Fritz Leiber - The Creature from Cleveland Depths

Here is a modern tale of an inner-directed sorcerer and an outer-directed sorcerer’s apprentice … a tale of— THE CREATURE

FROM

CLEVELAND DEPTHS

By FRITZ LEIBER

Illustrated by WOOD

“ Come on, Gussy,” Fay prodded quietly, “quit stalking around like a neurotic bear and suggest something for my invention team to work on. I enjoy visiting you and Daisy, but I can’t stay aboveground all night.”

“If being outside the shelters makes you nervous, don’t come around any more,” Gusterson told him, continuing to stalk. “Why doesn’t your invention team think of something to invent? Why don’t you? Hah!” In the “Hah!” lay triumphant condemnation of a whole way of life.

“We do,” Fay responded imperturbably, “but a fresh viewpoint sometimes helps.”

“I’ll say it does! Fay, you burglar, I’ll bet you’ve got twenty people like myself you milk for free ideas. First you irritate their bark and then you make the rounds every so often to draw off the latex or the maple gloop.”

Fay smiled. “It ought to please you that society still has a use for you outre inner-directed types. It takes something to make a junior executive stay aboveground after dark, when the missiles are on the prowl.”

“Society can’t have much use for us or it’d pay us something,” Gusterson sourly asserted, staring blankly at the tankless TV and kicking it lightly as he passed on.

“No, you’re wrong about that, Gussy. Money’s not the key goad with you inner-directeds. I got that straight from our Motivations chief.”

“Did he tell you what we should use instead to pay the grocer? A deep inner sense of achievement, maybe? Fay, why should I do any free thinking for Micro Systems?”

“I’ll tell you why, Gussy. Simply because you get a kick out of insulting us with sardonic ideas. If we take one of them seriously, you think we’re degrading ourselves, and that pleases you even more. Like making someone laugh at a lousy pun.”

Gusterson held still in his roaming and grinned. “That the reason, huh? I suppose my suggestions would have to be something in the line of ultra-subminiaturized computers, where one sinister fine-etched molecule does the work of three big bumbling brain cells?”

“Not necessarily. Micro Systems is branching out. Wheel as free as a rogue star. But I’ll pass along to Promotion your one molecule-three brain cell sparkler. It’s a slight exaggeration, but it’s catchy.”

“I’ll have my kids watch your ads to see if you use it and then I’ll sue the whole underworld.” Gusterson frowned as he resumed his stalking. He stared puzzledly at the antique TV. “How about inventing a plutonium termite?” he said suddenly. “It would get rid of those stockpiles that are worrying you moles to death.”

Fay grimaced noncommittally and cocked his head.

“Well, then, how about a beauty mask? How about that, hey? I don’t mean one to repair a woman’s complexion, but one she’d wear all the time that’d make her look like a 17-year-old sexpot. That’d end her worries.”

“Hey, that’s for me,” Daisy called from the kitchen. “I’ll make Gusterson suffer. I’ll make him crawl around on his hands and knees begging my immature favors.”

“No, you won’t,” Gusterson called back. “You having a face like that would scare the kids. Better cancel that one, Fay. Half the adult race looking like Vina Vidarsson is too awful a thought.”

“Yah, you’re just scared of making a million dollars,” Daisy jeered.

“I sure am,” Gusterson said solemnly, scanning the fuzzy floor from one murky glass wall to the other, hesitating at the TV. “How about something homey now, like a flock of little prickly cylinders that roll around the floor collecting lint and flub? They’d work by electricity, or at a pinch cats could bat ’em around. Every so often they’d be automatically herded together and the lint cleaned off the bristles.”

“No good,” Fay said. “There’s no lint underground and cats are verboten . And the aboveground market doesn’t amount to more moneywise than the state of Southern Illinois. Keep it grander, Gussy, and more impractical — you can’t sell people merely useful ideas.” From his hassock in the center of the room he looked uneasily around. “Say, did that violet tone in the glass come from the high Cleveland hydrogen bomb or is it just age and ultraviolet, like desert glass?”

“ No, somebody’s grandfather liked it that color,” Gusterson informed him with happy bitterness. “I like it too — the glass, I mean, not the tint. People who live in glass houses can see the stars — especially when there’s a window-washing streak in their germ-plasm.”

“Gussy, why don’t you move underground?” Fay asked, his voice taking on a missionary note. “It’s a lot easier living in one room, believe me. You don’t have to tramp from room to room hunting things.”

“I like the exercise,” Gusterson said stoutly.

“But I bet Daisy’d prefer it underground. And your kids wouldn’t have to explain why their father lives like a Red Indian. Not to mention the safety factor and insurance savings and a crypt church within easy slidewalk distance. Incidentally, we see the stars all the time, better than you do — by repeater.”

“Stars by repeater,” Gusterson murmured to the ceiling, pausing for God to comment. Then, “No, Fay, even if I could afford it — and stand it — I’m such a bad-luck Harry that just when I got us all safely stowed at the N minus 1 sublevel, the Soviets would discover an earthquake bomb that struck from below, and I’d have to follow everybody back to the treetops. Hey! How about bubble homes in orbit around earth? Micro Systems could subdivide the world’s most spacious suburb and all you moles could go ellipsing. Space is as safe as there is: no air, no shock waves. Free fall’s the ultimate in restfulness — great health benefits. Commute by rocket — or better yet stay home and do all your business by TV-telephone, or by waldo if it were that sort of thing. Even pet your girl by remote control — she in her bubble, you in yours, whizzing through vacuum. Oh, damn-damn- damn - damn -DAMN!”

He was glaring at the blank screen of the TV, his big hands clenching and unclenching.

“Don’t let Fay give you apoplexy — he’s not worth it,” Daisy said, sticking her trim head in from the kitchen, while Fay inquired anxiously, “Gussy, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing, you worm!” Gusterson roared, “Except that an hour ago I forgot to tune in on the only TV program I’ve wanted to hear this year— Finnegans Wake scored for English, Gaelic and brogue. Oh, damn- damn -DAMN!”

“Too bad,” Fay said lightly. “I didn’t know they were releasing it on flat TV too.”

“ Well, they were! Some things are too damn big to keep completely underground. And I had to forget! I’m always doing it — I miss everything! Look here, you rat,” he blatted suddenly at Fay, shaking his finger under the latter’s chin, “I’ll tell you what you can have that ignorant team of yours invent. They can fix me up a mechanical secretary that I can feed orders into and that’ll remind me when the exact moment comes to listen to TV or phone somebody or mail in a story or write a letter or pick up a magazine or look at an eclipse or a new orbiting station or fetch the kids from school or buy Daisy a bunch of flowers or whatever it is. It’s got to be something that’s always with me, not something I have to go and consult or that I can get sick of and put down somewhere. And it’s got to remind me forcibly enough so that I take notice and don’t just shrug it aside, like I sometimes do even when Daisy reminds me of things. That’s what your stupid team can invent for me! If they do a good job, I’ll pay ’em as much as fifty dollars!”