Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: Come down for blast off x minus five four three
two x minus one fire from the far horizons of
the unknown. Come transcribe tales of new dimensions in time
and space. These are stories of the future adventures in
which you'll live in a million, could be years, on
a thousand, maybe worlds. The National Broadcasting Company, in cooperation
with Street and Smith, publishers of Astounding Science Fiction, presents.
Speaker 3: Minus minus minus minus minus.
Speaker 4: One one one.
Speaker 1: The Night Story Ray Bradbury's Tale the Vault.
Speaker 3: This is the office of doctor David MacLean, resident psychiatrist
of the New Chicago Institute of Human Engineering.
Speaker 5: All right, miss Carver, will you take this please to
Charles S. Howorth, Senior psychiatrist, New Chicago Institute of Human Engineering.
The following constitutes my report on the case of George
and Lydia Abbott, which we discussed by telephone. Subject George
relates onset of symptoms to the purchase of a sixty
thousand dollars the sound proofed Happy Life home under narcosynthesis.
During initial interviews, Subject described the experience of the following manner.
Miss Carver, would you play back the sonic record of
the initial.
Speaker 1: Interview we'd always wanted one, and then we could afford it.
So go on, mister Abbott, tell me about the home.
The home, Well, it was supposed to do everything the
agent told us, and it did. I guess it clothed us,
fed us and rocked us to sleep, played and sang
and it was good to us, very good. Sure, tell
me about the nursery. The nursery. The nursery.
Speaker 5: Ah, it was completely automatic, completely automatic.
Speaker 1: There were crystalline walls that wavered from two to three dimensions.
There were pseudo textured floors that shifted from brick to
dirt to waving grass. The nursery was the best, But
then we wanted the best for the children. Doctor, I
must be crazy. We have no children. What about Peter
and Wendy? They are your children? Oh no, no, we
have no children, doctor, we have no children. All right,
Miss Carver to continue.
Speaker 5: After three sessions, the subject was able to recall and
accept the idea that he had two children. He described
the first day.
Speaker 1: All right, Peter and Wendy, this is your nursery.
Speaker 6: What's so special about a nursery, Dad.
Speaker 7: Plenty, Just go in and see, do we have to
You'll be surprised, gee, go ahead.
Speaker 6: I'm scared. I'm not. Hey, it's nice in here, it is.
Come on in, Wendy, boy, look at the pictures on
the walls. They're real.
Speaker 1: They're almost real. You can change them anyway you like,
just by thinking.
Speaker 8: Go on, Indy.
Speaker 6: Well all right, mommy, Hey, Wendy, Look what I can
do with the pictures. That's the right rabbit from oz
in Wonderland. Sure, I just thought about it, and there
it was. Let me try, Peter, let me try. We'll
go ahead.
Speaker 1: Just think.
Speaker 6: How about wizard and us. I want to see wizard
and us.
Speaker 1: Oh, there, there we are.
Speaker 8: They like it.
Speaker 1: Why shouldn't they. All I have to do is think,
and they've got whatever they want in three dimensions, color, sound,
and smell.
Speaker 4: Oh it's nice that we can give them all these advantages.
Speaker 1: Sure, what else are we working for? Huh? Well, what
do you want to do this?
Speaker 8: Even the Petersons asked us over for bridge.
Speaker 1: Oh, we don't have to worry about the kids. They'll
be all right in the nursery. Come on, Lydia, we
deserve a night out.
Speaker 3: And in the nursery, the walls were a kaleidoscope of
time and space and imagination. The green forest of Sherwood
and the quiet forms of Robin and his merry men
gave way to the role of the high seas.
Speaker 1: And the smell of salt in the air.
Speaker 3: As Sir Henry Morgan sailed into the harbor at Jamaica,
and behind the crystalline courtz walls, the vacuum tubes and
grids and banks of metal image tapes spun quietly and efficiently,
erasing the line between illusion and reality. Of course, the
electric bill from Consolidated Utilities was tremendous, but it was worthless.
The Happy Life Home breathed contentedly as life he did,
with soft automaticity, as guaranteed in the brochure and bill
of sale.
Speaker 8: George M.
Speaker 4: George, I wish you'd look at the Nursery's what's wrong
with it? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I was in the nursery last week. It's perfectly all right.
It's different now, what do you mean different?
Speaker 8: I want you to come and see.
Speaker 1: Are the kids there?
Speaker 4: No, Madge Allen took them to a show along with
her kids. That's why I want you to look at
it now before they get back.
Speaker 1: All right, what you expect me to do? I don't know.
I'm no mechanic.
Speaker 8: This isn't a question of a leaky faucet.
