Desperate Games

by Pierre Boulle

  They were the friends in whose home they were going to spend the evening and who would put them up for the night. Hudson was the director of the airfield.

  He did not reply. For a few moments he had been trying to make contact with this airfield, and, not being able to do it, he started to show signs of nervousness again.

  ‘It’s insane to let an airplane get lost in the sky without permanent contact,’ he murmured. ‘I’m going to make a complaint about it.’

  The airplane was still flying in a clear sky. She dared not make any comment, and they remained silent for a long while. It seemed however that he was becoming more and more anxious as they approached their goal.

  ‘We must be quite close,’ she said finally.

  He did not reply. He was staring fixedly straight in front of him, without ever glancing even once towards the ground. He had maintained the same altitude, and that was another thing which surprised her. She was no novice when it came to aviation and knew very well that he should already have commenced the descent some time ago. She was about to point this out to him when he finally made contact with the station. He immediately asked a series of crazy questions: how far away were they? At what altitude were they? Could he start his descent? And at what angle? There was some delay before there was any response, and it was his friend Hudson himself who spoke:

  ‘It’s fine! I’m sure you recognised my voice. If it had been anyone else, he would have taken you for a right idiot.’

  ‘I’m not joking,’ said Nicolas, ‘can I make the descent?’

  The other man could tell by his voice that he was truly not joking.

  ‘Of course you can. At least, if you want to have dinner with us tonight. But you’ll have to complete several circles before landing. I can see you clearly. You’re right above us.’

  ‘Right above?’

  ‘Can’t you see the runways?’

  ‘Right above, right above,’ Nicolas repeated like an automaton.

  It was true. Ruth could clearly make out all the details of the airfield, the runways, the control tower and the hangars. But her husband had still not glanced at the ground even once. He seemed to be distracted.

  ‘Fine, I’m going to descend,’ he murmured in a hesitant voice.

  But as the other man remained silent, he immediately became furious.

  ‘So what are you waiting for, for Heaven’s sake? Give me the coordinates, the angle, the course, the altitude, every second, every second, d’you hear me? Can’t you take over by radio control?’

  ‘If it weren’t you,’ the other man said, ‘I would think that the pilot was dead drunk. The sun’s lighting up the runway.’

  ‘The sun… the sun.’

  Hudson finally realised that an extremely serious incident was taking place.

  ‘Nicolas, are you ill? Tell me!’

  But the latter was now in no fit state to do so. His only reaction was to look at his wife and murmur, ‘Darling, they’re abandoning us. I don’t know what to do any more.’

  5.

  That day Fawell had sent for his vice-president, Yranne, to take stock of a situation that was upsetting him. He asked Betty to join them, as he was aware that psychological expertise was becoming increasingly necessary to cope with the setbacks they were encountering with world education.

  Progress on this was only being made with a very small number of people. The vast majority showed only evidence of indifference, reluctance or even of irrelevant interests, which was the opposite of the scientific ideal.

  ‘We would be guilty of deluding ourselves,’ the President began in a solemn tone. ‘We are not following the right path. In spite of all our efforts the masses remain cut off from all basic knowledge. If this continues, it will bring about what we want to avoid. Humanity will tend to split into two different categories: one will be the class of scholars, the leaders, the privileged, us in fact; and the other will consist of indifferent plebs, whom we shall have to keep busy with rough work, interchangeable individuals, happy in their way perhaps, but who will never know the pleasures of the mind and will be so much dead weight in the march towards progress. And the rift will become wider.’

  ‘If you will allow me to say something,’ Mrs Betty Han interrupted, ‘I’m even more pessimistic than you. If I’m analysing the present situation correctly, not only is there no sublimation of interest, but there is deviation, and it is a dangerous form of deviation, in that the masses risk becoming a powerful impediment which will be even worse than a dead weight.’

  ‘I’m very much aware of it,’ Fawell grumbled. ‘Do you think I haven’t noticed it?’

  What Betty meant by this disturbing analysis was that although the people were not trying to enrich their minds by penetrating the secrets of science, they were becoming more and more interested in the material results of the discoveries made by science, to the point where they were demanding more important and more sophisticated practical findings all the time. These demands were growing daily and although they were sometimes crazy, they were becoming more and more insistent, so much so that they would distract the scientific government from its noble plans.

  ‘Eskimos are demanding larks these days!’ Yranne sighed.

  Now that the problem of hunger was under control, people who had previously been decimated by dreadful famine were no longer satisfied with rations which been scientifically calculated to guarantee them a sufficiently calorific diet. They needed to have food which was more and more original, and the government did its utmost to satisfy their requests. In a world state with egalitarian ideals, it actually seemed unjust and illogical that rare and succulent fresh delicacies should be reserved for a few regions with fortunate climates, while the others had to be satisfied with deep-frozen products. Exceptional efforts had been undertaken in this field, testing the knowledge of scholars specialising in the natural sciences. In the lakes of the former deserts of Asia and Africa they had acclimatised species of salmon and trout with exquisite flesh, and a varied population of pheasants and ortolans had been acclimatised in the new forests and in recently cultivated lands. After the patient work of selection, biologists had even managed to raise different species of sturgeon almost everywhere, in sufficient quantity to provide the world with the caviar it required. Somewhere else specialist institutes were training thousands of student chefs every month in the art of preparing delicate sauces, which in former times established the reputations of tiny elites.

