Ratner's Star by Don DeLillo Read Free Book Online

“I mean the actual killing in the streets.”
    â€œIt was the year everyone was using the words ‘parameter’ and ‘interface.’ But there wouldn’t have been any problem if that fellow hadn’t monopolized computer time.”
    Billy was not interested in plotting the orbits of Jovian moons. If Hummer’s supposition was correct—that they’d brought him here to calculate a planetary path or the mass of a neo-electron—it was a waste of everybody’s time. His kind of mathematics was undertaken solely to advance the art. In time to come, of course, what had been pure might finally be applied. He saw how the virginal circles of Eudoxus had led to a more coherent astronomy, how the conic sections of Apollonius had prefigured the spirit of universal gravitation. The world had itsuses, yes; ideas could be rotated to expedient planes. It wasn’t his method to test the disposition of the physical universe but this didn’t mean he reacted skeptically to those who drove hooks into nature. He considered the case of Archimedes, son of astronomer, floating body, lever adept, nude runner, catapulter, weigher of parabolas, tactician of solar power, sketcher of equations in sand and with fingernail on own body anointed in after-bath olive oil, killed by dreamless Romans.
    â€œDo you ride?” Mimsy said.
    â€œRide what?”
    â€œWell, see, I was wondering about recreation. What sort of active things you do.”
    â€œThe usual.”
    â€œGolf, watercolors, growing pretty things?”
    â€œThat’s not usual. Is that usual?”
    â€œI guess it depends,” she said.
    â€œIn handball there’s a thing called a Chinese killer. That’s an active thing I do, hit Chinese killers. It’s when the ball hits right where the wall meets the ground so that there’s no bounce. It’s impossible to return a Chinese killer. The ball just skids along the ground, impossible to return. They have courts here? I could show you.”
    His voice seemed too big for his body. It was rough-edged and fairly deep, delivering every kind of statement with equally sneak bluntness, a dull abrupt impersonal voice that might have belonged to someone who called out names for a living.
    â€œThe ball just skids, does it?”
    â€œWhat kind of sex goes on in a place like this?”
    â€œAll sorts, I’d imagine,” Mimsy said.
    â€œIn universities it gets pretty oral, going by what I hear. I was thinking about this place if it’s the same or similar.”
    â€œMaybe I should poll the staff.”
    â€œNice bit of imagery,” Cyril said.
    â€œI suppose I should have said canvass the members.”
    â€œIn my case, a good idea, however belated. My luck to cast my lot with a hyperfertile woman. Internal contradictions are at the very center of my life. Hooray for transitional logic. Helps expose the counterexamples that haunt our arguments.”
    â€œWind chimes,” Hummer said.
    More people came into the garden, indicating the shadow-presence was spreading through the building. Mimsy leaned toward the boy, speaking in a mock whisper.
    â€œHow’s your genital organization?”
    â€œRemind me to check.”
    â€œYou’re already past your prime, sexually speaking. The golden age is early infancy. Soon after this the corruption of the erotic instinct takes place. In a very short time everything falls apart. The solidarity of opposites is completely shattered. Before you’ve learned to put two words together, you are mired in an existence full of essential dichotomies. I feel free to speak, since you raised the subject yourself a moment ago.”
    â€œFor the body to become unafraid,” Cyril said, “we need to live beyond the brain and with less talkative genitals.”
    â€œSomeone’s installed wind chimes.”
    Only the ashes on his forehead marred Hummer’s antiseptic manner. Cyril looked