The Ultimate Egoist

by Theodore Sturgeon

  Listen, winged things. Listen, things that delight in liveness and greenness. I am sorry I created you, I am sorry I dreamed of you, watched you grow, watched you die and die and live again to see your ultimate death. You were made of laughter and of the warmth in my heart. You were made of the light of the sun I made. You and shy creatures, and strong and beautiful things and people, and music, and richness, and magic, and the beat of hearts; you are gone because I was awakened. Forgive me, my glorious phantasms!

  I knew what to start on. It’s called Habañera Seco and they brew it in Guatemala and it’s smooth like scotch and strong like vodka and worse all around than absinthe. If you can’t stand to mix these—and who can?—you can’t drink Habañera …

  One drink and I felt better. Two, much better. Three, and I was back where I started from. Four, I started getting dismal. Seven, I was definitely morbid. Great stuff. Far as I was concerned, the woes of the world were in a bottomless bottle, and it was my duty and desire to empty the bottle and buy another. Judith was gone, and without Judith there was no sun anymore, and nothing for it to shine on. Everything was over, I said dramatically to myself; and, by God, I’d see that a good job was done of it. I staggered out and leaned against the doorpost, looking up the street.

  “Wake up, Woodie,” I quavered. “It’s all over now. It’s all done. There’s nothing left any more, anywhere, anywhere. A life is an improbable louse on a sterile sphere. A man is a monster and a woman is a wraith! I am not a man but a consciousness asleep, and now I wake! Now I wake!” I pushed away from the doorpost and began screaming, “Wake! Wake!”

  Just how it happened I can’t say. Things slipped and slid out of existence. There was no violence, nothing fell; everything went out of focus and left me alone in an element which was deep and thick and the essence of solitude. What struck coldly into me was something I saw just before I … went. It was Judith. She was running down the street toward me with her arms out, and a smile keeping tears from running all the way down her face. She had come back after all, but the thing couldn’t be stopped now. My dream was gone!

  I and that thick element expanded soundlessly to the limits of my dream, the universe, and where we passed, mighty suns and nebulae joined the nothingness of us. I rode again in a place where there is no time, where I had been before I dreamed up a universe. I thought about it then, how birds and rocks and wars and loveliness and choking exultance had been figments of my proud imagination.

  Only now can I dare to face that ultimate question, that last, deep, inclusive conception …

  … for if all things in a universe were but peopling a dream, and if they could not exist when their existence was doubted, then it is possible that I myself am a mere figment of my imagi

  It

  IT WALKED IN the woods.

  It was never born. It existed. Under the pine needles the fires burn, deep and smokeless in the mold. In heat and in darkness and decay there is growth. There is life and there is growth. It grew, but it was not alive. It walked unbreathing through the woods, and thought and saw and was hideous and strong, and it was not born and it did not live. It grew and moved about without living.

  It crawled out of the darkness and hot damp mold into the cool of a morning. It was huge. It was lumped and crusted with its own hateful substances, and pieces of it dropped off as it went its way, dropped off and lay writhing, and stilled, and sank putrescent into the forest loam.

  It had no mercy, no laughter, no beauty. It had strength and great intelligence. And—perhaps it could not be destroyed. It crawled out of its mound in the wood and lay pulsing in the sunlight for a long moment. Patches of it shone wetly in the golden glow, parts of it were nubbled and flaked. And whose dead bones had given it the form of a man?

  It scrabbled painfully with its half-formed hands, beating the ground and the bole of a tree. It rolled and lifted itself up on its crumbling elbows, and it tore up a great handful of herbs and shredded them against its chest, and it paused and gazed at the gray-green juices with intelligent calm. It wavered to its feet, and seized a young sapling and destroyed it, folding the slender trunk back on itself again and again, watching attentively the useless, fibered splinters. And it snatched up a fear-frozen field creature, crushing it slowly, letting blood and pulpy flesh and fur ooze from between its fingers, run down and rot on the forearms.

  It began searching.

