The Ultimate Egoist

by Theodore Sturgeon

  The idol’s face seemed to have taken on a definite smirk.

  “—is speet on me,” Joe had said. Well, he was no better than Joe. He picked up a clod of earth, held it poised, and expectorated explosively, following up by ramming the clod into the sardonic lips of the idol. There was a small but powerful explosion and Kenneth found himself flat on his back six feet away.

  Now Kenneth Courtney was no storybook hero. He was just an ordinary driver for an ordinary trucking firm. But in his unbrilliant but satisfying past, he had found that the best thing to do when he had this cold, crawling feeling at the pit of his stomach was to smile at his antagonist. Nine times out of ten, said antagonist was floored by it. So he reared up on his elbow and smiled engagingly at the idol.

  The smile faded quickly; one glance at the idol’s mouth took care of that. The lower lip was quivering, like an angry child’s, or like a railroad bull about to take a poke at a tramp. Suddenly it snapped shut. The jaws bulged and contracted, and little bits of earth fell into the hole around its cheeks.

  More than a little shaken, Kenneth got his feet under him and walked over to the idol. “I’d bury you where you are, tough guy, but you’re in my lily pool. Come up out of there!”

  He went furiously to work, rigging the hoist over the idol. In a remarkably short time he had the ends of the strap hooked into the chain-fall, and was heaving merrily. To his surprise, he found that the idol came up easily—there could not have been more than three or four hundred pounds’ load on the hoist. He stopped hauling and stood off a bit.

  “Why, you son of gun!” he exclaimed. “So you’ve decided to cooperate, hey?”

  It was true. The idol’s emaciated legs and arms straddled the pit, and were lifting the massive head steadily. Even as he watched, the chain-fall began to slacken as the weight came off it. By this time Kenneth was almost beyond surprise at anything.

  “O.K., buddy,” he cried, and heaved away. Higher and higher rose the idol, until the shear poles creaked and their bases began to sink deeper into the soft earth. Finally it swung clear. Gauging the distance nicely, Kenneth toppled the shear poles and the idol swung face forward into the niche, landing with a rubbery thump. Kenneth grinned.

  “Stay that way, old boy,” he told the idol. “You’re no uglier behind than you are face-outward.” He threw the strap over his shoulder, lifted the shear poles at the lashing and dragged them back up to the shed.

  When he came back with a spouting garden hose, the idol was facing outward.

  “On second thought,” said Kenneth conversationally, as he busily sluiced down that hideous humorous face, “I don’t blame you. You are a little more presentable stern-foremost; but then you’re a damnsite more likable this way.” Kenneth was scared stiff, but he wouldn’t show it, not even to an old graven image.

  “That’s much better,” said the idol, blinking the mud out of its eyes. Kenneth sat down weakly on the nozzle of the hose. This was the payoff.

  “Don’t sit there looking so stupid!” said the idol irritably. “Besides, you’ll catch cold, holding down that hose.”

  Kenneth’s breath came out in a rush. “This is too much,” he gasped. He was more than a little hysterical. “I … I … in just a minute I’ll wake up and smell coffee and bacon. I don’t believe there is a crusty old idol, or that it talked, or that—”

  “Get off that hose,” said the idol, and added meaningly, “and dry up.”

  Kenneth rose and absently began wringing his clothes. “What sort of a critter are you?”

  “I’m a god,” said the idol. “Name’s Rakna. What’s yours?”

  “K-Kenneth Courtney.”

  “Stop stammering, man! I’m not going to hurt you. What’s the matter; didn’t you ever see a god before?”

  “No,” said Kenneth, a little relieved. “You don’t seem like … I mean—” Suddenly something about the god, something in his incredibly deep eyes, made it very easy to talk. “I thought gods lived up in the clouds, sort of. And anything I ever read about it said that gods come to earth in fire, or lightning, or in the shape of some kind of animal, or—”

  “Nuts,” said the god.

  Kenneth was startled. “Well, gods don’t talk like that … uh … do they?”

