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‘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.’
