Ratner's Star

by Don DeLillo

  “Mathematics is the only avant-garde remaining in the whole province of art. It’s pure art, lad. Art and science. Art, science and language. Art as much as the art we once called art. It lost its wings after the Babylonians fizzled out. But emerged again with the Greeks. Went down in the Dark Ages. Moslems and Hindus kept it going. But now it’s back bright as ever. I got too careless for mathematics. Forgot how swift and deadly it can be. I turned in my panic to empty-field sources and black-body radiation. It was fascinating for a time. You could peer and count and measure and sigh. You could ponder the heavens. You could say: ‘Ahhhhh, there it is, look and see.’ But the size of the universe began to depress me. I thought the Ratnerians might be offering us a simple declarative sentence or a neat cluster of numbers that would tell us why the universe is so big. When I failed to interpret the message, there was no recourse but the hole. You’re lucky, Big B. Right mind in right body. Insect larvae. That’s what I eat. Tell them when you get back. Endor eats insect larvae. He doesn’t eat worms as such. Larvae. Quasi-worms. Worms pro tem. Furry little items fresh from the earth.”

  He crawled back into the second hole. The sun was directly overhead. Billy stretched out on the grass, being sure to keep his feet away from the edge of the hole and yet unable to explain to himself why he’d taken this curious precaution. He conjectured from one to three:

  1) Endor would grab his ankles, drag him into the hole and eat him. This made no sense, of course. It was stupid. Endor was respected throughout the world. On the other hand he was a man who had chosen to live in a hole. No, it made no sense. People didn’t do things like that. It was stupid. But people under stress did do things like that. Endor was under severe stress. Endor was a person. Yet this was logical thinking and the last thing he wanted to do was trap himself with words and propositions. He knew a logical trap was the worst kind. Numbers had two natures; they existed as themselves, abstractly, and as units for measuring distances and counting objects. Words could not be separated from their use. This fact made logical traps easy to fall into and hard to get out of.

  2) Endor ate insect larvae and might pull him into the hole and force him to do the same. This was more frightening than number one because it was more likely. It was just as stupid but a lot more likely and therefore warranted fear. He had no objection to other people eating larvae as long as he could watch from a safe distance. Endor might not physically force him to eat baby insects but could possibly make the eating of these things seem an invigorating pastime. He had the ability and experience to set a language trap, using scientific persuasiveness and his knowledge of large words and the spaces between such words.

  3) Endor had access to a second hole of unknown dimensions and might grab Billy’s ankles and drag him across the first hole and into the second. This was worst of all. The second hole was a concealed entity, a truer than usual pit, a repository for all the disfigured outgrowths of the morbid imagination. People liked to arrange encounters for him with holes, tunnels, sightless eyes, artificial limbs, models of computerized maw. Of these forms of experimental terror he had directly experienced only one. This was the subway tunnel, a region less dreadful than it might have been only because of the word “subway,” which was familiar and specific, evoking sound, color, scent and shape. Endor’s second hole evoked none of these. It evoked only: second hole. Untraveled territory. Nothing to picture. No noise to imagine in anticipation of the real thing. It was only twenty feet away from him, the entrance to the hole’s hole, but it wasn’t the real thing, or the fake thing, or the thing. Who knew what it was? The power of logic, so near to number and so distant, filled his body with warped vibrations, as of a harp string plucked by monkeys.

  Endor reappeared. The boy, still frozen to the grass in a state of propositional dream-shock, heard the great man clawing against the sides of the hole proper. This, it turned out, was his way of getting to his feet. Billy knelt at the rim. Endor began to urinate into the second hole, adjusting his stance so that the long feeble arc terminated at the point where the second hole commenced. Although he redeposited his scaly old dangle, he didn’t bother fastening his pants and so the zipper just sagged there, fatigued and silver in the sun.

