The Ultimate Egoist

by Theodore Sturgeon

  Suddenly, in between the mast-head lights of the tanker, a great yellow flame lifted, poking up and towards the moon. A great excitement filled Steve Roupe; here was something with a kick to it, something new and different. He snatched at the knot on the anchor-shank, and as he did so a huge sea swept aboard, slamming the little craft scuppers under. With a despairing cry, Stephen Roupe and his anchor disappeared over the side.

  Aboard the Seabreeze Whacker was snapped out of his reverie by a jarring boom up ‘midships on the port side. The shelter-deck door! Dogs adrift, it swung open and shut with each feverish dive of the ship; steel against steel as she came up, steel against packing as she plunged. Whacker started for the flying bridge at a dead run, but he hadn’t taken two steps before she struck the inevitable spark.

  A puff of transparent blue flame blossomed out, hung for seconds over the deck, and then vanished. There was a great coughing sound and a column of fire spouted out of the vent of No. 4 port main tank; rose higher and higher as the heat sucked the vapor out, vaporized more. The tip of the vent glowed red, and then she let go. No. 4 starboard went a half-second later. The midship house caved in on itself. Sparks staggered blindly from his room toward the radio shack that wasn’t there any more, and then No. 3 and No. 5 blew out together. That was getting a little close to home, and Whacker raced aft, yelling down the ventilators.

  They tumbled out, sleep-drugged, frightened. Some had their dungarees on, and some hadn’t. Some were calm, but most of them were in a crawling panic. A big wiper was laying his fists right and left, trying to snap the panicky ones out of it. A few stood blinking at the flames. A few ran around in circles like trapped rats, too stupefied to make for the boats.

  What Whacker wanted was a life jacket. He tried the hatch ladder, but turned back at the sight of Tortugas huddled on the steps, smashed to a pulp by hysterical feet. That’s the way he paid. Whacker dropped down through a skylight into the alleyway, and burst into the sailors’ fo’c’sle. As he snatched three preservers out of the rack the deck settled appreciably under his feet. After that he didn’t mind climbing up over Tortugas.

  Up on the boat deck there was a miniature riot. It’s one thing to swing the boats out on an orderly weekly lifeboat drill; but it’s something else again to fight weather and panic at the same time, with no one in charge but the bosun—if being in charge means yelling sensible orders at a bunch of raving maniacs. The three mates, the Old Man, Sparks, and two of the seamen on watch had all gone wherever the midship house went to.

  The boilers popped off. Thank God for the safety valves.

  Two more tanks exploded up forward, and the ship gave a crazy lurch and rolled over on her beam-ends. A great sea smashed the starboard boat, and the port boat swung inboard, useless.

  The engines started to pound as she put her head down and the wheel began cutting air.

  “… who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name …” Who the hell was that?

  “Come on in, boys, the water’s fine.”

  Someone kept screaming like a horse with a broken leg.

  The bosun ran past, leaning against the heel of the deck, yelling, “Someone give me a hand!” Whacker followed him blindly. He dropped onto the poop deck, started knocking the wedges off the after cargo-hatch battens. Whacker thrust his arms through the holes of a life jacket, threw the others at the bosun. They washed over the side. They got all the wedges off one end of the hatch, stripped the tarpaulin back, began throwing the hatch boards over the side. That bosun was a man. He’d thought of the only thing aboard that you could count on to float.

  No. 7 and 8 went. The mainmast, with no decking under it, sagged, then speared through the bottom. The five-ton boom it carried crashed down on the poop deck, pinning the bosun’s legs. He lay there with the water washing over him. Whacker set his shoulder to the boom and heaved until his muscles cracked, but it never shifted. The bosun grinned and shook his head. Whacker tore the pipe-vise loose from the pumpman’s bench and brought it over. The bosun grinned again and nodded. Whacker let him have it …

  There was burning gasoline for seventy yards around the ship, except back aft. Whacker ran drunkenly to the taffrail, feverishly knotting the tapes on his jacket. He wondered vaguely as he dove whether that jacket would drown him or starve him. Then he was in the water. A sea carried him high and pitched him sickeningly downward. Something smashed him cruelly in the face and he felt the skin shredding and tearing away; then the lights went out.