  Housing also gave rise to pressing recriminations. Slums, which had long disappeared, had been replaced by modern forms of accommodation, which were clean, practical and provided with what were once called modern conveniences. This was not enough for the former inhabitants of the slums, who demanded air conditioning everywhere, a telephone and television in every room, windows and automatically controlled blinds, which could be operated from the bed. As a rule they wanted more mechanical and electrical equipment, and an electronic network which was designed to avoid the need for any effort.

  Every family wanted to have its own private house with a swimming pool. This thirst for luxuries, everyone’s desire to acquire the products of science and technology without understanding the spirit of them and without having participated in the intellectual effort to discover them, was not confined to forms of accommodation. To satisfy the people new towns had to be built, in which the streets and squares were heated in winter and cooled down in summer. These cities were to be connected by a communications network large enough to avoid all congestion, even at very busy times, and by a service of flying machines which made it possible to go anywhere at any time of the day or night, with enough landing areas in the towns themselves to save time.

  This involved an enormous industrial effort, and the creation of large factories, more productive power stations and the discovery of new sources of energy. This time it was the physicists who had had to set to work, for in this case too the government had yielded: if certain people had a high level of comfort, then it coul
d not be denied to the others. Unfortunately this programme required the use of a sizeable part of the Earth’s material resources.

  ‘…And not a negligible degree of alienation of its spiritual resources,’ Betty insisted during a discussion between the three leaders.

  It was true and this observation started to inspire a kind of terror in Fawell. Scholars, those valuable minds, had to interrupt or slow down their work on fundamental research, directed towards real progress, in order to dedicate themselves to worldly matters and to satisfy the world’s excessive desire for comfort, luxury and material refinements.

  This was the point their discussion had reached when the telephone in the President’s own office rang. He was surprised and alarmed, having given instructions that he should not be disturbed, unless it was for an urgent and extremely important matter.

  Thrown into a state of panic by the incoherence of Nicolas’ comments, which were now punctuated by Ruth’s pleas, Hudson had warned the highest authorities of the WAO, who saw a connection with the previous two accidents. The medical unit was immediately alerted. An exceptional telephone discussion was then undertaken all over the world between the various scholars, medical experts, physiologists and psychologists who had looked into the case of Jim Barley and that of the other cosmonaut without being able to prescribe a remedy. Given the status of the passengers involved, the Head of the WAO took it upon himself to disturb the President.

  From the very first words the expression on Fawell’s face changed.

  ‘A third case,’ he said in a low voice. ‘This time it’s Nicolas, and Ruth is with him.’

  He pressed a button and the voice of the person he was speaking to echoed throughout the room. All three of them listened to the summary of what had happened. Fawell, incapable of any response, cast despairing glances at his two friends, as if imploring them for help. Yranne remained silent. Having studied the two previous cases in her professional capacity, the psychologist retained her composure, as she was so used to doing, and considered the matter.

  ‘What is he doing at the moment?’ she asked, as soon as the person speaking had stopped.

  The head of the WAO recognised the voice of Mrs Betty Han and replied at once, ‘He’s doing circles round the airfield, and we can’t persuade him to land. Every five minutes he is directed to change his course, which causes him to circle round.’

  ‘And he carries out these instructions?’

  ‘To the letter, but it is all he is capable of doing.’

  ‘And what if he is ordered to descend at a specific angle?’

  ‘We’ve tried. It won’t work. He had no sooner started to make the manoeuvre than he abandoned it, saying that he’d lost confidence and adding that he wanted a no visibility landing. Well, visibility is excellent…’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Betty interrupted impatiently, ‘they must make him do it.’

  ‘They thought of that… As I told you, they tried everything. That doesn’t work either.’

  ‘Why not? He gave a reason for it. I’d like to know the exact words he uttered, even if they seem to be incoherent. It’s very important. Have them repeated to you,’ Betty continued, pressing her point.

  ‘Consider that an order from the President,’ Fawell interrupted, seeming to be hanging on his colleague’s every word.

  There was a silence, and then came the reply: ‘They could only make out the following: “I can’t, I can’t… It’s the view of the runway… I tell you I can see the runway…” Then there are just incomprehensible mumblings.’

  ‘Does he still have fuel?’

  ‘Yes, lots. His aircraft has an extensive range, and he filled up before leaving.’

  ‘Stay on the line,’ Betty said. ‘Give me a couple of minutes. I’ll think about it.’

  She put her head in her hands while Fawell watched her anxiously in silence, not wanting to disturb her meditation. After a moment she stood up.

  ‘I have an idea, Fawell. He is at a station at the edge of the Sahara, isn’t he? Tell me quickly. It can’t be far from the first chains of the Atlas Mountains in Morocco?’