  Kimbo drifted through the tall grasses like a puff of dust, his bushy tail curled tightly over his back and his long jaws agape. He ran with an easy lope, loving his freedom and the power of his flanks and furry shoulders. His tongue lolled listlessly over his lips. His lips were black and serrated, and each tiny pointed liplet swayed with his doggy gallop. Kimbo was all dog, all healthy animal.

  He leaped high over a boulder and landed with a startled yelp as a longeared cony shot from its hiding place under the rock. Kimbo hurtled after it, grunting with each great thrust of his legs. The rabbit bounced just ahead of him, keeping its distance, its ears flattened on its curving back and its little legs nibbling away at distance hungrily. It stopped, and Kimbo pounced, and the rabbit shot away at a tangent and popped into a hollow log. Kimbo yelped again and rushed snuffling at the log, and knowing his failure, curvetted but once around the stump and ran on into the forest. The thing that watched from the wood raised its crusted arms and waited for Kimbo.

  Kimbo sensed it there, standing dead-still by the path. To him it was a bulk which smelled of carrion not fit to roll in, and he snuffled distastefully and ran to pass it.

  The thing let him come abreast and dropped a heavy twisted fist on him. Kimbo saw it coming and curled up tight as he ran, and the hand clipped stunningly on his rump, sending him rolling and yip-ping down the slope. Kimbo straddled to his feet, shook his head, shook his body with a deep growl, came back to the silent thing with green murder in his eyes. He walked stiffly, straight-legged, his tail as low as his lowered head and a ruff of fury round his neck. The thing raised its arms again, waited.

  Kimbo slowed, then flipped himself through the air at the monster’s throat. His jaws closed on it; his teeth clicked together through a mass of filth, and he fell choking and snarling at its feet. The thing leaned down and struck twice, and after the dog’s back was broken, it sat beside him and began to tear him apart.

  “Be back in an hour or so,” said Alton Drew, picking up his rifle from the corner behind the wood box. His brother laughed.

  “Old Kimbo ’bout runs your life, Alton,” he said.

  “Ah, I know the ol’ devil,” said Alton. “When I whistle for him for half an hour and he don’t show up, he’s in a jam or he’s treed something wuth shootin’ at. The ol’ son of a gun calls me by not answerin’.”

  Cory Drew shoved a full glass of milk over to his nine-year-old daughter and smiled. “You think as much o’ that houn’-dog o’ yours as I do of Babe here.”

  Babe slid off her chair and ran to her uncle. “Gonna catch me the bad fella, Uncle Alton?” she shrilled. The “bad fella” was Cory’s invention—the one who lurked in corners ready to pounce on little girls who chased the chickens and played around mowing machines and hurled green apples with a powerful young arm at the sides of the hogs, to hear the synchronized thud and grunt; little girls who swore with an Austrian accent like an ex-hired man they had had; who dug caves in haystacks till they tipped over, and kept pet crawfish in tomorrow’s milk cans, and rode work horses to a lather in the night pasture.

  “Get back here and keep away from Uncle Alton’s gun!” said Cory. “If you see the bad fella, Alton, chase him back here. He has a date with Babe here for that stunt of hers last night.” The preceding evening, Babe had kindheartedly poured pepper on the cows’ salt block.

  “Don’t worry, kiddo,” grinned her uncle, “I’ll bring you the bad fella’s hide if he don’t get me first.”

  Alton Drew walked up the path toward the wood, thinking about Babe. She was a phenomenon—a pampered farm child. Ah well—she had
to be. They’d both loved Clissa Drew, and she’d married Cory, and they had to love Clissa’s child. Funny thing, love. Alton was a man’s man, and thought things out that way; and his reaction to love was a strong and frightened one. He knew what love was because he felt it still for his brother’s wife and would feel it as long as he lived for Babe. It led him through his life, and yet he embarrassed himself by thinking of it. Loving a dog was an easy thing, because you and the old devil could love one another completely without talking about it. The smell of gun smoke and wet fur in the rain were perfume enough for Alton Drew, a grunt of satisfaction and the scream of something hunted and hit were poetry enough. They weren’t like love for a human, that choked his throat so he could not say words he could not have thought of anyway. So Alton loved his dog Kimbo and his Winchester for all to see, and let his love for his brother’s women, Clissa and Babe, eat at him quietly and unmentioned.