  It was daylight when he opened his eyes. They burned agonizingly. The sea was still running high. His patent life-preserver had turned him over on his back as he floated unconscious. He took a few feeble strokes and looked around him. It was a small world. On a ship there’s eleven miles on each side of you; here there was hardly eleven yards.

  The ocean is a soft bed and the Gulf Stream is not cold. But his head ached in great throbs and the salt bit into his tattered face. He tried to cough, and when he did he couldn’t stop. He coughed until he passed out.

  Hours later he came to the second time. He was going to ask the 8 to 12 man if it was one bell yet but his tongue was so thick he couldn’t talk. He had to ask because if he didn’t he might oversleep and miss a watch. He tried hard and made a horrible cackling sound that frightened him. He was sick, that’s what it was. Better tell the steward. When do we dock, steward? You don’t dock, you rock. Up. Down. The steward’s dead. The steward’s red. No, Red’s dead too. He heard that cackling sound again, and thought it was laughter.

  There’s a light in my eyes, he thought. I’m sick, mother. Mother sat beside me for four days and nights because I had rheumatic fever. Mother drank coffee and smoked and never moved for four days and nights, because I couldn’t breathe and my joints hurt. But don’t hit me! Hey!

  He was jolted into almost complete awareness by a heavy bump in the ribs. A dark fin whipped by him, a great streamlined shape leaped glistening into the sun. As it hit the water another gave him a crushing blow in the back. Two more curvetted gaily to one side, and another appeared beside the first. The leader turned and rushed again and Whacker tried feebly to escape. His hands splashed clumsily and one of the porpoises made a noise like a baby crying, and he was suddenly alone again. A porpoise won’t touch a live man but he’ll roll a dead one for miles. Hah! That showed ’em!

  Nobody’s fool … We know, don’t we, porpoise?

  You are a porpoise, a voice in Whacker’s brain told him. You are beautiful and strange, and you live for the hell of it. You are fearless and strong and swift. You run before a ship’s cutwater, tantalizing the menace of its bruising steel. There are never sharks in your neighborhood. Arch your back strongly, porpoise, and drift clear of the water.

  In that moment Whacker, able seaman, sole survivor of the tankship Seabreeze, ceased to exist, and became transmuted.

  As yet he could not leap, but it was easy to make a noise like a baby crying, and he did it many times.

  The seas grew larger. A seam on the shoulder-piece of his jacket ripped, grew slowly wider. And then he sensed the presence of another object plunging about his little turbulent world. It was a boat with no hand at the tiller, a trim little sloop that danced and dived and shouldered valiantly up through masses of water. Closer and closer it came, until a sea picked Whacker up and slammed him against the white side. The wrenching blow tore the jacket off his right shoulder, dipped him deep. The pain of the strangling brine brought his last reflexes to life. As the next sea lifted him he grabbed for the low rail and was swept up and over. For minutes he lay there with his sodden hand cramped on the bulwark, and then the strangeness of this new element pressed to his shining porpoise’s body penetrated his consciousness. He started groggily up and tumbled into the cockpit, freeing himself of the rags that were once a life-preserver. Working forward, he fell up against the sliding door of the cabin, jerked it open just as the sloop hurled herself into a half-loop. He tottered wildly and then crashed to the deck below, full on his broken face. />
  And the Trigger of Miami danced and danced, carrying her strange cargo huddled at the foot of the ladder below; carrying a man that had been a porpoise, a porpoise that did not know he had been a man.

  The man in the white bed heard music, and it was the music of a voice. It was soft and cool. The whole world was soft and cool. He opened his eyes …

  She was glorious. Her hair was auburn and her eyes were green, and the cleft in her chin was a dimple and her teeth twinkled. She said, “You silly, salty, pseudo-sophisticated son of a sea-going Swede!”

