Desperate Games (17 page)

After the shock of the first bombardment, the focus of the greatest interest shifted to the sky with the appearance of the fighters. Some of the Alpha physicists were rather beside themselves with surprise when they noticed that the enemy airplanes were almost as numerous as their own, as fast as them, and causing serious damage. There were two reasons for their surprise: firstly, they could never have imagined that the biologists would have been capable of building so many effective aircraft within one year; and secondly, what is more, their judgement had been clouded by historical memories and the idea of their enormous aerial superiority had become firmly fixed in their minds with the force of a scientific axiom. But the Betas, even if they had also studied history carefully, had shown imagination and concluded that they should focus their effort on fighter airplanes and on anti-aircraft defence, with the result that the sky was soon lined with the criss-crossing smoke trails of bombers that had been shot down. The result was new images which television transmissions were able to focus on to obtain amazing effects.

After about an hour and a half, when all possible variations of these effects had been exhausted, the cameras showed another aspect of the spectacle, concentrating on a different squadron of airplanes, flying at a higher altitude and going towards the interior of the continent. It was the parachutists, who were soon released in a more peaceful location, which was disturbed only by echoes of the distant bombing.

But there was another unpleasant surprise in store for Alpha, when the parachutists were no more than about a hundred metres from the ground: a new theatre of operations suddenly appeared from the shadows, illuminated by the harsh light from a network of powerful projectors, and just as this happened machine-guns started shooting lethal rounds at the easy targets presented by the men hanging on their lines.

‘Treachery!’ shouted Yranne.

And it did seem to be true that the Betas had been given precise information about all the landing areas, for the same spectacle occurred everywhere the parachutists were dropped, with the result that only very few reached the ground alive, where they were immediately massacred.

‘Treachery,’ O’Kearn repeated, looking suspiciously again in the direction of his colleague, Sir Alex Keane.

‘Treachery,’ the latter agreed, content with smiling in a self-satisfied way.

Indeed it was as a result of treachery that the secret plan for parachuting men in had fallen into the hands of the defenders. One of the directors of the game appeared on the screen and revealed the fact, adding a brief commentary emphasising that such actions were completely in accordance with the rules. The
Nobel
physiologists could not contain their enthusiasm and applauded excessively, drowning out the physicists’ protests.

This preliminary phase of the landings lasted much longer than predicted. As the Beta fighters managed to thwart the actions of the heavy bombers, many of the coastal batteries continued to fire, which created a certain disorder among the fleet and paralysed it for most of the day, while the Alpha command, using up its reserves, brought in other airplanes, dive bombers this time, to smash the big enemy guns.

They managed to do it, but at the expense of heavy losses. Order was re-established in the convoys and the Alphas could continue with their plan. But it was not until nightfall that the first attackers could actually set foot on the continent, although they had been hoping to do so since morning, as history had suggested. But such vagaries only heightened interest. With renewed enthusiasm, the whole world greeted the fireworks display of the tracer shells spewed out during the night from the machine guns, which had been silent till then, and their carefully
concealed bunkers that had resisted all bomb attacks. The Beta defenders had skilfully worked out what they needed to do and had organised a whole range of surprises for their assailants. The latter suffered fresh losses, but the survivors at least managed to set foot on the continent, advance a little, and dig themselves in, before unloading their equipment, the light things first, but then more and more heavy items: the tanks and artillery.

A furious battle thus took place on the beaches of Normandy, and the cameramen were hard put to follow all its phases, but they nevertheless managed to capture the most colourful elements: bouts of hand-to-hand combat between commandos in the shadows with furtive bursts of sub-machine guns and individual duels with knives. They also captured the destruction of nests of machine guns by flamethrowers, artillery duels, attacks and counter-attacks by tanks, the progression of the infantry as it crawled along followed by furious attacks. For three days and three nights, ever ruthless and without respite, the whole violent fantasy of the games unfolded before the amazed eyes of the world, with all its colourful nuances and striking contrasts. The television viewers did not experience a moment’s weariness, because the spectacle was so well composed, the production was perfect, the organisers had harmonised the disparate elements so consciously and artistically, and both teams’ players had shown such courage and fervour that they both deserved victory.