  His quick eyes saw the fresh indentations in the soft earth behind the boulder, which showed where Kimbo had turned and leaped with a single surge, chasing the rabbit. Ignoring the tracks, he looked for the nearest place where a rabbit might hide, and strolled over to the stump. Kimbo had been there, he saw, and had been there too late. “You’re an ol’ fool,” muttered Alton. “Y’ can’t catch a cony by chasin’ it. You want to cross him up some way.” He gave a peculiar trilling whistle, sure that Kimbo was digging frantically under some nearby stump for a rabbit that was three counties away by now. No answer. A little puzzled, Alton went back to the path. “He never done this before,” he said softly.

  He cocked his .32–40 and cradled it. At the county fair someone had once said of Alton Drew that he could shoot at a handful of corn and peas thrown in the air and hit only the corn. Once he split a bullet on the blade of a knife and put two candles out. He had no need to fear anything that could be shot at. That’s what he believed.

  The thing in the woods looked curiously down at what it had done to Kimbo, and tried to moan the way Kimbo had before he died. It stood a minute storing away facts in its foul, unemotional mind. Blood was warm. The sunlight was warm. Things that moved and bore fur had a muscle to force the thick liquid through tiny tubes in their bodies. The liquid coagulated after a time. The liquid on rooted green things was thinner and the loss of a limb did not mean loss of life. It was very interesting, but the thing, the mold with a mind, was not pleased. Neither was it displeased. Its accidental urge was a thirst for knowledge, and it was only—interested.

  It was growing late, and the sun reddened and rested awhile on the hilly horizon, teaching the clouds to be inverted flames. The thing threw up its head suddenly, noticing the dusk. Night was ever a strange thing, even for those of us who have known it in life. It would have been frightening for the monster had it been capable of fright, but it could only be curious; it could only reason from what it had observed.

  What was happening? It was getting harder to see. Why? It threw its shapeless head from side to side. It was true—things were dim, and growing dimmer. Things were changing shape, taking on a new and darker color. What did the creatures it had crushed and torn apart see? How did they see? The larger one, the one that had attacked, had used two organs in its head. That must have been it, because after the thing had torn off two of the dog’s legs it had struck at the hairy muzzle; and the dog, seeing the blow coming, had dropped folds of skin over the organs—closed its eyes. Ergo, the dog saw with its eyes. But then after the dog was dead, and its body still, repeated blows had had no effect on the eyes. They remained open and staring. The logical conclusion was, then, that a being that had ceased to live and breathe and move about lost the use of its eyes. It must be that to lose sight was, conversely, to die. Dead things did not walk about. They lay down and did not move. Therefore the thing in the wood concluded that it must be dead, and so it lay down by the path, not far away from Kimbo’s scattered body, lay down and believed itself dead.

  Alton Drew came up through the dusk to the wood. He was frankly worried. He whistled again, and then called, and there was still no response, and he said again, “The ol’ fleabus never done this before,” and shook his heavy head. It was past milking time, and Cory would need him. “Kimbo!” he roared. The cry echoed through the shadows, and Alton flipped on the safety catch of his rifle and put the butt on the ground beside the path. Leaning on it, he took off his cap and scratched the back of his head, wondering. The rifle butt sank into what he thought was soft earth; he staggered and stepped into the chest of the thing that lay beside the path. His foot went up to the ankle in its yielding rottenness, and he swore and jumped back.

  “Whew! Somp’n sure dead as hell there! Ugh!” He swabbed at his boot with a handful of leaves while the monster lay in the growing blackness with the edges of the deep footprint in its chest sliding into it, filling it up. It lay there regarding him dimly out of its muddy eyes, thinking it was dead because of the darkness, watching the articulation of Alton Drew’s joints, wondering at this new uncautious creature.

  Alton cleaned the butt of his gun with more leaves and went on up the path, whistling anxiously for Kimbo.

  Clissa Drew stood in the door of the milk shed, very lovely in red-checked gingham and a blue apron. Her hair was clean yellow, parted in the middle and stretched tautly back to a heavy braided knot. “Cory! Alton!” she called a little sharply.

