Ratner's Star

by Don DeLillo

  “Shut up,” Softly said.

  Billy nearly tripped on the generator cable. He heard the voices and headed directly for Softly’s cubicle. He halted about a yard inside the entrance. The others reacted to his arrival with looks of flinching inquiry. Maybe he’d slipped their minds. (Oh, yeah, him, wonder where he’s been.) He watched them, awry in this mild surprise, slowly re-compose themselves, reaching back for faces and manifestations.

  “I have deciphered the message,” he said.

  “What a charming announcement,” Softly said. “I didn’t know you could even get the elevator to move. You have, I assume, been doing some wandering.”

  “I went to a few places up there but got lost a lot too, especially coming back.”

  “We’re glad to see you, really and truly, but no announcements please. I think we’ve had enough of those.”

  “Something may happen at a certain time.”

  “Not interested.”

  “The pulses are meant to be seen as time on a clock. When it gets that time, I don’t know but something may be meant to take place.”

  “Look, mister, the message is indecipherable. The only value the signals have is that they got us going on the Logicon project. The message was sent from this part of the galaxy, this solar system, this planet, and it was sent ‘millions’ and ‘millions’ and ‘millions’ of years ago. That’s all we have to know about the message. Our remaining task is to frame a reply in a universal cosmic language. It doesn’t matter what the reply is. Content is not the issue. So don’t go around telling people you broke the code. There is no code worth breaking. If, by some accident, you have happened upon an interpretation that appears to make a moderate amount of sense from a mathematical viewpoint, we don’t want to hear it.”

  “So what am I here for?”

  “You’re here to help Edna and Lester on Logicon,” Softly said. “And if there is a category of nonaccomplishment existing beyond total and contemptible failure, I believe this is where the results of your participation belong.”

  “What about before we came down here?”

  “That part was a preparation for this part. You needed the background, the activity, the other side of the problem. It’s not possible to fulfill a concept unless you set it up properly.”

  “Anyway, I broke the code whether you like it or not.”

  “You’re beginning to sound like some kind of idiot savant.”

  “Make remarks.”

  “Maybe you’d rather do absurd calculations in your head than something worthwhile, something invaluable to science and the mind.”

  “Go ahead, say things, I don’t care.”

  Edna Lown got up and left, returning a moment later with a fresh cup of tea.

  “If this mohole business is true,” she said, “maybe we ought to hear what our young man’s got to say.”

  She left Softly’s quarters again, returning this time with Mainwaring, who could barely contain his eagerness to accept the burden that specialized knowledge entails in times like these.

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s possible that something extraordinary is going to happen. Where we have space-time sylphed, the level of unpredictability is extremely high, we feel. The laws simply aren’t the same. In a sense we’re wasting time even discussing it. There’s nothing to discuss.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” Softly said.

  Bolin made a proposal. The short-wave radio. If something funny’s taking place, somebody somewhere’s probably detected it, or the first signs of it, or a partial hint at least. The short-wave radio. An announcement. A bulletin. Something. Anything. It’s the quickest way we have to get information.

  He jogged down the path to his cubicle. They waited, saying nothing. Lester returned with the radio, set it on a chair and raised the antenna. Then he placed himself in a facing chair. The antenna was enormous, more than twice Bolin’s height. He began to turn dials, picking up atmospheric static, moans and cries, ships, taxis, fire engines, beeps from research satellites. Mainwaring edged his way to Billy’s side.

  “We used zorgs,” he whispered.

  “For what?”

  “Identifying the mohole.”

  “Zorgs are useless.”

  “We used them,” Mainwaring said.

  “Practically nobody knows what they even are.”

  “Softly knows, doesn’t he?”

  “He’s one of the few.”

  “Softly explained how we might use zorgs. I briefed my sylphing teams. Without zorgs we would never have found the mohole.”

  “Amazement.”

  “Except Softly wanted us to use them in tracking back the signal. But we didn’t need them for that. We needed them for the mohole.”