Speaker 1: George. All right, dear, I'm coming. The nursery light flicked
on as they came down the hall.
Speaker 3: The relays clicked in, the tubes warmed, and chemical odor,
banks and pipes bubbled into life as they paused before
the closed door.
Speaker 8: Go ahead, George.
Speaker 3: On all sides, in three dimensions stretched, the hot, tired
landscapes of an African velt reproduced to the last stick
and pebble and bit of straw. The ceiling above them
became a sky with the hot yellow sun, a wind
blew in from the baked veltland, the hot straw smell
of lion grass, the cool green smell of the hidden
water hole, the great rusty smell of animals, the howl
of the jackal in the distance, and the papery rustling
of the great vultures that wheeled and circled under the
yellow burning sun.
Speaker 1: Let's get out of this sun. It's a little too reel, George.
Speaker 8: You promised you'd look around.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't see anything.
Speaker 8: Wait a minute.
Speaker 1: There are the vultures, filthy creatures.
Speaker 4: There there are the lions far over that way as
I see.
Speaker 8: Them, they're on their way to the water hole.
Speaker 1: They've just eaten some animal, a zebra or a baby
giraffe maybe, Can you see it?
Speaker 8: Are you sure?
Speaker 1: It's a little late to be sure. Nothing over there
but clean bone and the vultures swooping down to what's left.
Speaker 8: Did you hear that scream?
Speaker 1: What scream about?
Speaker 6: A moment ago?
Speaker 1: Sorry?
Speaker 8: No, oh, here come the lions, George Frightening take it
easy video.
Speaker 1: They're just illusion.
Speaker 3: The lions were fifteen feet away, so real, so startlingly real.
You could feel the prickling fur on your hand, and
your mouth was stuffed with the dusty upholstery smell of
their heated pelts, and the yellow of them was in
your eyes like the yellow of an exquisite tapestry. The
yellows of lions and summer grass, and the sound of
the matted lion lungs exhaling on the silent noontide, and
the smell of meat from the panting, dripping mark.
Speaker 4: Joj, I'm afraid they're so really an illusion lydia, that's all.
Speaker 1: Watch out, how quick.
Speaker 4: They almost got it.
Speaker 1: I'll take it easy, Calm down. I could feel it
get a hold of yourself with here. They aren't real wolves,
that's all it is, crystalloid wolves. They look so, of
course they do, but it's all dimensional color reactionary process,
a metal tape film behind glass screens. It's all oderphonics
and sonics. Oh here, let's take my head.
Speaker 4: I'm afraid did you see?
Speaker 8: Did you feel it? It's too real?
Speaker 4: And we've got to tell Wendy and Peter not to
read anymore on Africa. Of course, of course I want
you to lock that place up.
Speaker 1: But you know how difficult Peter is about that. I
punished him last week by locking the nursery for an
afternoon and he threw a tent from and Wendy too
where they live for the nurses.
Speaker 8: It's got to be locked, That's all there is to it.
Speaker 1: You've been working too hard Lydia. You need a rest.
Speaker 8: I don't know. Maybe I don't have enough to do.
I have too much time to think.
Speaker 4: All I do is set the menu selected dials at
the beginning of the week.
Speaker 1: But that's the whole idea.
Speaker 4: The house is automatic, I know, but couldn't we turn
it off for about a week and take a vacation.
Speaker 1: You mean you want to fry eggs for.
Speaker 4: Me, and darn socks. I feel like I don't belong here.
The house is wife and mother and maid. How can
I compete with the African.
Speaker 8: Belts, George?
Speaker 4: Those lions can't get out of there, can they?
Speaker 1: Of course not, Dear, I don't think about it anymore.
They ate along.
Speaker 3: He sat idly, watching the dining room table produce warm
dishes of food from its mechanical interior.
Speaker 1: You forgot to catch up, sh That's better. It wouldn't
hurt to lock the children out of the nursery for
a while.
Speaker 3: It was clear that they had been spending too much
time in Africa.
Speaker 1: But Sun, he could feel it on his neck.
Speaker 3: Still, like a hot paw and a lions and the
smell of blood. Remarkable how the nursery caught the telepathic
emanations of the children's minds and created a life to
fulfill their desires. The children thought zebras, and there were zebras,
son son, giraffes, giraffes, death and death.
Speaker 1: They were so young. But long before you knew what death.
Speaker 3: Was, you were wishing it on someone else. But this,
the long hot African belt, the awful death in the
Jaws of a Lion and repeated it again and.
Speaker 1: Again and again. The children came home dutifully at eight thirty.
Speaker 4: Hi Mom, Hi Pop?
Speaker 8: Do you want something to eat?