  “Well?” Cory responded gruffly from the barn, where he was stripping off the Ayrshire. The dwindling streams of milk plopped pleasantly into the froth of a full pail.

  “I’ve called and called,” said Clissa. “Supper’s cold, and Babe won’t eat until you come. Why—where’s Alton?”

  Cory grunted, heaved the stool out of the way, threw over the stanchion lock and slapped the Ayrshire on the rump. The cow backed and filled like a towboat, clattered down the line and out into the barnyard. “Ain’t back yet.”

  “Not back?” Clissa came in and stood beside him as he sat by the next cow, put his forehead against the warm flank. “But, Cory, he said he’d—”

  “Yeh, yeh, I know. He said he’d be back fer the milkin’. I heard him. Well, he ain’t.”

  “And you have to— Oh, Cory, I’ll help you finish up. Alton would be back if he could. Maybe he’s—”

  “Maybe he’s treed a blue jay,” snapped her husband. “Him an’ that damn dog.” He gestured hugely with one hand while the other went on milking. “I got twenty-six head o’ cows to milk. I got pigs to feed an’ chickens to put to bed. I got to toss hay for the mare and turn the team out. I got harness to mend and a wire down in the night pasture. I got wood to split an’ carry.” He milked for a moment in silence, chewing on his lip. Clissa stood twisting her hands together, trying to think of something to stem the tide. It wasn’t the first time Alton’s hunting had interfered with the chores. “So I got to go ahead with it. I can’t interfere with Alton’s spoorin’. Every damn time that hound o’ his smells out a squirrel I go without my supper. I’m gettin’ sick and—”

  “Oh, I’ll help you!” said Clissa. She was thinking of the spring, when Kimbo had held four hundred pounds of raging black bear at bay until Alton could put a bullet in its brain, the time Babe had found a bearcub and started to carry it home, and had fallen into a freshet, cutting her head. You can’t hate a dog that has saved your child for you, she thought.

  “You’ll do nothin’ of the kind!” Cory growled. “Get back to the house. You’ll find work enough there. I’ll be along when I can. Dammit, Clissa, don’t cry! I didn’t mean to— Oh, shucks!” He got up and put his arms around her. “I’m wrought up,” he said. “Go on now. I’d no call to speak that way to you. I’m sorry. Go back to Babe. I’ll put a stop to this for good tonight. I’ve had enough. There’s work here for four farmers an’ all we’ve got is me an’ that … that huntsman.

  “Go on now, Clissa.”

  “All right,” she said into his shoulder. “But, Cory, hear him out first when he comes back. He might be unable to come back. He might be u
nable to come back this time. Maybe he … he—”

  “Ain’t nothin’ kin hurt my brother that a bullet will hit. He can take care of himself. He’s got no excuse good enough this time. Go on, now. Make the kid eat.”

  Clissa went back to the house, her young face furrowed. If Cory quarreled with Alton now and drove him away, what with the drought and the creamery about to close and all, they just couldn’t manage. Hiring a man was out of the question. Cory’d have to work himself to death, and he just wouldn’t be able to make it. No one man could. She sighed and went into the house. It was seven o’clock, and the milking not done yet. Oh, why did Alton have to—

  Babe was in bed at nine when Clissa heard Cory in the shed, slinging the wire cutters into a corner. “Alton back yet?” they both said at once as Cory stepped into the kitchen; and as she shook her head he clumped over to the stove, and lifting a lid, spat into the coals. “Come to bed,” he said.

  She laid down her stitching and looked at his broad back. He was twenty-eight, and he walked and acted like a man ten years older, and looked like a man five years younger. “I’ll be up in a while,” Clissa said.

  Cory glanced at the corner behind the wood box where Alton’s rifle usually stood, then made an unspellable, disgusted sound and sat down to take off his heavy muddy shoes.

  “It’s after nine,” Clissa volunteered timidly. Cory said nothing, reaching for house slippers.

  “Cory, you’re not going to—”

  “Not going to what?”

  “Oh, nothing. I just thought that maybe Alton—”

  “Alton!” Cory flared. “The dog goes hunting field mice. Alton goes hunting the dog. Now you want me to go hunting Alton. That’s what you want?”