  “Very amazing.”

  Bolin had picked up a newscast that was interrupted seconds later by a bulletin concerning a suspicious person barricaded in a commercial building somewhere.

  “A hole is an unoccupied negative energy state,” Mainwaring whispered. “Hole theory involves ‘pair creation,’ which is the simultaneous creation of a particle-antiparticle pair. Holes move, just as moholes seem to move, just as a discrete particle can separate itself from a continuously dense array, leaving behind its antiparticle or hole. What Softly pointed out was that zorgs provide a perfect working mathematical model of hole theory.”

  “I never thought it.”

  “Zorgs allowed us to attack the sylphing problem in ways that were otherwise inconceivable. We had to learn to view zorgs as events rather than numbers, just as particles are events rather than things. The discrete-continuous quality of zorgs is what really helped us work out the necessary mathematics of Moholean relativity and made mohole identification practically inevitable.”

  “Pretty interesting.”

  “Things are interesting up to a point,” Mainwaring whispered. “Then they aren’t interesting anymore.”

  “The idea of zorgs applying.”

  “Experience and pure thought. The mind and the world. External reality and independent abstract deduction.”

  “How come you’re in camouflage?”

  “These are jungle fatigues. I’ve kept them pressed and handy for a good many years. Don’t know why really. But this seemed a good time to slip them on.”

  Softly motioned for silence.

  “Our mobile units are standing by,” the announcer said.

  There was a pause.

  “This is mobile unit twenty-two,” another voice said. “The barricaded suspect has been exchanging gunfire with the police for several minutes now, every abrupt report echoing clearly in this deserted commercial district, unprofitable relief from the silence that weighs so heavily at this early hour in the wilderness of cities. From the beginning a police official has been speaking through a bullhorn, his supercharged voice adding a faintly theatrical quality to the proceedings. Mist is settling on the area now, successive webs of condensation. In this grainy weave of near light, every lull between shots is filled with a sheltered sense of bedtime lazing, the feeling we all know of idle security, of high-and-dry privacy—a deception, of course, like any airy moment of disentanglement, but at the same time not a totally false picture of the somewhat muted urgency that prevails here this morning, events unfolding in the embodying harmony of a sonnet. From atop police vehicles the familiar swivel lights range through the haze as the suspect reloads and fires, perhaps aware of the classic nature of his predicament, the energy field he momentarily inhabits, the solitary trance of power, the levels of encounter and isolation he has caused to bring about. The act of sighting down the barrel of that weapon may be the release he has always sought. An ambulance, white with dark trim, purrs sullenly nearby. A marksman in a bulletproof vest raises his weapon and takes aim. This is what it’s all about, isn’t it, listening audience? A brief seizing brilliance in the immediate air. A death-rendered flash of perfect equilibrium. In the fog and mist of a remote warehouse district, this is mobile control returning you to our studio.” />
  “Hi, back with traffic, weather, recipes and reviews. This note from the science desk. An unscheduled total eclipse of the sun will probably take place later today, more or less, it says here, on the other side of the world. Some minor delays on airport access roads. Details upcoming. Another water-main break during the night but first I’m being motioned at here, so let’s go right now to mobile control.”

  “The suspicious person has been calling down a series of unintelligible remarks. He is standing in the window, shouting, now firing, now shouting, a figure somewhat melancholy to contemplate in the tempering medium of this thick rich mist. The official with the bullhorn is shouting back at the suspect. Electric hysteria begins to spread. The police are rapid-firing now, perhaps a dozen marksmen on the street, on rooftops, in doorways and windows. It is evident that the police and the suspicious person have agreed to abandon nominal reality as we pause here for a test of our clear-signal testing apparatus, a test, a test, this is only a test.”

  Softly moved his index finger across his throat, leading Bolin to turn off the radio. They all sat or stood in place.

  “Eclipse,” Lown said.

  “Just a rumor,” Softly said.