  “You heard me, didn’t you?” asked Rakna. “Think I’m a liar?” The piercing gaze made Kenneth wince. “Like you? No, you dope; I was created by common people, who thought common thoughts and spoke in a common way. Not in this language, of course, or in this time. But people are pretty much the same, by and large. Think the same way, y’know.”

  “Well, what people were you the god of?”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t know if I told you. They disappeared quite a while back. Used to be one of them buried near me. Had his thigh bone poking into my … well, never mind. Anyhow, he faded out. There’s not a trace of those people left anywhere. This earth has been here quite a while, you know. They come and they go.”

  “How come you can speak English, then?”

  “Because I know everything you know, which isn’t much, by the way, and considerable besides. Every time a thought passes in that gab factory of yours I know what it is. You drive a truck. Your wife’s named Marjorie. She’s very capable; knows all about budgets and calories and such. She thinks you’re a liar.”

  “If you’re a god,” Kenneth said quickly, to change the subject, “why couldn’t you dig yourself out?”

  “Listen, lamebrain, who said I wanted to dig myself out? Can’t a god grab forty winks once in a while?”

  “Forty winks? How long were you asleep?”

  “I don’t know. Couple of hundred million years, maybe. I’ll tell you when I get a chance to look at the stars.”

  “But there wasn’t any earth that long ago!”

  Rakna leered at him. “Vas you dere?”

  Kenneth sat down again, this time on dry ground. Standing was too much of a strain.

  “Hm-m-m … I see steam’s back again. Electricity? Yes. You’re getting along, you people. Atomic power? Oh, well, it won’t be long now. Levitation? Trans—”

  Kenneth had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being read like a newspaper—a back number at that. He was a little annoyed, and besides, those waves of beneficence still flowed from Rakna’s eyes. Kenneth’s fear departed completely, and he rose to his feet and said:

  “Listen. All this is a little too strong for me. As far as I’m concerned, you’re somebody’s half-ton Charlie McCarthy. Or maybe you’re wired for sound.”

  Rakna chuckled deep in his jowls. “Aha!” he rumbled. “A skeptic, no less! Know what happens to little mortals who get cocky? They suffer for it. In lots of ways. For instance, I can increase the density of your bones so that your own skeleton will crush you to death. Like this!”

  The deep eyes turned on Kenneth, and he fell to the ground, crushed there by an insupportable and increasing weight.

  “Or I can put your eyes on your fingertips so that you have to see with your hands.”

  Kenneth found himself on his feet again. He was staring at the ground, although his head was up. He saw the world reel about him as he clapped his seeing hands to his face. He cried out in an ecstasy of terror.

  “Or,” continued the god conversationally, “I can finish your lily pool for you and drown you in it.”

  Kenneth was hurled forward into shallow water, where no water had been before. He bumped his head stunningly on a solid concrete surface and lay there, immersed and strangling. Suddenly he found himself before the idol again. His clothes were dry; his eyes were in place; everything was quite, quite normal. Except that damned idol, and the brand-new lily pool. It had all taken possibly eight seconds.

  “Or—” said the idol.

  “O.K., O.K.,” said Kenneth weakly. “You win.”

  “That’s better,” smirked Rakna. “Now listen to me. I don’t want you to think I intend any harm! I don’t. But unfortunately for my character I was created in more or less a man’s image
. The only faults I have are human ones, and even though I have improved considerably, I still possess those faults. One of them is vanity. I don’t like to be called a weakling any more than you do. You’ll take a poke at someone who calls you a pansy; all right, so will I. Savvy?”

  Kenneth nodded.

  “Right. All I want from you is a little consideration. Keep your mouth shut about me; I don’t mind being admired, but I don’t want to be a museum piece.” Amused pity suddenly manifested itself on those craggy features. “Look, Kenneth, I’ve been a little hard on you. After all, you did give me a comfortable place to sit. Anything I could do for you?” Again those fear-erasing waves of friendliness. Kenneth stopped trembling.

  “Why … I don’t know. I’ve got a good job, and about everything I want.”

  “How about your wife? Are you altogether happy?”

  “Why, sure I am. Well … that is—”

  “Never mind the details. I know all about it. She calls you a liar and she’s right, and you wish something could be done about it. Want me to make you incapable of telling a lie? I can do it.”

