Desperate Games by Pierre Boulle

Science Squares had appeared, at famous sites whose famous names had been mercilessly sacrificed: Red Square in Moscow, Place Charles de Gaulle in Paris, and Trafalgar Square in London. They were the starting places for all of the events. On each of them a grandiose monument was to be set up, in memory of the great victories of the human mind. The plans had been drawn up but, as the festival could not be postponed, provisional installations had been put in their place, an archway of greenery, made of intertwined olive branches, at the request of the peace
Nobels
. The procession stopped at the base of this arch. Flanked by O’Kearn and Sir Alex Keene, who had insisted on keeping close to the President, Fawell placed a simple crown of laurel in front of a column dedicated to the martyrs of science. Betty had suggested this ceremony, which would create an atmosphere of reverence, suitable for preparing the crowd for the emotions which would be skilfully evoked at intervals throughout the day. Then he withdrew while the orchestra struck up the world anthem.
     
    The composition of this anthem had caused quite a lot of discussion among the members of the government. Some of them were of the opinion that there was already an international song, and that it was only necessary to adapt this ‘Internationale’,modifying a few phrases to make them express the glory of science. But the opposing opinion prevailed. The majority were of the opinion that the spirit of revolution was not that of the proletariat, and that, even if some passages could be made use of, by adopting it they would be tactlessly reawakening political feelings which no longer made sense and which, on the contrary, the scholars wanted to stifle.
    It was therefore decided to compose a new song, but so as not to puzzle people too much, who could still remember having their own national tones in their ears, and again on Betty’s advice, it was to be inspired just as much by the music as by the words of the national anthems of the now defunct countries.
    It was the first time for it to be played in public and Fawell listened to it with curiosity and a little apprehension. The greatest composers of the time had worked on the music. They had succeeded quite well in the exceptional achievement of blending together into an almost harmonious whole rhythms in which, by turns, one could recognise ‘God Save the King’, ‘La Marseillaise’, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’, ‘The Internationale’, and not forgetting Thailand’s ‘Sansoen Phra Barami’, Turkey’s ‘Istiklal Marsi’, India’s ‘Jana Gana Mana’, and many other former national melodies.
    The words provided the greatest difficulty. The government scholars had at first come to an agreement about having a text to the glory of science according to their own instructions but the 
Nobels
, who considered this to be an extremely important decision, demanded that they be consulted. When they were shown the rough draft, many of them considered it far from satisfactory. The peace
Nobels
demanded that the emphasis should be more on their speciality. The literary
Nobels
saw before them nothing more than the work of a versifier. So each of them set about proposing corrections, only to end up finally with a composition in which there was no mention of the scientific ideal and which was unanimously turned down. The needto match the words with the variations in rhythm only added to the difficulty of the task.
    Finally however a text appeared with which everyone could agree. It started in the following way, based on a melody inspired by
God Save The King
, and which was selected as a solemn overture by the musical experts for its almost religious quality:
    Ra-di-ant un-i-verse,
    We are your chil-dren
    All your chil-dren.
    The music then followed the rhythm of the former ‘Internationale,’ with the following words:
    We’re thirst-ing after much know-ledge,
    We want to pe-netrate its laws,
    And find the se-cret