Speaker 1: Deer?
Speaker 8: We're just having dessert.
Speaker 6: We're full of strawberry ice cream and hot dog. We'll
just sit and watch.
Speaker 1: Sure, uh, Peter, tell us about the nursery. The nursery
all about Africa and everything.
Speaker 6: I don't understand.
Speaker 1: Well, your mother and I were just traveling through Africa
with Roden Reil.
Speaker 6: There's no Africa in the nursery.
Speaker 1: Oh, come now, Peter, we know better.
Speaker 6: I don't remember any Africa. Do you win? Huh? Go
run and see huh. Sure, I'll be right now.
Speaker 1: Wendy, come back here, Wendy.
Speaker 6: Oh, she'll be right back.
Speaker 8: Pop.
Speaker 1: She doesn't have to. I've seen it.
Speaker 6: Come on, sure, Pop, but Wendy, you'll tell us.
Speaker 1: Open the door.
Speaker 6: See, Dottie, it's.
Speaker 1: Not in Africa.
Speaker 6: It's floddy like in Bandy. There go the deer. See
it is in Africa.
Speaker 1: I see it isn't Go to bed, but it isn't
nine o'clock. You heard me go to bed?
Speaker 6: Okay, good night, Mom, good night, Pop, good night.
Speaker 8: Good night dear, I'll be right here.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, look at this.
Speaker 4: What is it?
Speaker 1: This is the corner where the lions were, isn't what
is that?
Speaker 8: You picked up.
Speaker 1: An old wallet of mine. There's a smell of hot
grass on it, the smell of a lion. It's wet
with saliva. It's been chewed, George.
Speaker 8: Those smears her blood.
Speaker 1: Come on out. Now, let's go to bed. But in
the middle of the night he was still awake, and
he knew his wife was awake.
Speaker 4: George, how did your wallet get in the nursery?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Wendy must have changed the walls from
the African velt. I'm going to keep it locked. Maybe
it isn't good for the children. My father used to say.
Children are like carpets. They should be stepped on occasionally.
We've never lifted a hand. They're spoiled. And where spoiled.
I think I'll have doctor McLean come tomorrow morning and
have a look at Africa.
Speaker 4: But it isn't Africa now, it's Florida and Bambi.
Speaker 1: I have a feeling it'll be Africa again before then.
Speaker 3: Although they're automatic, sum no beds tried hard. The two
adults could not be rocked to sleep for another hour.
Speaker 1: A smell of cats.
Speaker 3: Was in the night air, and in the morning the
stove cooked French toast, and the dining room table poured
the syrup and melted butter.
Speaker 6: Pop, you aren't gonna lock up the nursery for good,
are you?
Speaker 1: That all depends on what I'm You and your sister.
Speaker 8: We feel you should have some variety here.
Speaker 6: I wouldn't want the nursery locked up ever.
Speaker 1: Well. As a matter of fact, we're thinking of turning
the whole house off for about a month, sort of
camping out.
Speaker 4: Be fun for a change, now, don't you think so, Wendy, No.
Speaker 6: It'd be Oh. I don't want to do anything but
look and listen and smell. What else is there to do?
Speaker 1: Oh? All right, all right, go play in Africa?
Speaker 6: Are you going to shut off the house soon?
Speaker 1: We're considering it.
Speaker 6: I don't think you better consider it any more.
Speaker 1: Pop, I won't have any threats from you.
Speaker 6: Okay, Pop, Come on, Wendy, let's get back.
Speaker 3: After breakfast. Doctor David McLean arrived.
Speaker 5: I saw the nursery last year, George. It looked all
right to me. You didn't notice anything unusual. No, the
patterns showed the usual violence, a tendency towards slight paranoia.
All children feel persecuted by their parents are perfectly normal.
There there it is suppose we take a look at it.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: They entered without knocking and sent the children out. The
screams had faded, and the lions were feeding quietly under
the trees.
Speaker 1: I wish I could see what they really How long
has this been going on a little over a month?
Certainly doesn't feel good. I don't want feelings, I want facts.
Speaker 5: George psychologists never saw a fact in his life. He
knows about feelings. And this doesn't feel good. And my
advice to you is to have the whole room torn
down and your children brought to me every day for
the next.
Speaker 1: Year of a treatment. Is it that bad? I'm afraid so,
you know.
Speaker 5: That's why the nursery was developed, originally to let us
examine the patterns left on the wall by a child's mind.
Speaker 1: But what is it? What's wrong with Peter and Wendy.
It's hard to say. I haven't punished them more than average. Oh,
I took away a few gadgets last week. I locked
the nursery to show I meant business.
