Desperate Games Read Online Free Page A

Have you established a practical plan for taking over power?’
    They looked at each other, somewhat at a loss. Not even the draft of a plan had seen the light, yet alone a practical plan. But neither Fawell nor the other physicists were particularly worried about it. They knew that they always ended up by finding an application for the right idea, or as they said in their jargon, an experiment always confirms a correct theory sooner or later. Well, their basic idea was irrefutable. The mathematician Yranne set it out once more, condensing it into the pure form of a syllogism, of which the premises were obvious: ‘That which is intolerable must not be tolerated. Well, the disintegration of the world into dust, caused by nations led by asses, is intolerable. Therefore it is necessary to put an end to this situation.’
    ‘But there are nevertheless practical difficulties,’ Betty insisted.
    ‘But don’t we usually manage to overcome all difficulties?’
    ‘Where are the difficulties?’ Zarratoff interrupted vehemently. We are faced with ignorant people and we have the power to give them knowledge. All you other physicists, haven’t you invented weapons against which there is no defence?’
    ‘We have created them, but unfortunately we are no longer in control of them,’ Fawell said with regret. Our discoveries are now in the hands of an army of industrialists, technicians and workers. We would need the total support of all of them to be in control and to impose ourselves by threats. But can we count on their loyal support? And do we want to? For my part I can foresee serious dangers in doing so.’
    He was not the only one to nurture this fear. Nothing conflicted so much with the scholars’ way of thinking as industrial technology. After a short debate they all agreed that such an alliance would be dangerous and contrary to the ideal of their revolution, which was that of pure science.
    ‘If we suppose that we could succeed in that way,’ Yranne concluded, ‘then our enterprise would end up inevitably in the conquest of the world by a mafia of great industrialists, with basic goals and a mechanical administration which would be oriented towards the development of easing material concerns –’
    ‘Which we do not want at any price,’ Fawell interrupted dramatically, having seen examples of this on a reduced scale in his own country.
    ‘…or it would end up being a world dictatorship of the proletariat –’
    ‘A catastrophic prospect in this day and age!’ the Russian Zarratoff now exclaimed.
    ‘That is also my opinion,’ said Mrs Betty Han with approval.
    Fawell expressed his conviction forcibly that technical experts and industrialists would doubtless be useful, but that scienceshould retain absolute control and leadership of the action they envisaged. All were in agreement on this point.
    ‘But we would need the threat of a new unstoppable army, which would be kept secret by the scholars,’ continued Zarratoff. ‘Doesn’t such a thing exist? I am only an astronomical theorist and Yranne is only a mathematician. Neither of us are capable of realising practical things. But the rest of you, you physicists, haven’t you got some little unstoppable death-ray up your sleeve, the mere threat of which would place all those stupid idiots at our mercy?’
    ‘Impossible,’ replied Fawell. ‘I don’t say that such an invention is inconceivable if we devote ourselves to it seriously, but that’s another case in which the practical realisation would require the assistance of a technical and industrial army. That brings us back to the original problem.’
    ‘If even your physics is unable to bring about any material action, then it’s scarcely encouraging for our plans.’
    ‘Listen, Zarratoff,’ said Fawell, ‘I’ll tell you a story which will make you consider the possibilities available to us. It happened a few years ago in the laboratory of O’Kearn, the greatest living physicist, where I am