Fritz Leiber - The Creature from Cleveland Depths

It is not good to see an evil legless child robot with dangling straps bossing — apparently by telepathic power — not only three objects of its own kind and five close primitive relatives, but also eight human beings … and in addition throwing into a state of twitching terror one miserable, thin-chested, half-crazy research-and-development director.

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 least cowed.

Gusterson grunted an outraged, “Hey!” and automatically struggled a bit, but once more the gun dug in. Daisy shut her eyes, then firmed her mouth and opened them again to look.

Seating the tickler on Fay’s shoulder took a little time, because two blunt spikes in its bottom had to be fitted into the valved holes in the flush-skin plastic disk. When at last they plunged home Gusterson felt very sick indeed — and then even more so, as the tickler itself poked a tiny pellet on a fine wire into Fay’s ear.

The next moment Fay had straightened up and motioned his handlers aside. He tightened the straps of his tickler around his chest and under his armpits. He held out a hand and someone gave him a shoulderless shirt and coat. He slipped into them smoothly, Pooh-Bah dexterously using its little claws to help put its turret and body through the neatly hemmed holes. The small storm troop looked at Fay with deferential expectation. He held still for a moment, as if thinking, and then walked over to Gusterson and looked him in the face and 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 for instructions from something that was whispering on the very threshold of his inner ear.

“Gussy, old boy,” Fay said, twitching a depthless grin, “I’d be very much obliged if you’d answer a few simple questions.” His voice was hoarse at first but he swallowed twice and corrected that. “What exactly did you have in mind when you invented ticklers? What exactly are 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 be mech 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,” he said. “I don’t mean that at all. I mean how ticklers were supposed to be of use to themselves. Surely you had some notion.” Fay wet his lips. “If it’s any help,” he added, “keep in mind that it’s not Fay who’s asking this question, but Pooh-Bah.”

Gusterson hesitated. He had the feeling that every one of the eight dual beings in the room was hanging on his answer and that something was boring into his mind and turning over his next thoughts and peering 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 — for themselves?”

“Nothin’,” Gusterson said softly. “Nothin’ at all.”

He could feel the disappointment well up in the room — and with it a touch of something like panic.

This time Fay listened for quite a long while. “I hope you don’t mean that, Gussy,” he said at last very earnestly. “I mean, I hope you hunt deep and find some ideas you forgot, or maybe never realized you had at the time. Let me put it to you differently. What’s the place of ticklers in the natural scheme of things? What’s their aim in life? Their special reason? Their genius? Their final cause? What gods should ticklers worship?”

But Gusterson was already shaking his head. He said, “I don’t know anything about that at all.”

Fay sighed and gave simultaneously with Pooh-Bah the now-familiar triple-jointed shrug. Then the man briskened himself. “I guess that’s as far as we can get right now,” he said. “Keep thinking, Gussy. Try to remember something. You won’t be able to leave your apartment — I’m setting guards. If you want to see me, tell them. Or just think — In due course you’ll be questioned further in any case. Perhaps by special 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 loosed his decorous hold, Davidson and Kester sidled away with an eye behind them and the little storm troop trudged out.

Fay looked back in the doorway. “I’m sorry, Gussy,” he said and for a moment his old self looked out of his eyes. “I wish I could—” A claw reached for his ear, a spasm of pain crossed his face, he stiffened and 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 last thing 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, Davidson slipped in and deftly snatched the weapon out of their hands before they realized he was there. He said nothing, only smiled at them and shook 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.” He touched Daisy’s arm. “Thanks, kid.”

He walked to the glass wall and looked out desultorily. After a while he turned and said, “Maybe you better be with the kids, hey? I imagine the guards’ll let you through.”

Daisy shook her head. “The kids never come home until supper. For the next few hours they’ll be safer without me.”

Gusterson nodded vaguely, sat down on the couch and propped his chin on the base of his palm. After a while his brow smoothed and Daisy knew that the wheels had started to turn inside and the electrons to jump around — except that she reminded herself to permanently cross out those particular figures of speech from her vocabulary.

After about half an hour Gusterson said softly, “I think the ticklers are so psionic that it’s as if they just had one mind. If I were with them very long I’d start to be part of that mind. Say something to one of them and you say it to all.”

Fifteen minutes later: “They’re not crazy, they’re just newborn. The ones that were creating a cootching chaos downstairs were like babies kickin’ their legs and wavin’ their eyes, tryin’ to see what their bodies could do. Too bad their bodies are us.”

Ten minutes more: “I gotta do something about it. Fay’s right. It’s all 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 live machines and then bow out of the cosmic picture. Except the ticklers need us, dammit, just like nomads need horses.”

Another five minutes: “Maybe somebody could dream up a purpose in life for ticklers. Even a religion — the First Church of Pooh-Bah Tickler. But I hate selling other people spiritual ideas and that’d still leave ticklers parasitic on humans….”

As he murmured those last words Gusterson’s eyes got wide as a maniac’s and a big smile reached for his ears. He stood up and faced himself toward the door.

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