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‘Betty, you can answer that one.’
‘I think I can reassure you on this point,’ said the Chinese woman, screwing up her eyes, so that her eyelids were stretched. ‘I meet the most eminent of my compatriots fairly often, and I have had the opportunity to sound out their opinions cautiously on the appropriateness of such a revolution, for your plan outlined this evening is not new to me. I have anticipated for a long time that you would be inevitably forced to take action some day. The result of my enquiries is that they all think the same as you do, that is to say that an international organisation is indispensable. This is not new, and they also think that the only viable plan is yours. It is their opinion too that the only central government capable of establishing itself and worthy of running the earth is a scientific government. Believe me, they have had enough, like you, of the childishness of their leaders. Stupidity is, I’m afraid, also international.’
‘I am delighted to hear you say such things. But what about the peoples? As a psychologist, what is your opinion on the matter? Will they accept this revolution?’
Mrs Betty Han took her time before replying, and she screwed up her eyes even more, which in her was a sign of intense thought.
‘It’s possible,’ she said finally. ‘It will be difficult. I would like to know first what kind of action you envisage. 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 express
ed his conviction forcibly that technical experts and industrialists would doubtless be useful, but that science should 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 still working. He had already received the Nobel Prize. I was the oldest of his assistants and functioned as the head of the laboratory, with O’Kearn its real spirit.
‘I had been there two years, with a dozen researchers younger than me, but all of them qualified (the boss asked me to fire mercilessly anyone incompetent and even those he suspected of lacking imagination). All of them possessed enviable university degrees and had several years’ practical experience in physics. Important discoveries have emerged from this laboratory.’
‘We know all this.’
‘Fine. In addition to very delicate apparatus, we also had electric motors, some of them ordinary ones, and one in particular which was the most up-to-date model of a synchronous motor, of quite low power, like the ones you find in all workshops. A mechanic took care of these machines.
‘One evening I left the laboratory, leaving two of my best researchers there, as they wanted to continue an experiment for a few more hours. I was at home, ready to go to bed, when one of the two knocked at my door. He had a crestfallen look about him.
‘“What’s wrong,” I asked, “has there been an accident?”
‘I was worried because the ongoing experiment involved considerable energy, and there was a risk, if it was poorly conducted, of reducing the laboratory, and with it part of the town, to ashes. But I had confidence in my two assistants. I was right. He reassured me quickly.
‘“No. It’s just a little problem, but it needs to be put right as quickly as possible. I preferred to come and ask your advice.”
‘“You did the right thing. What is it?”
