Speaker 1: M HM.
Speaker 2: Cod down for blast off X minus five four three
two x minus one Fire from the far horizons of
the unknown come transcribed 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 Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine, presents minus one.
Speaker 3: Tonight The Lungamina by Gordon R. Dixon.
Speaker 4: Blame Clay hard Bank if you like, or what happened
at Station five sixty three, or blame Bill Peterborough, the
one we call the kid.
Speaker 3: I blame no one. I'm a door sie man.
Speaker 4: That means I was brought up in one of those
tiny planets a million light years from nowhere. Being a
door siren man is quite a responsibility. We are a
very polite people. We have to be, because when we
get angry, we fight to the death. It all began
that evening Clay Harbang began reminiscing about his home planet
Lu Lungomina. We were sitting around the recreation room of
five sixty three.
Speaker 3: There was a card game going on in one corner.
Speaker 1: Lu lung go Mina, the very name sounds like music,
doesn't it more?
Speaker 3: You know me, Clay, I'm a doorside man. I've been
in the doorside planets.
Speaker 1: I've seen them all knocking around this universe for thirty
five years. But when it comes to sheer beauty, lu
lung go mina.
Speaker 3: How long since you've been home? Clay? Home?
Speaker 1: Twenty years more? Twenty stinking miserable years. Well that'll be.
Speaker 4: Over soon, another ten days. You're gonna miss all five
sixty three.
Speaker 3: Miss this scott forsaken little asteroid. Not for a minute.
Speaker 4: We'll miss your ugly face around here, at least I will.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna miss your gloomy doorsy puss too. Lord, Why
don't you get out of it? You've had more years
in space service than any of us. You've probably got
enough credits to get out too.
Speaker 3: He I wouldn't know what to do with myself. Couldn't
you go home?
Speaker 1: You should know better than that, the Dnebrian trouble, the
d Nebrian trouble. You could go to Earth? What four
ever been there?
Speaker 4: Never once? And I've never wanted to. I've seen too
many earthmen like the kid over there.
Speaker 1: He's green in service, he's full of greed and stupid
hate like the rest of them.
Speaker 3: That's not for me.
Speaker 1: Looks if the game's breaking up here he comes.
Speaker 5: Well, if this is the big gambler from the windy planet,
what's its name?
Speaker 3: Lu lung Gomina?
Speaker 5: Yeah, how's the piggy bank coming?
Speaker 6: Dad?
Speaker 1: The piggy is a gentleman kid. He never overeats, so
he won't ever get into gestion sour grapes.
Speaker 5: You see this water credits five hundred? How long you
have to work for five hundred credits?
Speaker 3: Dad?
Speaker 5: How many trips you have to make around this? How
much closer to fall in your grave? You have to come?
Speaker 3: You look as if you made a killing.
Speaker 5: I always make a killing. I'm a natural born gambler,
and I don't just talk about it like some.
Speaker 1: I think I'll go out and take a turn around
the station.
Speaker 3: More fine, I'll go with you. It's stuffy in here.
Don't bother. I'd rather be alone.
Speaker 5: A big chet knocked around the planets for thirty five years.
He used to have a reputation as the hottest gambler
in the systems. Comes from the most beautiful planet in
the universe.
Speaker 3: Why don't you lay off him? Kid?
Speaker 4: Let me give you a piece of sound advice. Go ahead,
lay off Clay Harbank. He's been around the systems a
lot longer than you have. He may not be any chicken,
but he's a tough baby when the situation calls for it.
Speaker 5: You're trying to scare me more. I thought you doorside
guys were smarter than that.
Speaker 3: I'm beginning.
Speaker 5: No, no, look, no fads moat. I mean, I wasn't
trying to insault the door side people or anything. I
gotta go to a flight check. I'll see.
Speaker 3: We were in bad shape.
Speaker 4: The twenty of us at Frontier Station five sixty three,
on the very edge of the human area had gone sour.
Half the man had applications or transfer in already. But
I told the kid about Clay being tough. Well, that
was a bluff to keep him off. Nobody knew better
than I did that Clay was burned out inside.
Speaker 3: Like I used up rocket.
Speaker 1: I put on a spacesuit and went out to join him.
Speaker 3: Oh high, maud, I beautiful night. Huh nice back on
lu Lungo Mina.
Speaker 1: On a night like this, the rack eash flowers open
up and you can hear them singing. There are six moons,
and every one of them is like a yellow lant.
My mom and dad and I used to live on
the edge of a lotus pool. Here I go talking
about home again.
Speaker 4: Figures a guy who's been saving up for ten years
to get home is bound to start thinking about it
when the time comes.
