Free The Ultimate Egoist by Theodore Sturgeon

shown by language trends … but I’m interested in light too. Talk about it.”
    “Never mind that,” she smiled. “I want to hear about Atlantis. It sank under the sea, didn’t it?”
    He gave in, for her interest was obviously genuine. As he talked he warmed to his subject, and so did she. He spoke of the dead civilizations of Atlantis and Mu; of the possibilities of a former great civilization in the heart of the Sahara, near the mountains called Atlas; of a sunken continent whose mountain peaks were the Azores; of a people of vast learning who taught the Maya and Incas of Yucatan and Peru how to pronounce the mystic word Atl; of the Greek legends of a land in the West, while west of Greece is the Mediterranean—the midst of the earth. Here were things that could not be seen nor felt, but which were real to those of us today, even as ultraviolet and infrared light … she said as much, and then it was her turn. They went into the laboratory, and she spoke of heat and light and electromagnetic theory. She showed him how infrared rays can be focussed so that they can pass through a man’s hand painlessly and set fire to a piece of paper at the other side. She showed him spectra of plain and polarized light, and initiated him into the mysteries of light that is violet and past violet, coming nearer and nearer to black which is not black, but invisible, vibrant light. In exchange for his stories of things once seen and now invisible, she showed him things once invisible but now seen.
    It grew late, and he had to go. They stood together for a longminute, saying nothing. Florence felt as she had the night she discovered the new ratio of the invisible wavelengths to each other—joy of achievement, joy in adventure. But this was better. It was more—personal. He said, “I’ll see you again soon, won’t I?”
    She nodded because suddenly she couldn’t speak; he went to the door and slipped out. Three seconds later he was back. He pressed Terry’s broken earring into her hand. “I didn’t mean
that
soon,” he joked. “But it was nice, wasn’t it?”
    “Goodnight, Ben,” she said, using his name for the first time. “Goodnight …” and now he was really gone.
    She stood there a long while, then laughed because she wanted to see if she still could. She went back to her desk in the laboratory and tried to go on with her knotty problem in solid trig. It was too much—not that she couldn’t handle the math. It was only that tonight, somehow, she didn’t give a hoot for her hypothetical light velocities. She went to bed.
    She slept magnificently, waking very late. Terry was home, sitting in the bedroom easy chair, reading. As Florence opened her eyes Terry saw her, came and sat on the bed. She looked perturbed. Good old Terry! She was worried about her shrewd little plan! Well, let her stop worrying. It had worked. It had worked! Florence threw her arms about her sister, drew her close.
    “You’re terribly clever, darling, in spite of your pretty face,” she whispered. “He’s wonderful. I never knew a mere man could be so—so sweet. Oh, thank you, Terry. I’ll never be able to thank you enough …”
    “Did—did he like you, Florrie?”
    “He wants to see me again—soon.”
    Florence lay holding Terry, looking up at a sunbeam, and smiling. She was afraid, and happy, and tremendously excited all at once. Suddenly, “Why—Terry! You’re crying! Sweetheart! I haven’t seen you cry since you lost that great big mama-doll when you were a kid! What is it? Oh,
please
, Terry!”
    Terry wet Florence’s cheek with her own. “Florence … I didn’t want to. Really I didn’t. I wanted him for you. I lay awake all last night, thinking about you and him here together … oh, why did hehave to like you after all? Florrie, say you don’t think I’m a pig. Please, dear …” she collapsed in a gale of sobs.
    Dazed, puzzled, Florence repeated slowly, “Lay awake last … didn’t want