  “You mean—”

  “I mean that every time anyone asks you a question you’ll be able to tell them only the truth. How much money you have, what you did that night in Denver”—Kenneth quailed at that—“what you honestly think of your boss—”

  “Oh, no!” said Kenneth. “That doesn’t sound so hot.”

  Rakna grinned. “All right. Let’s do it this way. Everything you say will be the truth. If you say black is white, it will be white. If you tell your wife you were working late instead of playing poker, then it will be true. See what I mean?”

  Kenneth couldn’t see anything wrong in that. “By golly, Rakna, you’ve got something there. Can you do it?”

  “I’ve done it,” said Rakna. “Look. See that chain hoist you hauled me up with?”

  Kenneth glanced at it. “Yeah.”

  “Now tell me it’s not lying here, but it’s in the shed.”

  “It’s in the shed,” said Kenneth obediently.

  The hoist vanished. A clinking of chain drifted down the garden path. Rakna grinned.

  “Hot cha!” exclaimed Kenneth. “Nothing but the truth. Thanks a million, Rakna. You’re an ace!”

  “Skip it,” said the god. “Now beat it. I want to think.”

  Kenneth started up the path, his surliness quite gone and a new spring in his step. Rakna gazed after him and chuckled deeply.

  “Cocky little devil,” he said. “This ought to be good.” He relaxed and let his mind dwell casually on profound matters.

  As he came to the turn in the path and out of the range of old Rakna’s quizzical gaze, Kenneth’s steps suddenly slowed and he began to wonder a little at all this. Surely a thing like this couldn’t be true! He found himself in a very precarious mental state. He could go back again and see if there really was a god in his garden, or he could blindly believe everything that had happened, or he could go on as usual and try to forget the whole thing. The worst part of it all was that if it all was a dream, he was probably nuts. If it wasn’t a dream, who was nuts? He shrugged. Once you got used to the idea of having a god in your back yard you could get a kick out of it. But how did the old sourpuss think he could prove his power by making Kenneth speak the absolute truth? Not, of course, that there was anything in it.

  Marjorie heard him coming into the house.

  “Hurry and wash up, darling,” she called briskly. “Supper’s on!”

  “Be right with you, kid!” He scrubbed up, put on a clean shirt and came down to the dining room. In one of the steaming dishes on the table was turnips. He frowned. His wife noticed, and said forlornly:

  “Oh, dear, I forgot. You don’t like turnips!”

  “Don’t be silly,” he lied gallantly. “I love ’em.”

  No sooner had he said the words than the lowly turnips seemed to take on a glamour, a gustatory perfection. His mouth watered for them, his being cried out for them—turnips were the most delicious, the most nourishing and delightful food ever to be set on a man’s table. He loved ’em.

  A little startled, he sat down and began to eat—turnips more than anything else. “Most delicious meal I ever had,” he told a gratified Marjorie. No sooner said than done. It was. And as a matter of fact, it was strictly a budget meal—one of those meals that good little managers like Marjorie Courtney throw together to make up for yesterday’s spring chicken. She was vastly flattered.

  “You must have worked terribly hard to fix up a meal like this,” Kenneth said with mouth full. “You must be tired.”

  She was, suddenly, a little. Kenneth laid down his fork. “You look tired, dear.” Lines appeared on her fresh little face. “Darling!” he said anxiously, “You’re terribly tired!”

  “I don’t know what’s the matter,” she said haggardly.

  “Marjorie, sweet, you’re sick! What is it?”

  “I don’t know,” she said faintly. “All of a sudden I feel—” Her head dropped on the table. He caught her in his arms.

  “Buck up, kid. I’ll carry you upstairs. Hang on, now. I’ll get you settled and call a doctor.” He crossed the room and started up the stairs.

  “I’m too heavy—” she murmured.

  “Nonsense!” he scoffed. “You’re as light as a feather!”

  Her body seemed to lift out of his arms. He was halfway up the stairs by this time, poised on one leg, about to take another step. The sudden lightening of her body had the effect, on him, of a kick on the chin. Down he went, head over heels, to the bottom of the stairs.