Speaker 3: I wish you could come with me more play tell
me something? Yes?
Speaker 4: Do you ever get the urge to gamble again?
Speaker 3: Do I get the urge to gamble?
Speaker 1: What you ever watch a man who's been on pon
for a while when he's broken the habit. You can't
get him near the stuff he despises it, and yet
the same man is liable to go back on with
no provocation. Well that's the way it is when you've
gambled all your life. I figured maybe that's why I
keep talking about home. Every time I hear the kid
flipping those cards in the recreation room, I start talking
about home.
Speaker 3: Have you noticed? I've noticed?
Speaker 1: But this time I'm going to make it more. I
tried three times before. This time I've got the dough,
and I know I'm gonna make it.
Speaker 3: I think you will claim you know what did it?
Speaker 1: Lu Lungo Mina, That's what saved me this time, the
thought of that beautiful planet.
Speaker 4: Well, when you get there, you can send me a phototape.
At the rate we get visitors, it should reach me
in five or six years.
Speaker 3: You will be out. By then you'll be home. I'll
never go home. Claim never.
Speaker 1: Well, that's red four screens must have picked up a
ship in the galaxy.
Speaker 3: Maybe we'll get a visit. Eh, keep us from going
logo anyway? Coming in? No, I think I'll stay out.
Speaker 4: Awhile, Well, I'm going to check the screen, see you later.
Red four meant simply that a ship was entering the galaxy.
The chances of it touching down on five sixty three
were pretty remote, unless it happened to need a clearance
for Earth or Mars. The screen was black by the
time I got there, but the kid was filing a report.
Speaker 5: Oh hi boy, Hey, what's a hicks Abrod?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 5: Why we're having one for a visitor? You don't say,
I just came in over the receiver. What'll he be like?
Speaker 3: A hicks Obrod?
Speaker 4: Stiff as a poker, proud as lucifer, honest as sunlight,
and tied as a camel on his way through the
eye of a needle.
Speaker 5: What do they look like?
Speaker 4: Oh, they're kind of humanoid, but they have a dead
pan face that never changes like a mask.
Speaker 5: Oh they were a little scary, I hear.
Speaker 4: That's a green skin and the scales. Also, they run
about eight feet tall. I wouldn't tangle with one if
I were you. Back on Danebria. Once I saw a
Hickserbrod rip a Manda Ribbons with its claws. Why the
man made the mistake of insulting HICKSA that's one of
the twin planets they come from.
Speaker 5: Pretty touchy, aren't they Not?
Speaker 3: Really? They are a very level headed race. You know.
The hicks a broad reputation, don't you.
Speaker 5: No, you didn't hear much about him on Earth.
Speaker 4: Well are the first and only mercenary political arbitrators in
the known universe. A Hickserbrod can be hired, but he's
absolutely incapable of being influenced or bribed. He tells a
cold truth and nothing but the cold truth. And brother,
when a hicks Abrod tells you the truth, it's plenty cold.
Speaker 5: It really lets you have it. Huh.
Speaker 4: They are a small race and very much in demand
if some kind of political dispute comes up from planetary
to inter alien. Both sides hire a Hickserbrod to represent him.
That way they know the other side is being completely honest.
Speaker 5: Oh that's very interesting, you know, very interesting.
Speaker 4: I could tell there was something on the kid's mind,
but of course I didn't know what it was. Most
of the talk in the recreation room that night centered
around the arrival of the hicks Abrod. Landing beacons were
turned on and we waited for another radio communication.
Speaker 5: Hey, anybody want to sit in on this next hand?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: Thanks?
Speaker 5: Well, I know better than to ask the galaxy's foremost gambler.
Speaker 3: That's right, kid, Well, maybe.
Speaker 5: When this Hicks of Brod gets here, we'll be able
to work out a decent game. Do Hicks of Rod's gamble?
Speaker 3: No, kid, they don't gamble.
Speaker 5: That's too bad. Well, we can always sit and listen
to you lying about what a beautiful place the lung
gamina is.
Speaker 1: Kid, you just went too far. Yeah, you're gonna do
something about it.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna punch a little note, break it up. Play
you all right, I'm okay.
Speaker 4: You better get to the infirmary, have your mouth taken
care of. Kid, You get to your quarters.
Speaker 1: Since one of you giving orders, I'm telling you to
get to your quarters.
Speaker 3: You better do what he says.
Speaker 5: Kid, he's a door sign man. That's all I've been here,
and since I got here, when big gamblers come from
the loungamina, and how dorsign men are killing so far,
I've seen nothing, but I heard a lot of time.