  “Maybe it’s not unscheduled,” Bolin said. “Maybe it was due all along.”

  Mainwaring shook his head.

  “Noncognate celestial anomaly.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” Softly said.

  “Is science dead?” Bolin said.

  “I would dearly love to know what’s going on,” Lown said.

  Mainwaring shrugged.

  “There’s nothing to say. This may be just the beginning. There’s nothing any of us can say to clear things up.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” Softly said.

  “When does it happen?” Bolin said.

  “He said later today,” Lown said.

  “Whose time?” Softly said.

  “Later today must mean later today his time, the radio’s, wherever that was,” Lown said.

  Mainwaring made a face.

  “Obviously it won’t be long. Whoever’s time and wherever the broadcast originated, the eclipse will happen. That’s all that matters, I would think and feel and suspect.”

  Softly turned his head into the fattest of the silk pillows. The others left his quarters, filing out slowly, Terwilliger, Lown, Mainwaring, Bolin. Although his face was pressed into the pillow, Softly’s eyes were open. Words in isolation or combination are meaningful; connect; reflect. Think clearly, he urged himself, turning his head and looking up into the dark vast space that composed most of the antrum. Some small rocks tumbled into the barrier. He heard his colleagues in dialogue. We must re-term, confirm, he thought. It will help us think clearly, help us prepare for the conditions that may accompany this noncognate celestial anomaly. To know for certain when, what, where and how; this is necessary, looking straight up, hearing the generator shift to a more sonorous drone, reaching for his robe. Shit, piss and corruption. This was a phrase that went back several decades (in the special context of his own life) and when it entered his mind, Softly reacted as he did to every unbidden recollection of childhood and adolescence, with a sense of abomination so pronounced it caused clear physical discomfort, caused him to sweat, to tremble, this state of aversion intensified by the fact that in putting on his robe he had uncovered the bronze mirror Wu had left on his desk. Quickly he reached for a towel.

  A DESPERATE MEASURE

  Softly walked over to Wu’s cubicle now, seeing Lester leave the kitchen and head down the path to his own living unit, where he sat at the plastic desk and immediately began making simple lists of things, using paper and pencil. Bolin’s customary satisfaction in crossing out each item on a given list as that particular errand or mental task was attended to did not begin to match the pleasure he now derived from listing things and crossing them out with no attempt at an intervening activity, mental or otherwise. He concentrated on the simplest of lists, writing down the days of the week and then crossing them out, one by one; the names of the objects in his immediate field of vision; the names of the probable objects behind him; the articles of clothing he wore; the months of the year; brands of cigarettes; makes of cars; his favorite flavors; world religions; state capitals; countries and their chief exports. Finally he began to list the integers. He wrote down the integers not by name but symbol, listing roughly a dozen, sometimes more, before going back to do the crossing out. The integers were immensely pleasing to list, much more so than any of the other categories, the sequences arrayed like numerical paternosters. Why hadn’t he realized earlier that to list something and cross it out is far more satisfying than to list something, act upon that listing and only then to cross it out?

  a. I’m tempted to say: give me a cookie.

  Maurice Wu was packed and ready to leave. It seemed Maurice was always coming in or going out, always rolling up sleeping bags or latching backpacks. This time he was going out, of course, and not just to do some miscellaneous caving on the slopes. There were no chairs and so he didn’t invite Softly to have a seat.

  “Hear what’s happening?”

  “Yes,” Wu said.

  “We have to confirm. I want to confirm. Frankly I can’t stand not knowing for sure. Will there be an ‘eclipse’ or not? Do we just stand around ‘talking’ and wait for it to happen?”

  “I was leaving.”

  “Stay,” Softly said.

  “There’s my fieldwork. I want to get back to the field. I’m really eager to leave.”

  “A while longer.”

  “How do we confirm something like this? Something like this isn’t subject to confirmation, is it?”

  “Think.”

  “Anyway, they said it’s going to happen, didn’t they?”