  It was a nasty jolt, and for the moment he couldn’t see anything but stars. “Marge!” he muttered. “You all right? Say you’re all right!”

  A whimpering cry cleared his head. Marjorie was settling gently down toward him, bumping each step lightly—lightly, like a floating feather.

  He reached out dazedly and took her hand. She came drifting down toward him as he sprawled there, until their bodies rested together.

  “Oh, God,” moaned Kenneth. “What am I going to do?”

  He rose and tried to help her up. His gentle pull on her arm sent her flying up over his head. She was crying weakly, hysterically. He walked into the living room, his wife literally streaming out behind him, and held her poised over the day bed until she rested on it. Then he ran for the telephone.

  But as the singsong “Operator!” came over the wire he laid down the receiver, struck with a thought. Bit by insane bit he pieced the thing together: Rakna’s promise; the power that he now had over the truth—the whole crazy affair. In the last few hectic minutes he had all but forgotten. Well, if he could do it, he could undo it.

  He went back to his wife, drew a deep breath, and said:

  “You’re not sick. You weigh one hundred and fourteen.”

  Marjorie bounced up out of the day bed, shook her head dizzily, and advanced toward him. Kenneth sensed thunder in the air.

  “What sort of a joke was that?” she demanded, her voice trembling. Kenneth thought a little faster this time. “Why, darling! Nothing has happened to you!”

  Marjorie’s face cleared. She stopped, then went on into the dining room, saying: “What on earth made us wander out here when we should be eating?”

  “Nothing,” said Kenneth; and that seemed to tie up all the threads. He felt a little weak; this power of his was a little too big to be comfortable. He noticed another thing, too; he could make his wife forget anything that happened, but he still knew about it. Lord! He’d have to be careful. He had a splitting headache, as always when he was excited, and that didn’t help any. Marjorie noticed it.

  “Is something the matter, Kenny?” she asked. “Have you a headache?”

  “No,” he said automatically; and as he said it, it was true! For the first time he grinned at the idea of his power. Not bad! No more toothache, stomach ache, business worries—business—Holy smoke! He was rich! Watch.

  “Marge,” he said as s
he put two lumps in his coffee, “we have twenty thousand dollars in the bank.”

  “Yes. I know. Isn’t it nice? Cream?”

  “You know? How did you know?”

  “Silly! I’ve always known. You told me, didn’t you? Anyway, I’ve known about it quite a while, it seems to me. Why?”

  “Why?” Kenneth was floored. Then he shrugged. The truth was like that, he guessed. If a thing was true, it required no explanation; it just was. He finished his coffee and pushed back his chair. “Let’s go to a show, kiddo.”

  “That would be nice,” she said. “Just as soon as I get the dishes done.”

  “Oh,” he said airily. “They’re done.”

  She turned astonished eyes to him. It occurred to him then that if he persisted in this sort of thing he might make her doubt her sanity. A bank account was one thing; but the dishes—

  “I mean,” he explained. “We did them.”

  “Oh … of course. I … well, let’s go.”

  He made up his mind to go a little easy thereafter.

  That was the beginning of a hectic three weeks for Kenneth Courtney. Hectic, but fun, by golly. Everything came his way; everything he said was true, and if everything he did wasn’t quite right, it could be fixed. Like the time he was driving his big twelve-speed Diesel tractor-trailer job through the mountains one night, and a light sedan whipped around a hairpin turn and steered right between his headlights.

  “Look out!” he called to Johnny Green, his helper, who was in the bunk over the seat. “We’re going to smash!”

  And as the car approached, as their bumpers practically kissed, Kenneth remembered his powers. “We missed him!” he bellowed.

  Miss him they did. The car vanished, and a second later its careening tail light appeared in the rear-view mirror. It just wasn’t possible—but it was true.

  He did learn to be careful, though. There was the time when he casually remarked that it was raining cats and dogs. That mistake cost him half an hour of running madly around telling people that it wasn’t really raining cats and dogs, you know, just raining hard. The thing would have made quite a sensation if he had not thought of declaring that it had not rained at all that day.