After three days of relentless fighting however, the members of the Beta camp were absolutely distraught. It seemed that, despite the efforts of their champions and the terrible losses inflicted on their opponents, the latter were managing to stay on the continent, reinforcing their ranks with more men and equipment and making further progress. The television showed that several beachheads were about to be joined up and that the Alphas were managing to establish a continuous and strong front, which would no doubt serve as a basis for a decisive attack. In the amphitheatre the physiologist
Nobels
could not disguise their
anxiety and had mournful expressions. Among them only Sir Alex appeared wholly unconcerned, looking as serene as ever.

There were obviously secret reasons for his confidence and he was not to be disappointed. It was just as the physicists’ clan were beginning to claim victory and rejoice ostentatiously that a new development suddenly occurred, causing a huge sensation throughout the world and completely reversing the situation within hours.

The first sign was captured by a cameraman in a relatively quiet corner, amongst a group of opponents. While a few of the players were crowding around a big gun that had just been unloaded in separate pieces, one of them was seen to put his hand to his forehead, sway, and then collapse without a shot being fired. His companions, just as surprised as the television viewers, were moving closer to the body writhing on the ground when a second player was struck down in the same way. Soon there was a third one, then another, and yet another.

As one of the games directors had told them to be sure to look out for any unusual incidents, the cameramen checked other nearby groups. The same phenomenon was repeated in all of them: the Alpha players were falling like flies, some individually, and others in groups of two, three, four or more. An entire company was decimated within moments.

‘Treachery!’ O’Kearn bellowed this time. ‘I know who’s behind this…’

The rest of his words were lost in the tumult in the amphitheatre caused by this incomprehensible massacre, but the scholar was looking fixedly at his colleague Sir Alex Keene, who was still smiling contentedly. Mrs Betty Han screwed up her beautiful eyes and was thinking things over in silence.

The affliction was spreading. It appeared on the vessels which were now anchored near the beaches and the landing craft which were moving away from them, loaded with men and equipment,
indiscriminately attacking the second class players crammed onto the decks and their leaders wearing stars, the sailors busy handling winches and the mechanics in the engine rooms.

It was in fact sudden death: after a few spasms, the victims stayed motionless, their limbs stiff, their eyes wide open, in an unmistakeable posture. This death also attacked the sky, where one after another Alpha aircraft fell as their pilots were also overcome.

The noise of the game gradually died down. The gaps in Alpha’s ranks meant that they could no longer man their equipment and soon the guns were silent all over the battlefields. This was strange because the Beta camp seemed to be immune to the mysterious affliction. None of their players had been affected by it. On the contrary, cameras revealed them to be in great shape, even laughing and joking, their morale suddenly raised extremely high. It seemed that they had been given the order to cease firing.

Complete silence now reigned over the Alpha side, in the empty sky, on the sea dotted with boats tossed around by the whim of the sea, and on the land, where the survivors looked stupefied at the ground strewn with twisted corpses. Silence had also descended in front of all the television screens. The world trembled as it waited patiently for explanations. One of the games directors announce that an enquiry was underway and that they had decided to suspend the spectacle until the outcome was known.

The intermission lasted almost two hours. Interruptions of this kind were in fact permitted if the competition went on for a long time, to allow the viewers to relax and discuss the first results. The players had to stay in position without attempting to gain
any advantage while they waited for the game to resume. Some of them respected the regulation, but the Alphas could not stop themselves falling on the ground and dying in horrible convulsions. The affliction did not recognise any truce. To make the television viewers wait, the cameramen took close-up images of the victims, who all had the same appearance: contorted limbs, wrinkled and flabby skin, hollow cheeks, blue lips, sunken eyes under discoloured brows.

It did not take the enquiry long to confirm the suspicion that these symptoms had aroused. And moreover the Betas did not try to conceal the truth and their leader himself appeared on the screens to make an announcement which dispelled all ambiguity.

Pleased finally to find a chance to make use of their expertise, the doctors, physiologists, bacteriologists, all those in fact who could be grouped under the banner of biology, had conducted experiments in great secret on the cholera bacterium and had managed to develop it to such a degree of virulence that it had devastating effects.

‘It’s a disgraceful trick!’ Fawell exclaimed, brandishing a fist at the person on screen, as if he could hear him. ‘It’s unfair to use such a weapon, it’s an invention which did not exist in the period of the landings, and is therefore completely forbidden by the rules of the game.’

It was Sir Alex Keene, the famous bacteriology expert, who undertook to reply to him. He did so with exquisite politeness and a contemptuous smile.