  “It tugs hard, lad. I feel it in the bottoms of my feet. There is want at the center of the earth. Never mind impressed force and inverse proportion. There is sheer wanting to contend with. Every day I feel it more. It reaches higher in my body. Everything is want. Everything wants. To be a scientist. Do you know what it’s like to be a scientist? I am asking you and telling you these things because these are things you would otherwise have to ask and tell yourself in the years and decades to come. My books on science sold well. But I didn’t know until recently what it means to be a scientist. It means the opposite of what people believe it to mean. We don’t extend the senses to probe microbe and universe. We deny the senses. We deny the evidence of our senses. A lifetime of such denial is what sends people into larva-eating rages.”

  Endor crawled into the second hole, returning moments later.

  “Science requires us to deny the evidence of the senses,” he said. “We see the sun moving across the sky and we say no, no, no, the sun is not moving, it’s we who move, we move, we. Science teaches us this. The earth moves around the sun, we say. Nevertheless every morning we open our eyes and there’s the sun moving across the sky, east to west every single day. It moves. We see it. I’m tired of denying such evidence. The earth doesn’t move. It’s the sun that moves around the earth. It’s maggots that are generated spontaneously in rotten meat. It’s the wind that causes tides. If the earth moved we’d get dizzy and fall off. If the moon and sun cause tides in oceans, why don’t they cause tides in swimming pools and glasses of water? There’s no variation in the microwave background. Why is this? Because we’re at the center of the universe, that’s why this is. Don’t forget maggots. Whenever you see rotten meat you see maggots. In the meat. In and of the meat. Born of meat. Meat-engendered. Maggots come spontaneously from meat. If not, from where?”

  “Flies lay eggs,” Billy said.

  “Flies lay eggs.”

  “Flies land on the meat and lay eggs. Isn’t the maggot just an early stage in the fly cycle or whatever it’s called? Flies lay eggs.”

  “Flies lay eggs,” Endor said.

  He snatched at something and put it quickly in his mouth. Something from the hard mud at the side of the hole. Something soft-bodied, wingless, elongate and probably very much alive. Vivid slime dripped through his beard. Fresh green larval fluids. After half a minute he stopped chewing. Billy turned to check on the availability of the Cadillac.

  Endor returned to the second hole, remaining there for fifteen minutes this time. Billy tried to ignore the fact that the elderly scientist had quite recently urinated into that very area. Was it before this visit or the previous one? Either way there was bound to be a chemical residue. When Endor returned, part of his shirt was sticking out of the crotch-opening in his pants.

  “Men shrink in space,” he said. “We have X-ray silhouettes and stereoscopic photographs to prove it. The heart of an astronaut actually shrinks. So do his limbs and torso. Nothing tugs at the man in space. There is no want. None of that universal suck and gulp. His muscles lose tone. His blood accumulates in the wrong places. Chemicals in his body become deranged. In short there is none of the poetry of falling matter. Want is everything. Everything wants. Without want, the bones lose calcium. Without want, potassium vanishes. It used to be thought that matter was falling. In the beginning matter fell. It fell uniformly. It was in the nature of matter to fall. The uniform motion of falling matter meant there was no interaction between particles. No force intervened to disrupt the uniform and utterly beautiful matter-fall of all things everywhere. But then there was a swerve, it was thought. Something, or everything, was nudged into the most imperceptible of swerves. Two particles lightly touched, adhering for the most imperceptible of seconds. This random interaction was the origin of the un
iverse as we know it and fear it today. But nothing in this ancient poem of matter falling precludes the notion that matter continues to fall. Matter is now thought to be organized, interactive and guided by well-defined forces and yet nowhere in the scientific canon is there evidence to dispel the poetic impression that matter-now-organized is constantly falling, which is what I said in the previous sentence if you were listening. It’s in the nature of objects to fall. The whole universe is falling. This is the meaning of dreams in which we plunge forever.”