Speaker 5: You've let this room replace you and your wife and
your children's affections. This room is their real father and mother,
and now you come along and want to shut it.
But you can feel the hatred coming out of that sky. George,
turn everything off, the nursery, the automatic kitchen, the whole
automatic house to start now. But won't the shock be
too much for the time? I don't want them going
any deeper. Let's get out of here. Never liked these rooms.
Speaker 1: Those lions look real, don't they. I don't suppose there's
any way what that they could become real, not that
I know, some flaw in the machinery tampering. No, I
don't imagine the room will like being turned off. Nothing
you ever likes to die, even a room. I wonder
if it hates me for turning it off. Parah, No
air is thick today? Hello? Is this your scaff stained
brown blood? That's Lydia's come on the main fuse boxes
out here, Go ahead, pull the switch. Yeah, it's off.
The two children were in hysterics. They screamed and kicked
and threw things.
Speaker 3: They yelled and sobbed and swore and jumped on the
furniture weeping.
Speaker 1: It's off, and it stays off. The whole house dies
as of now. He marched around the house, cutting switches
and pulling fuses.
Speaker 6: Don't let them do it. Don't let Pop kill everything.
I hate you, I hate you.
Speaker 1: Insults won't catch you anywhere.
Speaker 6: I wish you were dead.
Speaker 1: We were for a long while. Now we're gonna start
really living instead of being handled. And besides, we're going
to live once more.
Speaker 6: Daddy, just once more, one more minute of the nursery.
That's all. Just one more minute, Oh.
Speaker 4: George, it can't hurt really.
Speaker 1: Oh all right, all right, only shut up one minute
and that's the end. Hoerever.
Speaker 6: Gee, thanks Pop, Thanks, and.
Speaker 1: Then we're going on a vacation. McLean is coming in
half an hour to help us out. Lydia, turn on
the nursery for just a minute.
Speaker 6: Oh boy, come on, Wendy, come on. Thanks Daddy, thanks
a lot.
Speaker 1: Just one minute. Remember now, would I put those suitcases, Lydia.
Speaker 4: Don't shout, George, I'm right here. Did you leave them
alone in the nurse Well, I've got to get ready, George.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess we better get them out of there
before they get involved with those beasts. Again. Ho ho,
Come here, yady, Come on quick, Wendy Peter, what's the matter?
Hurry up? Open the nursery, Wendy, Peter.
Speaker 4: They aren't anywhere, Wendy.
Speaker 1: Peter, Peter the door. Open the door. They locked up
from the outside.
Speaker 8: Peter, Peter, Wendy Peter, open the door.
Speaker 1: Let us help Peter, open the door. It's time to go.
Open the door.
Speaker 8: George, the lions.
Speaker 1: Peter, dear hear me, open this door.
Speaker 4: All roundness, George.
Speaker 9: Sun Son, dear hemmy, let us out.
Speaker 3: When doctor David McLean came half hour later, he found
the two children in the nurseries, sitting in the center
of the open glade, eating a picnic lunch.
Speaker 1: Beyond them was the water hole in the yellow veltland.
Above was the hot sun. At a distant doctor McLean saw.
Speaker 3: The lions fighting and clawing, and then settling down to
feed in silence under the shady trees.
Speaker 1: Hi, kids, were your mom and dad?
Speaker 6: Oh, they'll be here directly.
Speaker 1: Good, we've got to get along. He squinted at the
lions with his hands up to his eyes. Now they
were done feeding, and they moved to the water hole
to drink.
Speaker 3: A shadow flickered as the vultures dropped down from the
blazing sky to finish what the lions left Doctor mcgreen.
Speaker 6: Doctor mcgreen, huh, what have a cup of tea?
Speaker 5: Which concludes my report to date. There were no lions,
of course, not in a physical sense. Lydia and George
were devoured. However, almost as surely as if there had
been lions, Their personalities were devoured by the mechanistic marvels
which had usurped their role as parents. All four members
of the family are under intensive therapy now and are
doing as well as can be expected. Send that by
teleroop misus owen would you ask George Abbott to step inside?
Speaker 1: I'm ready for him now.
Speaker 2: You have just heard X minus one, presented by the
National Broadcasting Company in cooperation with Street and Smith, publishers
of astounding science fiction. Tonight by transcription, X minus one
has brought you the Velt, written by Ray Bradbury and
adapted for radio by Ernest Cannoy. Featured in the cast
were Mary Patton, Bill Quinn, David Feffer, Beverly Lunceford, Charles
Penman and John Larkin.
Speaker 1: You're announcer Fred Cohn.
Speaker 2: X minus one was directed by Dan sutter And is
an NBC Radio Network production