Speaker 3: Get to your quarters. I'll give you a five seconds
to start moving.
Speaker 5: You better go ahead, kid, Okay, okay, one, I'm letting
you bluff me out of the game this time. Just
remember there's gonna be other games next time. I won't
be bluffed.
Speaker 3: He left the recreation room.
Speaker 4: I felt a slight and not unpleasant shiver run down
between my shoulder blades and my eyes were still hot.
I'd almost lost my control that time, and my senses
told me i'd better be careful for the next three days.
The tension of five sixty three was almost unbearable. Play
Hardbank seemed to age twenty years after the kid knocked
him down.
Speaker 2: Now hear this, all personnel, Now hear this, all personnel.
Speaker 1: A ship is approaching for flight check. A ship is
approaching for flight check. Report to central, Report to central.
Speaker 3: Well this is Clay. We're getting the Hicks abroad.
Speaker 1: Seems almost like home, having a Hicks abroad with us.
They're all over the Tazian system. You know you speak
Hicks abroad, you have to on lu lungomina.
Speaker 3: I don't know that. I picked it up during the
Third Exploration a long time ago.
Speaker 4: Huh, we're not getting younger Clay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I found that out. I don't take it so big.
He's just a punk.
Speaker 4: Kid, sure, and I'm just a dumb old man offered. Ah,
that's touchdown. You ought to be here in a minute.
Speaker 3: That does it. He's down. Look at that ship. Huh,
let's go.
Speaker 4: You'll need some help with his baggage. The ship was
a silvery, one man job, the kind that have taken
the Hicks of Brod's all over the universe. The cabin
door slid back and the Hicks have stepped out. He
was as green and scaly as a lizard, but there
was a certain unmistakable dignity in his bearing. Since I
spoke the language, I was the first to greet him,
felt the Hutch and Hicks abrod. Welcome to this place.
I greet you, dorsy man. My name is mort Byansky.
I am called dor Lasses. Come, I'll show you to
your quarters.
Speaker 6: Thank you?
Speaker 7: How long will you remain here? Only for one night?
I wish clearance for Mars.
Speaker 4: And I'm sure it can be handled this way. I
wondered how he knew I was a Dorsey man, and
then it seemed obvious. My broken nose, the scars, the
lined face. Nobody could mistake a human from the doorside planets.
Speaker 1: Still it scared me a little. I kept wondering if
he had anything to do with interplanetary police. I tried
to put it out of my mom.
Speaker 3: There was no use. Mind. If I come in, Clay,
sit down, have a smoke. Thanks.
Speaker 1: Where's the Hicks Abroad in his room getting cleaned up
for dinner? Strange guys, aren't they?
Speaker 4: There's something even stranger going on? What's that the kids
in there with him.
Speaker 1: With the Hicks and what are you supposed they're talking about?
Speaker 3: I don't know. I wish I did.
Speaker 1: Kids probably trying to get the Hicks into a dice game.
Speaker 3: What's on your mind? Mart Clay? You've been around?
Speaker 1: Are there any Hicks Abroads in interplanetary police?
Speaker 3: A few? Why? I don't know. I just had a feeling.
You know, you're dreaming up bogey Man. Maybe.
Speaker 1: Besides, you're not in any trouble outside the doors. I
says I killed a human clay, not deliberately.
Speaker 3: No rage, and all the time on door side, doesn't.
Speaker 1: It not to an officer of intergalactic Besides, that was
twenty five years ago.
Speaker 3: There's no statue of limitations in the systems. Nobody knows
but me.
Speaker 1: Right, you don't have to be clairvoyant to wonder why
a man hasn't been back to his home planet for
twenty five years.
Speaker 3: You think the kid, I don't know. He's got no
love for me.
Speaker 1: Still, he doesn't know anything. How would he know this
hicks Abroad is an agent. If he is, couldn't say
where are you going?
Speaker 4: I think I'll take a look at that message the
kid filed, the one we got when we first picked
up the hicks Abrod on the screens.
Speaker 3: Let me know what you find, if anything.
Speaker 4: I walked through the empty corridors to the communications center.
I went directly to the files where incoming messages are kept,
and flicked the tab until I got to notices of arrivals.
Speaker 1: There two days before was a report of the arrival
of door losses.
Speaker 4: I ran my finger down the statistics until I came
to the line that said point of origin of flight.
It read Tarzian Galaxy. That was where Clay Harbank's l
longamina was. I read further where it said nature of business.
My blood ran cold as I spelled out the words criminal.
Come in, felt the Hutch and Hicks abroad.
