Grant studied his chart. He had kept the course the communications-bureau back at Deep End had outlined for him, but as yet there was no sign of the man he sought. Old Gus, they called him, and it seemed he was a sort of local legend.
“A queer old coot,” the dapper little communications-bureau head had told him. “Depth dippy, I guess. He’s been out there for years, prospecting, fooling around. Couldn’t make him leave now. The Bottom gets in your blood, I guess, if you stay there long enough.”
Grant swept the light back and forth again, but still there was nothing.
Half an hour later the light picked up the dome crouched under a sudden upsoaring of black rock, rising abruptly from the sea floor.
Running the tank in close to the cliff, Grant stopped it and entered the airlock.
Clambering into the mechanical suit, he tightened the lock and slid into the small operator’s chamber with its nightmare of controls. Clumsily, as yet unused to the operation of the suit, he opened the outer lock control.
Outside it was easier and the suit ambled jerkily along, shaking him at every stride. He was within only a short distance of the dome when a shadow detached itself from the cliff and dropped upon him. Grant felt the thud of its impact, saw waving tentacles crawl across the plate, white gristle suction cups seeking to get a hold.
“An octopus,” said Grant disgustedly.
The cephalopod threshed wildly, swinging its tentacles in mighty swipes and then slid off the suit, landing in front of it, hopping to one side. A moment later it scuttled out of the twilit gloom and humped along ahead of Grant.
“I’d like to take a swift kick at you,” Grant told the octopus, “but if I did, I’d lose my balance sure as hell, and a fellow would have to be a magician to get one of these tin cans right side up if it fell over.”
The octopus was a monster. His body was as big as a good-sized watermelon and his eight tentacles would have spanned close to twenty feet.
A suited figure was emerging from the air lock of the dome and Grant shoved a lever to swing his suit’s arm in greeting. The arm of the other suit raised in reply and hurried toward him.
The octopus galloped forward, raising a cloud of murk in its path, and launched itself at the other suit. An expert arm flashed out and warded it off. Steel fingers closed on a tentacle and the suit marched forward, hauling a protesting, squirming octopus along by one of its eight long arms.
“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.”