by Don DeLillo
“Did you just fart?”
“This is serious,” Schwarz said. “Try to pay attention.”
“We’re in a little room here without any air blowing through.”
“This may be the most important day of your life.”
“Have some mercy.”
“Numerically the transmission is very suggestive. Everyone who’s worked on it got off to a great start. But they all fizzled out. After Endor left for the hole, your name came up. All you have to do is tell us what they’re saying. We have the capacity to transmit an answer. Pretend you’re the imperial mathematician. The emperor and his cousin the bishop want to know the meaning of a new star in the heavens. In the town square the witch-hunters are gathering twigs.”
Olin Nyquist tapped on the door frame with the point of his silver cane. He was evidently blind, an angular man with a high forehead and well-honed jutting chin. Small crisp flakes adhered to the inner edge of each eye.
“It’s all a question of shape,” he said.
He moved to a corner of the office and stood motionless, shoulders wedged between adjoining walls.
“Shape, design, emblematic pattern.”
U.F.O. Schwarz explained that Nyquist was an astral engineer in charge of simulation programs for the synthesis radio telescope here. One such program was based on the fact that the dish antennas not only picked up radio emissions but also took galactic photographs as clear and detailed as those taken by optical telescopes. These pictures, already somewhat “artificial,” being the result of radio data received, mixed and computer-converted to electrical impulses, were then broken down and stylized even further by Space Brain, which was able to simulate gas outflows, explosions, the expansion of molecular clouds and other observed and probable phenomena. The result was known as the “computer universe.”
“In some shape or other we try to find the pictorial link between the universe and our own senses of perception,” Nyquist said. “What does the universe look like? A balloon that’s expanding? A funnel full of ball bearings? A double helix? A strip of paper twisted and connected in a one-sided ring? Where are we in the universe? We can’t see enough of it to say. Some of us think the universe is closed. We think it has positive curvature. We think it pulsates in cycles of expansion and contraction, every beginning and end defined in fire. Of course it wasn’t very long ago that the universe was regarded solely in geometric terms. Circles, squares, equilateral triangles. Back far enough, I suppose, people used animal shapes or parts of animals’ bodies to explain what sort of design they were part of. A whale’s tail perhaps. I never thought I’d see in braille/A cosmos structured like a tail.”
“Cracks,” Schwarz said.
“Tiny cracks in the model are becoming evident, it seems. There is the problem of absolute velocity. There is the suspicion of matter crossing over to us from elsewhere. There is the lack of cause and effect in the behavior of elementary particles. Certain basic components of our physical system defy precise measurement and definition. Are we dealing with physics or metaphysics? Maybe we need a fundamental reconstruction of our ideas of space and time, or space-time, or space-time sylphed, if the latest theory is to be taken seriously. I plan to introduce sylphing compounds into the computer universe. That may tell us something. What we need at this stage of our perceptual development is an overarching symmetry. Something that constitutes what appears to be—even if it isn’t—a totally harmonious picture of the world system. Our naïveté, if nothing else, demands it. Our childlike trust in structural balance.”
“The common snowflake,” Schwarz said.
“Think of the fundamental order of atomic structure as seen in the periodic table. Think of the laws of planetary motion. Consider the fact that, relative to their respective diameters, the average distance between stars is roughly the same as the average distance between atomic particles in interstellar space. Is this mere ‘coincidence’? From the Medieval Latin. To happen together. Something and its shadow. Think of the secretion patterns of red ants. The shell of a chambered nautilus. The cubic crystals in ordinary table salt. The honeycomb, the starfish, the common snowflake—all so stunningly reasoned in surface configuration. But not nearly final enough to soothe our disquiet. However, there’s always the view that an ultimate symmetry is to be avoided rather than sought, the reason being that this structural balance represents not victory over chaos and death but death itself or what follows upon death. A logarithmic spiral. The polyhedral cohesion of virus crystals.”
“The wiggle,” Schwarz said.
“The star is a common G dwarf. It’s called Ratner’s star. It lies away from us a bit toward the galactic center. We’ve analyzed the variation or wiggle in its path and we believe the object in question is a low-mass planet that occupies the star’s habitable zone. If you can decipher what the residents of this planet are saying, it may mark the beginning of an exchange of information that could eventually tell us where we are and what the universe looks like. It’s safe to assume the Ratnerians are superior to us. They may help us draw a picture. A seamless figure no less perfect than its referent. I’d personally rejoice, although it’s hardly likely I’d still be here for the receipt of such information. I think I’m finally tired of being made to journey from speculation to accepted fact and from there to sudden doubt, denial and contention. Does the red shift, for example, really mean what it seems to? I visualize an eight-column headline in the newspaper. UNIVERSE SAID TO CEASE EXPANDING; BEGINS TO FALL BACK ON ITSELF; MILLIONS FLEE CITIES. Of course if evidence of universal blueshifting is ever found, it will merit the smallest note. This is documentary void. Not void whose essence is terror. Not the human sensorium streaked with darkness.”
