Clifford Simak - The Shipshape Miracle - And Other Stories

“Howdy, stranger,” said the man inside the advancing suit. “Glad you happened along.”

Grant spoke into his transmitter.

“Glad to see you, too. I was looking for a man named Gus. Maybe you’re him.”

“Sure am,” said the other. “I suppose Butch jumped on you.”

“Butch?” asked Grant, bewildered.

“Sure, Butch. Butch is my octopus. Raised him from a pup. Used to sit around inside the dome with me until he got too big and I had to shut him out. He still tries to sneak in on me every now and then.”

Butch squatted to one side, his tentacle still clutched in the steel hand of his master’s suit. His eyes seemed to glint in the deep blue water.

“Sometimes,” Old Gus went on, “he gets kind of gay and I’ve got to trim him down to his natural size. But he’s a pretty good octopus just the same.”

“You mean,” asked Grant, slightly horrified, “you keep the thing for a pet.”

“Sure,” declared Gus. “Safe enough as long as he can’t get at you. Another fellow up north a ways had one and he kind of noised it around his octopus could lick anything that swam, so I took Butch and went up to see him. That, stranger, was a brawl worth seeing. But Butch had it all over that other octopus. Polished him off inside of fifteen minutes and then wouldn’t give up the corpse. Lugged it around for days, taking lunches off of it.”

“Sort of a tough citizen,” suggested Grant.

“Butch,” said Old Gus pridefully, “can be downright ornery when he takes a mind to be.”

Old Gus talked as he brewed the coffee. “A man gets sort of lonesome down here once in a while,” he explained, “and you like some company, even if it ain’t nothing but a thing like Butch. Sharks, now, are downright friendly once you get to know them, but they ain’t no account as pets. They wander too much. You never know where they are. But octopuses are home bodies. Butch lairs out in the cliff back there and comes a-humping every time he sees me.”

“How long have you been here?” asked Grant.

“Only four or five years here,” said Gus. “Used to live up around three hundred feet, but when they put out this improved quartz I moved down here. Like it better. But, all in all, I been living on The Bottom for nigh onto forty years. Last time I was up on the surface I got a terrible headache. Too many bright colors. Greens and blues and reds and yellows. All you get down here is blue, more of a violet really. It’s restful.”

The coffeepot sent out tantalizing odors. The electrolysis plant chuckled. The heat grids sang softly.

Outside the dome, Butch squatted dolefully.

“This a Snider dome?” asked Grant.

“Yep,” said Gus. “Set me back a couple thousand bucks. And then I had to pay to get it hauled down here. Thought I could do it with my old tub, but it was too risky.”

“I hear some of the Snider domes aren’t working out too well,” said Grant. “Breaking down under pressure. Maybe something wrong with their construction.”

The old man lifted the coffeepot off the stove, poured coffee into the cups.

“There’s been a lot of failures,” he said, “but I ain’t had no trouble. Don’t think it’s the fault of the glass at all. Something else. Something funny about it. Some of the boys around here have been talking of getting up a vigilante party.”

Grant had his cup half lifted to his lips, but set it down suddenly. “Vigilante party?” he asked. “Why a vigilante party?”

Old Gus leaned across the table, lowered his voice dramatically. “Ever hear of Robber’s Deep?” he asked.

“No,” said Grant. “I don’t believe I ever have.”

The old man settled back. “A little over a half mile down,” he declared. “A sort of little depression. Bad country. Too rough for tanks. Got to go on foot to reach it.”

He sipped the steaming coffee noisily, wiped his whiskers with a horny hand.

Grant waited, sipping his own coffee. Butch, he saw, was swarming up the dome’s curving side.

“There’s been too dang many robberies,” said Old Gus. “Too much helling around. This country is getting sort of civilized now and we ain’t going to stand for it much longer.”

“You think there’s a gang of robbers down in that deep?” asked Grant.

“That’s the only place they could be,” said Gus. “It’s bad country and hard to get around in. Lots of caves and a couple of canyons that run down to the Big Deep. Dozens of places where a gang could hide.”

Gus sipped gustily at the coffee. “It used to be right peaceable down here,” he mourned. “A man could find him a bed of clams and post the place and know it was his. Nobody would touch it. Or you could stake out a radium workings and know that your stakes wouldn’t be pulled up. And if you found an old ship you just slapped up a notice on it saying you had found it and nobody would take so much as a single plank away. But it ain’t that way no more. There’s been a lot of claim jumping and clam beds have been robbed. We kind of figure we’ll have to put a stop to it.”

“Look,” said Grant, “the Evening Rocket sent me out here to find out why so many domes were failing—why there were so many catastrophes on The Bottom. You tell me robbers are responsible—desperadoes of the deep. Would they go to the length of smashing a man’s dome to get what little treasure he might have inside?”

Old Gus snorted. “Why not?” he asked. “Up on the surface your thugs kill a man, shoot him down in cold blood, to get the little money he might have in his pocket. Down here there are fortunes in some of the domes. Radium and pearls and priceless treasure salvaged from old wrecks.”

Grant nodded. “I suppose so. But it’s not only here it’s happening. Domes are failing all over. On all parts of The Bottom.”

“I don’t know about them other places,” said Old Gun brusquely, “but I know out here most of the failures ain’t the fault of the glass. It’s the fault of a bunch of thieving cutthroats and it it keeps on we’ll sure make them hard to catch.”

The old man sloshed the last of the coffee down his throat and rattled the cup down on the table. “I got a bed of clams posted not very far from here and if them fellows get into that bed I’ll just naturally go on the warpath all by myself.”

He stopped and looked at Grant. “Say,” he asked, “have you ever seen a real clam bed?”

Grant shook his head.

“If you can stay,” said Old Gus, “I’ll show you one tomorrow that’ll make your eyes pop. Some of them five feet across, and if one old girl is open I’ll show you a pearl as big as your hat. It isn’t quite as perfect as it should be yet, but given a little more time it will be. The old girl is working on it and I’m watching it. But I haven’t been over there for a month or so.”

He shook his head. “I sure hope them Robber’s Deep fellows ain’t found her,” he said. “If they ever touch that pearl I’m going to declare me a war right then and there.”

Butch lolloped happily along ahead of them, soaring awkwardly over occasional boulders and making furtive side trips into the deep-blue darkness on either side.

“Just like a dog,” said Old Gus. “He gets cantankerous at times and I have to give him a good whaling to cool him down, but he seems to like me anyhow. But to anyone but me he’s meaner than poison. That’s his nature and he can’t help it.”

They plodded on. Grant was having less difficulty working his suit.

“The clam bed,” said Old Gus, “is just up this way a piece. Robber’s Deep is down in that direction.” He swung his arm toward the down slope, half turning his suit. He did not turn back again. “Nagle”—his voice was a husky whisper—“I don’t remember ever seeing that before.”