transition and conditioning are easy, since Tickler itself sees to it.”

Pooh-Bah leafed the first page to the back of the packet and began lifting the second past his eye — a little more swiftly than the first.

“I’ve got a Mark 6 tickler all warmed up for you,” Fay pressed, “ and a shoulder cape. You won’t feel one bit conspicuous.” He noticed the direction of Gusterson’s gaze and remarked, “Fascinating mechanism, isn’t it? Of course 28 pounds are a bit oppressive, but then you have to remember it’s only a way-station to free-floating Mark 7 or 8.”

Pooh-Bah finished page two and began to race through page three.

“But I wanted you to read it,” Gusterson said bemusedly, staring.

“Pooh-Bah will do a better job than I could,” Fay assured him. “Get the gist without losing the chaff.”

“But dammit, it’s all about him ,” Gusterson said a little more strongly. “He won’t be objective about it.”

“A better job,” Fay reiterated, “ and more fully objective. Pooh-Bah’s set for full precis. Stop worrying about it. He’s a dispassionate machine, not a fallible, emotionally disturbed human misled by the will-o’-the-wisp of consciousness. Second matter: Micro Systems is impressed by your contributions to Tickler and will recruit you as a senior consultant with a salary and thinking box as big as my own, family quarters to match. It’s an unheard-of high start. Gussy, I think you’d be a fool—”

He broke off, held up a hand for silence, and his eyes got a listening look. Pooh-Bah had finished page six and was holding the packet motionless. After about ten seconds Fay’s face broke into a big fake smile. He stood up, suppressing a wince, and held out his hand. “Gussy,” he said loudly, “I am happy to inform you that all your fears about Tickler are so much thistledown. My word on it. There’s nothing to them at all. Pooh-Bah’s precis, which he’s just given to me, proves it.”

“Look,” Gusterson said solemnly, “there’s one thing I want you to do. Purely to humor an old friend. But I want you to do it. Read that memo yourself. ”

“Certainly I will, Gussy,” Fay continued in the same ebullient tones. “I’ll read it—” he twitched and his smile disappeared—“a little later.”

“Sure,” Gusterson said dully, holding his hand to his stomach. “And now if you don’t mind, Fay, I’m goin’ home. I feel just a bit sick. Maybe the ozone and the other additives in your shelter air are too heady for me. It’s been years since I tramped through a pine forest.”

“But Gussy! You’ve hardly got here. You haven’t even sat down. Have another martini. Have a seltzer pill. Have a whiff of oxy. Have a—”

“No, Fay, I’m going home right away. I’ll think about the job offer. Remember to read that memo. ”

“I will, Gussy, I certainly will. You know your way? The button takes you through the wall. ’By, now.”

He sat down abruptly and looked away. Gusterson pushed through the swinging door. He tensed himself for the step across onto the slowly-moving reverse ribbon. Then on a impulse he pushed ajar the swinging door and looked back inside.

Fay was sitting as he’d left him, apparently lost in listless brooding. On his shoulder Pooh-Bah was rapidly crossing and uncrossing its little metal arms, tearing the memo to smaller and smaller shreds. It let the scraps drift slowly toward the floor and oddly writhed its three-elbowed left arm … and then Gusterson knew from whom, or rather from what, Fay had copied his new shrug.

When Gusterson got home toward the end of the second dog watch, he slipped aside from Daisy’s questions and set the children laughing with a graphic enactment of his slidestanding technique and a story about getting his head caught in a thinking box built for a midget physicist. After supper he played with Imogene, Iago and Claudius until it was their bedtime and thereafter was unusually attentive to Daisy, admiring her fading green stripes, though he did spend a while in the next apartment, where they stored their outdoor camping equipment.

But the next morning he announced to the children that it was a holiday — the Feast of St. Gusterson — and then took Daisy into the bedroom and told her everything.

When he’d finished she said, “This is something I’ve got to see for myself.”

Gusterson shrugged. “If you think you’ve got to. I say we should head for the hills right now. One thing I’m standing on: the kids aren’t going back to school.”

“Agreed,” Daisy said. “But, Gusterson, we’ve lived through a lot of things without leaving home altogether. We lived through the Everybody-Six-Feet-Underground-by-Christmas campaign and the Robot Watchdog craze, when you got your left foot half chewed off. We lived through the Venomous Bats and Indoctrinated Saboteur Rats and the Hypnotized Monkey Paratrooper scares. We lived through the Voice of Safety and Anti-Communist Somno-Instruction and Rightest Pills and Jet-Propelled Vigilantes. We lived through the Cold-Out, when you weren’t supposed to turn on a toaster for fear its heat would be a target for prowl missiles and when people with fevers were unpopular. We lived through—”

Gusterson patted her hand. “You go below,” he said. “Come back when you’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 least justify the effect of the faded stripes — Gusterson doled out to the children provender and equipment for a camping expedition to the next floor. Iago led them off in stealthy Indian file. Leaving the hall door open Gusterson got out his.38 and cleaned and loaded it, meanwhile concentrating on a chess problem with the idea of confusing a hypothetical psionic monitor. By the time he had hid the revolver again he heard the elevator creaking back up.

Daisy came dragging in without her hat, looking as if she’d been concentrating on a chess problem for hours herself and just now given up. Her stripes seemed to have vanished; then Gusterson decided this was 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 abstracted and orderly down below, especially the ones wearing ticklers, meaning pretty much everybody?”