Nyquist put his free hand to his mouth, quickly, as though to stifle a giggle. All along he had seemed to be staring at the tilted glass in Schwarz’s hand but now he turned his head toward the boy. His eyes appeared to be surmising the existence of an optical path along which might travel any number of topics neither generated nor perceived in the usual manner. Billy couldn’t recall ever having seen a blind man laugh and wondered whether there was usually an element of grotesquerie involved—the salivating laughter of someone who has forgotten how it’s done or what it’s supposed to look like to others. He waited for Nyquist’s next remark, hoping it would include something humorous, an epic quip or two that would make Nyquist himself flash his fizzing teeth and gums in the sort of uncontrollable expectorating glee that Billy associated with the handicapped. What Nyquist did in fact was to extend his long cane and begin to tap it gently on the metal leg of the vinyl chair that held his colleague.
“Fortunate, aren’t we, to be alive in enlightened times,” he said. “It was often the case” tap “that enemies of science” tap tap “could only be circumvented through allegory and indirection. Now there are no enemies for us to circumvent. When I was a boy in the old country I heard stories of a woman who used her father’s skull as a drinking cup. The man was long dead, needless to say, but whether this qualifies as a mitigating circumstance is open to question. She was said to have witch’s grip, one of the lesser manifestations of the forbidden arts. Or should I say sciences? In any event I was obsessed with such stories for many years, imagining the smoke rising from crisscrossed sticks, the first ultraviolet tick of pain. Today our science is such that the only thing we need to fear is the substance in the drinking cup. And now I think it’s time” tap “I went away.”
With that, Nyquist moved sideways out of the small room and headed across the open area, apparently laughing in suppressed spurts as he approached the elevator. It occurred to Billy that U.F.O. Schwarz seemed to be sitting in his own lap.
“That was a little background there.”
“Nobody’s seen the planet. Is that what I understand was being said?”
“We know there’s an orbiting body because of perturbation in the star’s path.”
“How much do you weigh?”
“It’s a condition I h
ave.”
“I’d like to be able to see the figure on a scale.”
“If I felt I could trust you, I’d ask you to guess,” Schwarz said. “Most people underestimate when they guess. To try to make me feel good. Knowing I have a starch bloat condition. But I don’t think I can trust you to do that.”
“Three forty-eight.”
“I’m suggesting you adjust downward.”
“One guess is all I give myself. Figured I might as well lead with my best punch.”
“A strategist in our midst,” the man finally said, his tongue scratching at that opaque glaze in which it was adrift.
Billy had agreed to a tour of Zoolog Comp and when he got off the elevator he followed an arrow to the pisciculture lab. He went inside, pausing before a formula-fed baby dolphin. The area was blue and silent. Everywhere were tanks of newly born fish and marine mammals. In the eyes of the dolphin was a dreamy sense of dislocation, its dimension of remembrance perhaps, the chemical arrest of transient land-history. Billy watched a sari-clad woman approach. She was Rahda Hamadryad, a dimpled Hindi. Her smile fluttered down to him. As he admired the way the sari was draped over one shoulder, she told him that Zoolog’s director was eager to meet him. Before they left the area he looked back in the general direction of the dolphin, seeing instead an octopus in quadruple squat.
Rahda led him to a smelly room where they sat at a table covered with lunchtime debris. Around them were tiers of reptiles and long slender egg-sucking mammals. It was clear that news of the special nature of his mission had already begun to spread. Rahda didn’t seem to know exactly what was involved but she gave the impression that his body was outlined in luminous smog. She told him most of the people in this sector were doing research in animalalia.
“Our rats have a synthetic vocabulary of nearly fifty words.”
“Who’d want to talk to a rat?”
“They have remarkable conceptual abilities,” she said. “We communicate with them through a series of color-coded shock mechanisms.”
“With me and rats, it’s stay out of each other’s way.”
“They sort items. They subdivide different classes of the same item. They choose correctly from among several linguistic shock alternatives. Perhaps our toads may be more to your liking. Our toads count dead flies all day long. It was Aristotle who maintained that man’s rationality is based on his ability to count. The toads no doubt use the same prelinguistic thinking we used eons ago. Wordless flash-thinking. Of course they have yet to utter a single human word, rat or toad. We’ve used color, rote learning, computer syntax, shock, prolonged shock, sign language, many kinds of stimulus response gadgetry.”
“What about apes?” he said. “Maybe apes would make some talk with the right training.”
He was watching her bend the edges of a paper plate someone had left on the table. Again and again she folded the plate so that a different point on the circumference of the circle touched the same ketchup speck every time, a small stain located well off-center. She kept studying the resulting creases. Her eyes were large and deep. She had relaxed flesh, he could tell, trying to catch her eye in order to reassure himself of her continued willingness to smile at him. He rarely expected smiles, even from people he liked. But there were times when being smiled at seemed important.