  ‘Scarcely more than two hundred kilometres,’ Yranne interrupted. ‘I know that area.’

  ‘And close to these mountains, there must occasionally be some mists, fogs?’

  Yranne looked her straight in the eye for a moment, then uttered an exclamation. His sharp mind had grasped what she was thinking.

  ‘And if there isn’t, we can create it when we need it,’ he exclaimed. ‘We have a meteorological station there, where some conclusive tests were carried out recently… Fawell, let me give the order. There’s not a second to lose.’

  Without waiting for the President’s reply, he rushed to a second telephone, and alerted other services, issuing feverish instructions.

  ‘What’s the name of your station? Is there an airfield nearby? Can you give me the precise coordinates?’ Betty asked.

  Yranne replied in the affirmative and showed her the data while he was waiting for a reply from the station. Betty picked up the first telephone again. Fawell was too overcome to do anything himself, and made a sign to indicate that he gave them a free hand.

  ‘This is what you’re to do,’ she said.

  While Yranne was ordering the relevant services to induce the largest possible concentration of dense clouds and to launch storms over the area, Betty sent urgent instructions to Hudson.

  After these measures had been taken, Nicolas was given a precise course, which he followed obediently, and it led him into thick fog in less than hour. There the station could take charge of the situation by radio control and guide him over the airfield, where the visibility was nil due to a storm which had been induced.

  Following the mobilisation of the various services, all communications, including the conversations between the airplane and the ground, were retransmitted via the President’s office, so he and his two friends were able to follow the drama’s happy ending in real time.

  Thus they were able to observe, with great relief, a quite remarkable fact, which did not seem to surprise the psychologist. The cosmonaut’s voice became more confident and more distinct as soon as he went into the fog. When he was in complete darkness and only being directed via the radio waves, he regained his usual calm and reacted with his customary skill to the directives issued to him by the automatic equipment.

  ‘Congratulations, Betty,’ Yranne said. ‘That was a great idea of yours.’

  Fawell was happy just to embrace her without saying a word. He had also understood.

  The no visibility landing was accomplished without any difficulty in the thickest of pea souper fogs. When Nicolas and a tearful Ruth were greeted by the station officials on the ground, he could give no explanation for his strange behaviour. His only reply to all the questions was:

  ‘I don’t know what came over me.’

  6.

  Other cases of this strange illness were reported and initially so many cosmonauts were affected that for some time it was believed that the illness was peculiar to spacemen. The signs could take very varied forms, from the benign to the occasional delirious frenzy. One such person for example, sitting dumbstruck at the driving wheel of his car, was seen to stop suddenly, when he had got himself into a position to park between two vehicles, and to stay there motionless, holding up the traffic. Then he alerted passers-by with his angry cries, imploring someone to telephone the WAO, to have someone show him the sequence of maneouvres necessary. He had become incapable of doing it by himself.

  This anxiety started to spread throughout the world, adding to the present worries of the government, and then it appeared that the illness was spreading to other types of individuals and that in fact it could happen to anyone. Despite the different ways in which it manifested itself, all the cases had a common character. And after analysing one case after another with veritable professional passion, Mrs Betty Han defined it as follows: a loss of confidence in the ego. It soon became common to re
fer to the condition by its initials only, LCE.

  Thus LCE started to wreak havoc in all classes of society and sometimes the disorder appeared farcical, but at other times it led to dreadful tragedies. In the telephone exchange of a large hotel for example, there was only one employee in charge, as all communications were carried out automatically by computer. One day this machine was put out of order by a short circuit, after functioning perfectly for several months. The employee in question, who had formerly been an expert, was observed to be incapable of putting a plug in the hole corresponding to a room number and he called urgently, shouting hysterically, for the help of a backup computer.

  In a building where, as everywhere, a constant temperature was maintained with the aid of a thermostat, the caretaker could not bring himself to perform the simple action of pressing a button to start the boilers working when an accident had caused the equipment to break down one day when it was very cold. An accountant, while travelling without the calculators he was accustomed to use, was observed to be completely incapable of settling his hotel bill because he could not count his bank notes.

  One extremely strange case which gave rise to some amusement was that of a famous writer, who, after finishing an important book, a saga of more than a thousand pages, found that he could not sign the contract presented to him by his editor. He had worked for years using a dictaphone, relying only on this and on a secretary who served him as a typist. He had thus lost all confidence in his capacity to write. His editor had to be satisfied with his verbal agreement and his marking it with a cross.

  Finally, as examples of cases in which LCE ended in tragedy, apart from the first two cosmonauts, one could cite the many sick people suffering from polio. Strangely enough, it had not been eliminated like many other illnesses. The vaccine had actually lost its efficacy and there was quite a large number of people who were affected by it. Fortunately, a cure for it was now known which did not leave any trace, but the treatment was long and meant keeping the patient in an iron lung for several months. The number of specialist hospitals as well as the perfection of the equipment made it possible to care for all sick people, so that complete success could be attained in more than ninety per cent of cases.