The Creature from Cleveland Depths | Page 4

ear. We might work up bone conduction on a
commercial model. Inside is an ultra-slow fine-wire recorder holding a
spool that runs for a week. The clock lets you go to any place on the
7-day wire and record a message. The buttons give you variable speed
in going there, so you don't waste too much time making a setting.
There's a knack in fingering them efficiently, but it's easily acquired."
Fay picked up the tickler. "For instance, suppose there's a TV show you
want to catch tomorrow night at twenty-two hundred." He touched the
buttons. There was the faintest whirring. The clock face blurred briefly
three times before showing the setting he'd mentioned. Then Fay spoke
into the punctured area: "Turn on TV Channel Two, you big dummy!"
He grinned over at Gusterson. "When you've got all your instructions to
yourself loaded in, you synchronize with the present moment and let
her roll. Fit it on your shoulder and forget it. Oh, yes, and it literally
does tickle you every time it delivers an instruction. That's what the
little rollers are for. Believe me, you can't ignore it. Come on, Gussy,
take off your shirt and try it out. We'll feed in some instructions for the
next ten minutes so you get the feel of how it works."
"I don't want to," Gusterson said. "Not right now. I want to sniff around
it first. My God, it's small! Besides everything else it does, does it

think?"
"Don't pretend to be an idiot, Gussy! You know very well that even
with ultra-sub-micro nothing quite this small can possibly have enough
elements to do any thinking."
Gusterson shrugged. "I don't know about that. I think bugs think."
* * * * *
Fay groaned faintly. "Bugs operate by instinct, Gussy," he said. "A
patterned routine. They do not scan situations and consequences and
then make decisions."
"I don't expect bugs to make decisions," Gusterson said. "For that
matter I don't like people who go around alla time making decisions."
"Well, you can take it from me, Gussy, that this tickler is just a
miniaturized wire recorder and clock ... and a tickler. It doesn't do
anything else."
"Not yet, maybe," Gusterson said darkly. "Not this model. Fay, I'm
serious about bugs thinking. Or if they don't exactly think, they feel.
They've got an interior drama. An inner glow. They're conscious. For
that matter, Fay, I think all your really complex electronic computers
are conscious too."
"Quit kidding, Gussy."
"Who's kidding?"
"You are. Computers simply aren't alive."
"What's alive? A word. I think computers are conscious, at least while
they're operating. They've got that inner glow of awareness. They sort
of ... well ... meditate."
"Gussy, computers haven't got any circuits for meditating. They're not
programmed for mystical lucubrations. They've just got circuits for

solving the problems they're on."
"Okay, you admit they've got problem-solving circuits--like a man has.
I say if they've got the equipment for being conscious, they're conscious.
What has wings, flies."
"Including stuffed owls and gilt eagles and dodoes--and wood-burning
airplanes?"
"Maybe, under some circumstances. There was a wood-burning
airplane. Fay," Gusterson continued, wagging his wrists for emphasis,
"I really think computers are conscious. They just don't have any way
of telling us that they are. Or maybe they don't have any reason to tell
us, like the little Scotch boy who didn't say a word until he was fifteen
and was supposed to be deaf and dumb."
"Why didn't he say a word?"
"Because he'd never had anything to say. Or take those Hindu fakirs,
Fay, who sit still and don't say a word for thirty years or until their
fingernails grow to the next village. If Hindu fakirs can do that,
computers can!"
Looking as if he were masticating a lemon, Fay asked quietly, "Gussy,
did you say you're working on an insanity novel?"
* * * * *
Gusterson frowned fiercely. "Now you're kidding," he accused Fay.
"The dirty kind of kidding, too."
"I'm sorry," Fay said with light contrition. "Well, now you've sniffed at
it, how about trying on Tickler?" He picked up the gleaming blunted
crescent and jogged it temptingly under Gusterson's chin.
"Why should I?" Gusterson asked, stepping back. "Fay, I'm up to my
ears writing a book. The last thing I want is something interrupting me
to make me listen to a lot of junk and do a lot of useless things."

"But, dammit, Gussy! It was all your idea in the first place!" Fay
blatted. Then, catching himself, he added, "I mean, you were one of the
first people to think of this particular sort of instrument."
"Maybe so, but I've done some more thinking since then." Gusterson's
voice grew a trifle solemn. "Inner-directed worthwhile thinkin'. Fay,
when a man forgets to do