  “Just a rumor at this point.”

  “It was on the radio, wasn’t it?”

  “They said ‘probably happen,’ ‘will probably take place.’ ”

  “What we need is something completely out of the ordinary.”

  “Think, ‘Maury.’ ”

  “Didn’t I hear something recently about some woman they brought in who’s supposed to be able to perceive things beyond the range of the immediate present?”

  “No good,” Softly said.

  “She’s just some woman from the slums somewhere who’s supposedly got this unexplained insight into the future. Didn’t I hear she’s in one of the complexes? Being pored over by experts in this and that discipline. Being wired, prodded and so forth. Something completely out of left field. That’s what we need.”

  “Nammu zendo baba.”

  “Granted, it’s a desperate measure.”

  “I want to keep it scientific. No seers, diviners, soothsayers or clairvoyants. This is a scientific project.”

  “I’m trying to think of her name. I’ve been hearing about this woman. An interesting case apparently. She has fits apparently or goes into trances or spells. Then she does her stuff. I remember thinking her name sounds like a Greek-American soccer team. Do the field telephones still work? I can call upstairs and find out what’s what.”

  “It contradicts everything I’ve always believed.”

  “Bend a little,” Wu said.

  “I’m not enthused about this.”

  “Better than nothing.”

  “In fact I hate the idea.”

  “Skia Mantikos.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Her name,” Wu said. “It means ‘the shadow prophet.’ ”

  Lester Bolin stood in a room without furniture and looked directly into the “head” of his metallic Logicon. Edna Lown in kimono and desert boots was slumped over her desk. In his hand, Lester’s, was a device containing an automatic switch that operated on photoelectric command. Wu coming out of his own cubicle and heading toward the field telephones next to the first-aid unit saw Billy come out of the first-aid unit, his left thumb encircled by a fresh bandage. Softly back in bed, Mainwaring making sure his documen
ts were packed, his file cabinet emptied out, his umbrella at the ready. The density of time enveloped everything.

  “So what’s with the finger?”

  “Cut it when I opened my latest piece of junk mail.”

  “Called a paper cut,” Wu said.

  “Except I noticed at the last second the mail wasn’t supposed to be for me. Addressed to R. H. Softly. So I dropped it in there before I fixed my cut.”

  “Did you see the gift I brought him from the bat cave?”

  “No.”

  “An ancient Chinese mirror.”

  “What’s it worth?”

  “Priceless.”

  “That much?”

  “At the very least.”

  “You made a big mistake,” the boy said.

  “Why?”

  “Better not let him see it, that’s all I’m saying.”

  “Why not?”

  “He hates mirrors. He never goes anywhere near them. You better go get it before he gets back.”

  “He’s back,” Wu said.

  “It’s probably covered up. That’s why I didn’t see it. He covers them up. That’s what he always does.”

  “Why?”

  “You want to ask him?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Where you going anyway?”

  “Make a phone call.”

  “What, Chinese food?”

  “Funny,” Wu said.

  “Ordering out?”

  “It’s this person I want to get in touch with. A desperate measure, I grant you. But she may be able to tell us what’s going to happen.”

  Edna Lown in kimono and desert boots was slumped over her desk, thinking. Bolin stood in a nearly bare room in a storage and maintenance area next to the upper part of the elevator shaft, looking at the squat object that itself stood among scrap metal, sawdust, lengths of wire. Wu cranking a field telephone, Mainwaring testing the effectiveness of his black umbrella. In his hand, Lester’s, was a device that emitted an immediate click whenever he pressed his thumb on a button. He took a coin out of his breast pocket. He didn’t know what to expect. In the unlikely event that he had assembled the control system with absolute precision (unlikely because this was the first such venture he’d attempted and because it was all so homemade), the machine would be capable of producing combinations of sounds that coincided with the ideographic units he and Edna had devised as written language. Mainwaring changing clothes, Softly in his bed scanning the latest mail.