‘Our wise and honourable president,’ he said, ‘is certainly to be excused, as a physicist, for being ignorant of the fact that
vibrio cholera
(which I shall translate for him as the comma-shaped cholera bacillus) has existed since a period well before the landings. I take the liberty of reminding him, if he has forgotten it, or of informing him, if he does not know it, that Thucydides has left us a description of an epidemic which ravaged Athens in the fifth century before Jesus Christ, an epidemic which we
biologists can attribute with certainty to the appearance of this bacterium. And closer to our time, in the seventh century, India became a victim of this scourge, about which we can have no doubt after reading the pages which Susrata devoted to this event. Well, the rules of the game, and you cannot ignore them, Mr President, specify that the players have the right to
perfect
material which existed during the period concerned. This is exactly what we have done. We –’

‘We!’ O’Kearn thundered, ‘We! You have betrayed yourself.’

‘By “we” I mean, my dear colleague, as you well know, the valorous champions of the Beta team and the eminent experts who were duly allocated to them. It was they, who, as I was trying to tell you, have simply perfected this
vibrio
, using processes which have not called upon any subsequent fundamental discovery. Patience and a process of selection were sufficient for our scholars. I kept myself informed about their work, but I did not interfere in any way. It’s therefore all perfectly in order.’

But Fawell and all the physicists were convinced of the contrary. The President was opening his mouth to protest when O’Kearn tapped him on the shoulder in a familiar way, and made a sign to him to be quiet. The great
Nobel
himself seemed to have been appeased.

‘But it’s him, I tell you,’ Fawell protested. ‘You can see right through him. It’s exactly what he used to do research on.’

‘I’m well aware of it,’ said O’Kearn.

‘But we’ll have to cancel the game, and conduct a serious enquiry. The physicists have won. The referees cannot accept…’

‘Calm down. That won’t help things. We’ll never be able to prove it.’

‘Well then?’

‘Well, just be quiet and listen to me. For a long time I’ve been suspecting that he was cooking up some kind of move of this nature…’

He continued to speak in a low voice. Gradually the physicist’s indignation subsided, giving way to a succession of confused feelings, revealed one after the other in his facial expressions. When the
Nobel
stopped talking, the President of the World seemed to be in the grip of a strange perplexity. He opened his mouth as though to speak but in the end kept quiet.

‘Anyway, we can’t do anything about it,’ O’Kearn concluded. ‘All we can do is wait.’

They took their seats again in front of the screen, on which the Beta leader was just finishing his explanations. He was describing in detail and rather smugly, how, from the start of the game, a few shells loaded with bacteria had been sufficient to infect the territory of the beaches and a large area of the sea. It took three days for the infection to break out and then it took effect with lightning speed, as they had been able to tell from the experimental demonstration.

He then reassured everyone by adding that there was no fear of their seeing the epidemic spread throughout the world. The danger zone was strictly controlled. Moreover the biologists had perfected a vaccine that provided complete immunity and they possessed considerable stocks of it. Their scientists were fully employed in producing it. The proof of this was that all the Betas, who had been injected with the vaccine before the competition, were in perfectly good health. He finished by commenting that all the referees, cameramen and television crews were also unharmed, because the Beta doctors had managed to find some pretext to vaccinate them as well. All this was done for humanitarian reasons and so as not to spoil the outcome for the spectators, who would now be able to be present.

Now it was Yranne’s turn to protest angrily. He had been showing growing signs of restlessness since the Alphas’ failure first became evident. He had obviously not taken this bacteriological innovation into account. His probability calculation was
fundamentally flawed and he found himself about to lose the enormous bets he had placed. This time it was Zarratoff who set about calming his wrath. Sitting next to him the astronomer had not shown any signs of resentment and seemed to retain absolute confidence in the outcome of the game.

‘Don’t speak,’ he said, ‘just look and listen. I’m sure the Alphas will be victorious in the end.’

‘How can you say that, when they’re dying every minute, even during the intermission? The team is out of action.’

‘I tell you again that for me it’s an absolute certainty.’

Mrs Han, who was sitting next to them, listened to their conversation and looked at the astronomer with intense curiosity. Yranne shrugged his shoulders angrily, but the calm and confidence of his friend ended up silencing him. What is more there was no point in protesting any more. The jury’s decision had just been announced and it had been concluded that the regulation had been respected. There was no possibility of appeal. Even the President himself could not intervene. The game continued.