Desperate Games

‘Don’t you think that perhaps diversions of this sort are necessary?’ she said.

And she quoted some remarks by Kepler: ‘If someone had not had the credulous hope of being able to read the future in the heavens, would you have ever been wise enough to study astronomy for its own sake?’ But Fawell’s disappointment was so great that nothing was able to dispel his bad mood.

‘An abyss between them and us, is what Zarratoff wrote!’

‘It’s only one point of view though. Another sounding could yield a more encouraging result.’

‘I myself have made another sounding,’ said Fawell, becoming even grimmer. ‘I also gave a lecture. I chose a very broad topic: the structure and unity of matter. I don’t want to repeat what I said in my class to you, but I can assure you that, like Zarratoff, I called on all my resources to stimulate at least some interest, not to say passion… It was a classic class, but I tried to spice it up, showing them the great divisions in matter, molecules, atoms and finally its unity, matter being made up, in the final analysis, solely of particles which are completely alike… They understood the last point well enough, oh they understood it all right!

‘Again like Zarratoff I made myself available after the class. And like him, I was glad to see quite a large number come to me as a delegation. And do you know the one question which they put to me? All of them, the same one?’

‘Depressing, I’m sure.’

‘How does one go about making gold!’ Fawell yelled out. ‘Do you get it? Since, in the final analysis, all bodies are composed of the same materials, I must possess a simple recipe they could use, which would only require a retort and a stove, probably so that they could transmute pebbles from the beach or the stones that clutter up their gardens into gold!’

Once again the psychologist tried to respond and to find some encouraging arguments:

‘That shows nevertheless that they had understood something about the unity of matter. In this case as well, perhaps the stage of superstition is necessary. I think that –’

She was interrupted by a telephone ringing. It was Yranne calling the President from Beijing. Fawell listened for some time without interrupting. He made no comment when the other had finished.

‘Fine,’ he said simply. ‘We’ll discuss all that at a council meeting.’

But when he turned towards Betty, his face had become even more hollow. He remained silent for a considerable length of time.

‘May I know how my former compatriots are behaving?’ the Chinese woman asked finally.

‘He dealt with statistics and probabilities,’ Fawell said slowly, ‘highlighting the role these notions play in both everyday life and in the Universe.’

‘And?’

‘In this case too, after the class, just one question was asked. Can you guess what it was?’

‘By looking at your expression and trying as best I can, I could at least guess the nature of it,’ Betty replied calmly.

Fawell struck the table in a sudden burst of rage.

‘They asked him… they begged him on their knees to provide them with an infallible winning formula for roulette!’

3.

Several inspections carried out all over the world did not provide any more encouraging results, so that the education of humanity became a serious matter of worry and anxiety for the government of Earth. Soon it was to have other concerns, relating, paradoxically, to those people who appeared to want to get involved along the right lines, who appreciated the progress made by science for its true value, and who, realising that they had been freed from rough menial tasks, used this freedom for their own benefit and their leisure time to educate their mind. They were taking the very same path that the world administration was trying to open up. It was among these people that the symptoms of a strange illness were detected one day.

The first person affected by it whom they could put under observation to study the illness was Nicolas Zarratoff, Fawell’s own son-in-law, who was now an experienced cosmonaut and had rejoiced at the scientific revolution and appreciated its effects. But before his case, two fatal accidents alerted the authorities. The two victims were also space pilots, and the conditions were identical and inexplicable. The first accident happened to a man named Jim Barley, when he was piloting his private plane while on leave. An apparently absurd conversation had taken place between him and the control tower of the airport where he was to land. Unfortunately this conversation had not been recorded and it seemed to be so incoherent that many suspected a memory lapse on the part of the employee who had reported it. According to him, Barley had announced that he was incapable of carrying out the lan

ding manoeuvres by himself, although his controls were working well and the visibility was perfect. The employee was incapable of specifying the reason, as the pilot’s feverish attempts at explanation were incomprehensible. The matter ended in tragedy. The aircraft suddenly seemed to go completely out of control and crashed on the ground. Barley’s dead body was found among the shapeless debris and the inquest yielded nothing.

The WAO (World Astronautic Organisation) concluded that he must have suffered from a sudden illness, and nothing would have come of the affair if a second accident of the same nature had not occurred a few days later to another cosmonaut, while he was also piloting a tourist plane. Like Barley, he had started to make incoherent comments and died in similar circumstances. The nature of the illness which had attacked these unfortunate men baffled the WAO doctors, and none of the psychologists who were consulted could come to a satisfactory diagnosis. These two successive accidents had seemed sufficiently unusual for a confidential report on them to be sent to the government.

Nicolas Zarratoff felt happy to be alive that morning, with the prospect of three months’ holiday which had just been granted to him. He had certainly earned it and he and Ruth were finally going to go on the long honeymoon journey which they had been planning for a long time. They had constantly had to put it off since their marriage due to the urgency of the missions which were entrusted to him.

On coming out of his office where he had just received the good news, Nicolas jumped into his car and dashed off to his bungalow, without any thought of speed limits. He found Ruth cutting flowers in the garden and embraced her passionately.

‘I’ve got it!’ he exclaimed. ‘Three months.’

‘Darling, three months! I thought that –’

‘Three whole months. The two due after the mission and one extra month because –’