  He crawled out of sight. When he returned this time he had difficulty getting to his feet. His face and arms were crusted with mud. Mud had accumulated under his fingernails. There was a chunk of dry mud in what remained of the breast pocket of his disintegrating shirt. He finally straightened up. Mudless things with segmented bodies moved through his hair.

  “We begin to see how lawless everything is. Once we go beyond planar surfaces we see how mysterious a subject is the geometry of space and time. Who is turning the laws of the universe upside down and were they true laws to begin with? How to explain unexplained energy. Where to find the standard candle. The universe is falling. Yes or no. That’s the single pre-emptive riddle. Mull it over and tell me what you think.”

  Before Billy could say anything, Endor crawled into his tunnel, if that’s what it was. The boy didn’t mind because he had nothing to say on the subject of falling matter as it pertained to the riddle of the universe. In sixty seconds Endor was back.

  “Einstein and Kafka! They knew each other! They stood in the same room and talked! Kafka and Einstein!”

  He crawled back into the hole’s hole and remained there for a very long time. The hole proper was now in shadow. Billy wondered how Endor survived the nights. Never mind the nights, he then thought. The days. The diet. The boredom. Good weather and bad. Fear and despair. Outrage, loneliness, memory and death. When Endor returned this time, Billy was first to speak.

  “What do you eat besides larvae?”

  “When I’m feeling hale enough I claw my way up to the rim of the hole and eat the grass or whatever I find growing within arm’s length. Some intense little plants in the vicinity.”

  “I guess there’s nothing you can do about drinking except wait for it to rain and drink the rainwater.”

  “I drink the mud,” Endor said. “There’s rainwater and earthwater in the mud. I suck and gulp at the mud. Suck and gulp are the activating principles behind the abstract idea of want.”

  “What do you do in that other hole every time you go in there?”

  “I dig, I claw.”

  “Just with your fingers?”

  “There’s a clothes hanger. I keep a clothes hanger in there. It’s the only thing I brought with me to the hole. I thought I’d need something for my clothes. Something to hang my clothes on. But it turns out I use the clothes hanger to dig. That is, when I dig. Mostly I just claw. I use my fingers to claw.”

  “I don’t see how you can get very far with a hanger. I could have brought you a spoon or fork.”

  “I never claw without uttering sounds. Otherwise what’s it all for? Never underestimate the value of clawing. But never simply claw. As you claw, utter whatever sounds seem appropriate. Nonverbal sounds work best, I find. Otherwise why bother? This is a cruel brand of work.”

  “Why are you digging and clawing? Why do you claw?”

  “Let me see if I’m up to answering that question. There are any number of ways I might reply. Could say the larvae are tastier the deeper I dig. Could answer naturalistically and say I am creating a shelter from the elements. Could, if I cared to, make a series of enigmatic remarks concerning man’s need for metaphysical burrows that lead absolutely nowhere. But I believe I’ll stick to the answer I gave before you asked the question.”

  He crawled away again. Billy wasn’t on the verge of leaving but he was very close to thinking about leaving. Endor finally returned. This time he neither got to his feet nor remained on all fours. Instead he sat back against the side of the hole, forearms resting on raised knees.

  “You’re the only one I’ve talked to, lad. I’ve had a strong conviction for quite some time. Both before and since the hole. Better light out for a hole, Endor. Find yourself a hole and light out fast. That was my conviction. I still have it. Things here aren’t what they seem, Big B. I don’t think I’m any closer to dying than I was before the hole. Excluding pure chronology, of course. In other words I didn’t come here to meet a quick end. Another thing. The sorrow of simply being is no greater here than it was in pre-hole environments. When you talk about simply being, you’re talking about things like holes and rusty mud. My mind is the same, my eyesight, the way I dream, the way I smell to myself. It’s surprisingly easy to adjust to living in a hole. Out there, in other words, there’s just as much holeness and mudness. Almost time you were leaving, lad.”

  “Right away.”

  “Want to watch me eat some more larvae?”