  He closed his eyes quickly, startled at things he could not understand. Then with exaggerated slyness he opened them again. She was still there. He opened his mouth to speak, and a light weight closed on his face. Raising a three-hundred-pound hand to his cheek, he found that his head was swaddled in bandages, tight and close as an eye-splice parcelling. “What the hell—”

  “Easy, boy!” said the vision that was real. She put her hand gently on his shoulder and pressed him back. “Don’t say anything. You’ve been through the mill.”

  He lay there, relaxed and wondering. “What—”

  The soft hand touched gently on the bandages over his lips. “No, Steve. Take it easy, will you?” She moved her chair closer and took his hand. “Doctor’s orders; no talking. But you can listen. And I’ll let you say Yes and No. But no more. Agreed?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But—”

  “One more but out of you and I won’t talk to you,” she said sternly, yet smiling.

  “Yeah.”

  “Steve, it’s a miracle that you’re alive. You’ve been here three weeks and this is the first time that you’ve heard me. You’ve been lying there with your eyes open, and the only sound you’ve made until today was a noise like a baby with the croup. Good Lord! We thought you’d lost your mind! You can hear me, Steve?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s the ol’ fight. Well, what do you want to know—I mean, do you know where you are, and what happened, and all that?”

  “No.”

  “You did take a beating! Well, you took one of your spur-of-the-moment runs on the Trigger, all by yourself. I guess we’ll never know where you were bound unless you can remember it sometime. My guess is that you went out there to be morbid.” She laughed a little. “Chances are that you saw the Seabreeze and went over to investigate. But before you could get near enough to help, you fell down the hatch and knocked yourself out. How you could have been messed up like that is a mystery to me.”

  “Seabreeze?” he said.

  “Hey! Is that a yes-or-no? The Seabreeze was a tanker that exploded right near where they picked you up. A terrible thing; killed every soul aboard. They were looking for survivors when they found you.”

  He raised his hand to his face again.

  “Oh, the damage? Lucky break you’re living in the twentieth century, Steve. Besides a strained shoulder and a couple of broken ribs, your face … but don’t worry about it. This is Dr. Dubois’s clinic. He’s rebuilding your face from photographs. He says that a year from now no one will ever even guess that he’s been working on you. It’s costing you plenty, Steve, but you always did say that you had too much money. Anything else?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s see … I think I’ve covered everything …”

  “Who are you?”

  A great amazement turned swiftly to hurt in her clear eyes. “Steve … you don’t know me? Remember Orlando, Steve, and what Winchell called our ‘whirlwind courtship’? Remember the fight we had, Steve, when you told me I bored you, and you went off in a paddy?” Anger suddenly flared. She was beautiful that way. “Steve, if you’re putting this on … don’t play games with me!”

  “No! No!” he cried.

  “It’s true then?” She leaned back in her chair, overcome. Then,

  “Permit me to introduce myself. Mr. Roupe, meet Miss Perry. Sandra to you. Chawmed, I’m sure.”

  “Roupe?” he said weakly.

  “Steve! Even your own— Don’t you remember anything?”

  “No!” he cried, agonized. “No!”

  “Oh, Steve, I’ve tired you out. I’m a fool. Don’t worry about it darling. Please. It will be all right.” She leaned over and lightly kissed his bandages. Suddenly she was all intentness. “Listen to me, Steve. No one must know of this. There are too many people that would welcome this as a godsend. You are a very rich man. If it could be proved in court that you had completely lost your memory, ways might be found to put you in a sanitarium, so that your money could be handled by someone else. I think we can do it. You’ve always been a peculiar, uncommunicative sort of man. Keep that up, only more so. We’ll brave this thing through, you and I.”

  “Sandra, I—”

  “Shhhh. Leave it to me. You’ll be on your feet before long and we can—”

  “Time, Miss Perry,” said a voice at the door. A tall, gaunt man with exquisite hands came in and stood looking down at them.

  “Doctor, he’s really awake!” Sandra said joyfully. “He knows me!”

  “Great stuff!” said Dubois. “You’ll be your old self again in no time!” The old bromide.

  And with a wink and a grin, Sandra was gone. They put Steve Roupe on a wheeled table and took him in to his third operation.