“Apes don’t have the anatomical structure for our kind of talking,” she said. “However, we are even now in the process of restructuring. We are looking forward to a new kind of phonetic performance from our apes. Something much more significant than tapping out symbols on a console.”
A man walking by advised Rahda that the director was now ready to see the visitor. She led Billy through a series of laboratories and “post-scrutiny habitats.” These latter areas were set up for the benefit of research animals recuperating from arduous projects, each habitat quite small and easily convertible from desert to marshland to jungle surroundings, depending on the need.
“I would like to hear more about your work,” she said. “Research with animals is very satisfying. But sometimes I wish for a more abstract pursuit. Something lonely and distant. Perhaps you could tell me what you do at this remarkable institute I’ve heard so much about.”
“I’d like to, sincerely would, seriously, but it’s the kind of work nobody can talk about unless they know the language.”
“You know the language surely.”
“But you don’t,” he said.
“You talk. I will listen.”
“I’ll talk if you let me do one small thing. I just want to touch your leg behind the knee. Nothing personal. The soft place behind the knee. In return for talk.”
“You want to touch me.”
“If we could do it without anyone taking it personally.”
“I am harijan,” she said. “What’s that?”
“Untouchable.”
“What happens if you’re touched?”
“I am an outcast. There are millions and millions of us. We are considered unclean. I could not use the public well in my village. In university I could not live with upper-caste students. But I think you’re a very special individual. I would not object if you touched me.”
“Does something happen to a toucher of the unclean?”
“Nonsense,” she said. “Just behind the knee. We will slow down to make it easy. I lift the garment.”
“Why do untouchables have that name?”
“I have halted and am waiting.”
“Is something supposed to happen if you’re touched?”
“You cannot think that, surely.”
“They wouldn’t give you that name without a reason, would they? I’m not saying it’s a good reason. They’re probably too sensitive to dirt on others. I just want to know in my own mind what I’m doing.”
“There is the office,” she said.
Peregrine FitzRoy-Tapps pointed out an enormous armchair beneath a photograph of a pair of elephant tusks. All the pictures in the room were of tusks, horns, stuffed heads and rifles in trophy cases. FitzRoy-Tapps was vaguely diagonal in shape. Those visible parts of him that came in twos, like eyes, ears, shoulders and hands, seemed to be arranged at slightly varying elevations, each to each.
“The animals are here to learn but no less than to teach. Animalalia in particular is a learn-and-teach operation. It wasn’t this way in Croaking-on-Pidgett, I can tell you. That’s spelled, incidentally, as if it were pronounced Crutchly-on-Podge. But it’s pronounced Croaking-on-Pidgett. A lovely old village and even older river. But the animals tended to be uncooperative. We let them mix in a large enclosure not far from the local vicarage. What went on was often ambiguous. How nearly like sex, I found myself thinking. Mornings were a revelation, however. Most mornings I walked past the vicarage and through the formal garden over to Muttons Cobb, which is spelled as if it were pronounced Maternity St. Colbert. But it’s pronounced Muttons Cobb, as those not privy to the idiosyncrasies of the region learn to their eternal discomfiture. Afternoons I strolled through the arboretum and then carried a picnic basket full of cakes and ale out past the snuff mill to the embankment along the Pidgett. I took my evening meals in the refectory at the manor house. Afterward I sometimes took port with the others in the common room. I liked to smoke my pipe in the deanery garden before retiring. The night creatures were just beginning to scream then.”
The armchair was so large that Billy’s feet didn’t even come close to touching the floor. He felt helpless and wished he could think of a good excuse for leaving.
“Life was so much simpler there and then. When someone did something well, I simply said: ‘Well done.’ When things came apart, I said: ‘Bad luck, bad luck.’ When someone’s work fell markedly short of that individual’s abilities, I felt compelled to say: ‘Get cracking.’ And so in the normal course of events there was little else one had to say. ‘Well done.’ ‘Bad luck.’ ‘Get cracking.’ To this day I find it difficult to imagine a situation that couldn’t be fully resolved with one of t
hese phrases. Of course, times have changed and so have words. People expect more these days. It’s not enough to utter the suitable phrase. But it was enough in Croaking-on-Pidgett; yes, more than sufficient, I believe. It was enough in Little Whiffing as well, now I think of it. It made no difference how bleak a particular situation appeared to be. The apt phrase tended to settle matters. No action is more suitable than the apt phrase. Of course, one addresses such a phrase only to suitable people. ‘Well done, sir.’ ‘Bad luck, bad luck.’ ‘Get cracking now.’ Surprising how well these sufficed.”
He spent all afternoon in the solarium near the top of the armillary sphere. It was a cloudy day and there was only one other person on hand, an extremely old woman reading a book that seemed no less venerable a specimen than she was. He closed his eyes for a while, thinking and turning, dulled by the prospect of the work ahead. Boredom was summer pavement on a Sunday, the broad empty glare of regimented concrete. He decided to give the message a couple of days of his time. If he found no evidence that the transmission was a genuine mathematical statement, he would go back to the Center and resume work on zorgal theory.