  “That’s the best part of being here. The eating. I like the sound it makes.”

  “Keep down, Endor. Don’t take any crapola from those mongers.”

  “What’s a monger?”

  “Someone who traffics in, peddles to and deals with.”

  “Am I going yet?”

  “It’s time now to tell you why I summoned you to this place, this hole.”

  “You already told me.”

  “What did I say?”

  “You said you were telling me these things because they were things I’d have to tell myself in the years to come. So you’re telling them to me now. I guess to get me ready.”

  “That’s not it,” Endor said. “This is it.”

  He crawled into the second hole and remained for about half an hour. Then came out talking.

  “There’s a dark side to Field Experiment Number One. Now listen. If you’ve ever heeded anything, heed this. This is it. An outright warning. There is a dark side to it. The importance of the message from Ratner’s star, regardless of content, is that it will tell us something of importance about ourselves. That’s it, you see. The importance. But there are people and things I want to warn you about. Nameless danger. Be alert for nameless danger. Pending developments, you’re the big little man. That makes you important. You are pivotal to the schemes of the mongers. The importance of the code. The namelessness of the danger.”

  “Is that it for now? Because the car’s been ready.”

  “Visit my room at Field Experiment Number One. It’s not one of those shimmery canisters. I designed it myself. Had things shipped in special. It’s a room that may comfort you in the time of your inevitable terror, much as I hate to use that kind of defeatist’s terminology. It’s a room in and of time. Nice place to sit and think. I am special blessed. You are blessed. This is our joint curse. Visit with my blessing.”

  “I’d like to be excused now.”

  “My books sold well,” Endor said. “I popularized the secrets of the brotherhood all too obligingly. But never a nonverbal word passed my pen. Light out for the hole, Endor. Claw your way down through the silicates to the core iron. Rest in that darkness safe from larvicide. Then start to claw again.”

  A helicopter went beating past the hole. Billy watched it circle once and then touch down not far from the Cadillac, the blades stirring up dust and leveling tall grass, a state of disturbance created, the emotion that sweeps across the bow of a storm, more than natural agitation. It was as though the afternoon had been fine-sliced into altered rates of movement. A different kind of pace asserted itself, traced in frame-by-frame instants of urgency, expedience, stress, wind-whipped news carried from a very official location. It was an executive helicopter but the man who emerged wore a laboratory smock and red and white basketball sneakers. He gestured to Kidder, who immediately got into the Cadillac and drove off. Billy looked into the hole, hoping Endor would have an explanation for the appearance of the helicopter and departure of the limousine. But Endor had disappeared into the second
hole. The man waved to Billy, who got to his feet and headed in the direction of the small aircraft. Since the blades still rotated loudly, the conversation that ensued was at a near shout.

  “My name is Hoad. I work on the star project. Hoad. We were in the air when we got word about the star. They told us where you were. We came here to give you the word and get you back to headquarters at once.”

  “What word?”

  “The star is part of a two-star system. Space Brain has just confirmed it. Two-star system. We’ve suspected this but weren’t sure. Now we know. The star is binary.”

  “Ratner’s star?”

  “There are two of them,” Hoad shouted. “Binary star. Two-star system.”

  “What does this mean? How does this affect things?”

  “It doesn’t affect things at all and in practical terms it means next to nothing.”

  “Does it mean there’s less chance of life on any planet that’s in orbit in that kind of system?”

  “There’s less chance, yes, but it’s far from impossible. There can be one or more planets in a multiple stellar system capable of supporting life. It’s a three-body problem. Suitable orbits, equal mass, temperature variations. But the chance of life as we know it or don’t know it is certainly better if the planet in question orbits a single star.”

  “So it’s bad news then.”

  “What?”

  “It’s bad news.”

  “It doesn’t negate the message. The message exists. Someone or something sent the message from the neighborhood of Ratner’s star.”

  “There’s one thing I don’t get.”