  Eight months later Steve and Sandra went to their first party since the accident. It had been a hectic time for both of them, those months. A thousand and one details had been painstakingly taken care of. Every day there was some strange new development in the rebuilding of the man called Roupe.

  There was the handwriting, for instance. In going over hundreds of documents, they had found that his old signature differed entirely from his new one. And Steve had spent two hours a day, every day, in painstakingly learning his old hand.

  Then there were people. When he returned to his huge home near Boca Raton, Steve was deluged with invitations and visits. The servants were instructed to let no one see Mr. Roupe without being announced and made to wait. Sandra was usually within shouting distance, and when she wasn’t she left a phone number. By the time the visitor saw Steve, Steve was well primed on all available essentials. He could call the visitor by name, gloss lightly over “memories” they shared, and cut the visit short. He learned a bushel of tricks. “About that business proposition, Mr. Roupe; could you give me an answer today?” Steve would say, “I’d like the details again, Smith; you see, since my accident I’ve been able to do nothing, and I’m way behind the times.” This with a charming smile quite new to the traditionally solemn Mr. Roupe. And when he had the details, “All right, I’ll think it over and let you know.” Then he’d talk it over with Sandra.

  Some things that they ran up against were astonishing and unaccountable. When Steve tried on some of his clothes, they fitted him perfectly; except shoes. The shoes that he bought now were a half-size smaller than those he had. And many of his tastes differed. Sandra found out one evening that he could dance, and remarkably well; he had never, as far as she knew, danced before. Most amazing of all was that he had forgotten how to play the piano but had mysteriously learned the guitar.

  For seven of those months Steve was covered to the eyes by bandages, and during the eighth he had strips of adhesive on his cheekbones and across the bridge of his nose. He used to stand before the cheval glass in his room, staring at the outlines of this new face, memorizing it even as he had memorized his old habits and acquaintances. It was a dark face with a pointed chin and deepset, luminous eyes. He liked it.

  Sandra had become his life, even as he was hers. In more ways than one, his life had begun that day he opened his eyes and saw her by the white bed.

  She came on him in the garden one day, strumming on his guitar and singing, most mournfully, the “St. James Infirmary Blues.” She knew by this that he was happy.

  “Steve,” she said softly.

  He looked up at her and smiled, tossing the melody about with his long fingers, ending it with a bewilderin
g arpeggio. She took the guitar from him and laid it on the grass and sat on his lap, putting her head on his shoulder. “Funny egg. I’d still like to know who taught you to play like that.”

  “King Neptune,” he grinned

  “He’s been a wonderful teacher. You have no idea how different you are, Steve. Nicer. I’ve learned things about you … Tell you something, I never suspected that you’d have the strength to pull through this. You always were so wishy-washy. But you’ve worked like a Trojan on the biggest job any man was ever given to do, and you’ve won. No one knows about your memory but me; and the only difference anyone has seen in you is that you’re ten times the person you were. I think you’re wonderful, don’t we?”

  “All I’ve been is a good boy, darling, who has done what he’s told. Anyone could do what I’ve done if he had you to lead him around by the hand.” He pressed his shapely new nose into her little ear, catching the fragrance of her red-gold hair. She laughed.

  “I didn’t come out here to join the mutual admiration society. I came out here to tell you that Babs Fresner is throwing a party for you. How on earth she found out that you would be unveiled next week is beyond me, but she did. Her idea of a lark. Everybody is going to be dressed like Frankenstein’s monster, in your honor.”

  “Nice girl. How do we duck this one?”

  “We don’t, beloved. Don’t you think it’s time we moved around a little?”

  “Think we can do it?”

  “We can if you’ll keep out of dark corners with people!”

  “Jealous?” he whispered.

  “Terribly,” she said …

  Babs was the living prototype of the screwball deb of the movies, all sheer silk and studied spontaneity. She was built like a Coca-Cola bottle, Steve thought as he and Sandra made their entrance.

  Babs was dressed in a modish grave-shroud and had grey circles painted around her eyes. She took Steve by both hands and gazed soulfully at him. The effect was astonishing.