Speaker 6: I greet you, dorsay man.
Speaker 3: Is there anything you require?
Speaker 6: Nothing? Thank you.
Speaker 4: I came to tell you that we'll have dinner to
night at eight hundred hours.
Speaker 6: The young Earthman has already informed.
Speaker 3: Me there's a shortage of raw meat here.
Speaker 6: I've brought my own food, Thank you.
Speaker 1: I see you came in from the Tarzian planets. Yes,
you didn't happen to be in the Doorside planets before then?
Speaker 7: No, I thought perhaps you might have some news. I
came from intergalactic headquarters.
Speaker 3: Yes I am. I saw your flight check.
Speaker 6: Then you know my mission? Yes? Good?
Speaker 3: How long do I have to pack?
Speaker 7: I will be leaving at seven hundred hours tomorrow morning?
Can you be ready by then?
Speaker 3: Yes? I guess so good.
Speaker 4: I don't suppose there's any point in appealing to you.
Higsbrods are supposed to be totally without emotion.
Speaker 6: There's no point in appealing.
Speaker 3: Funny thing.
Speaker 4: I've been running away from this moment for twenty five years.
Now that it's come, I'm glad we'll be going back
to the Dorsise.
Speaker 7: Yes, to Intergalactic headquarters for all these years home.
Speaker 4: I don't suppose a Hixbrod knows what that feeling is like.
Speaker 7: I will expect you at seven hundred hours now, if
you don't mind, I wish to prepare my one thing.
Speaker 3: Yes, did the young Earthman tip you off about me? No?
Speaker 4: Funny, I could have sworn it was him. That was
that when a Hicks abroad tells you no, you can
bet your life.
Speaker 1: He isn't lying. I began to wonder how they located me.
I began to wonder what he and the kid had
talked about. I began to wonder a lot of things. Well,
he's an agent for Intergalactic.
Speaker 3: Oh that doesn't prove he's after you. He is? How
do you know?
Speaker 1: I just talked to him Lord in Heaven. Ah, it
isn't so bad. Really, Just think I'll be going home.
I'm going to kill that kid. I'm going to kill him.
Play listen to me. The kid didn't turn me in,
you said, I said he was talking to the Hicks.
I just asked him, and the Hicks told me it
wasn't the kid. They don't lie, so don't go blow
going off. It's going to be hard. Ten days doesn't
have to be ten days.
Speaker 3: What do you mean?
Speaker 1: How many credits do you need to buy your way out?
Another five hundred next payday? Don't wait, don't wait. I
have over nine hundred credits. I'll turn them over to
you more. Listen, I don't need them. You can pay
off tomorrow and fly as far as the Tarzan chain
with me in the Hicks. It's a very nice thing,
mort will you do it? I'll think about it. Let
you know after dinner. I thought of running away, but
there was really no place to run once they tracked
you down.
Speaker 3: And the hicks.
Speaker 1: Abrods were utterly relentless once they had agreed to bring
a man in.
Speaker 4: Since they had no feelings, they made no judgments. They
were absolutely certain that a man would get a fair trial.
Speaker 3: I packed my stuff and went in to dinner.
Speaker 4: The Hicks Abroad was at the head of the table
eating his raw chinsuo meat.
Speaker 5: Past the gravy place, do Alosses, Yes, they tell me
that the Hicks Abroad home planet is a very beautiful place.
Speaker 6: It is true.
Speaker 5: I'm from Earth myself. Yes, I'm curious to know what
there's beautiful planet of yours looks like.
Speaker 1: The kid's pretty talkative tonight. What's cooking?
Speaker 7: I don't know, but I don't trust it to Flora
and fauna maintained in excellent natural balance. No local sur
plus has exceeded one percent of the normal population for
the last sixty thousand years. Life on Hicks is predictable.
The weather is controlled within the greatest limits of feasibility.
The symmetry of the landscape is without parallel in the universe.
Speaker 5: Very pretty picture, very attractive home world. What I regret
to inform you to Olysses that I've been given to
understand that it pales into insignificance when compared with another
beauty spot in our universe, your Earth. I wish I
could say yes, no, no, this place is so wonderful.
I doubt if an earth Man like me could get in.
In fact, I've never seen it, but I've been hearing
about it for some months now, and either it's the
most wonderful place in the universe, or the man who's
been telling me about it is a rotten liar.
Speaker 1: Get your gun, kid, get your gun.
Speaker 5: Why guns?
Speaker 3: You call me a liar?
Speaker 5: Why use guns when it's possible to prove the thing
one way or another with complete certainty. For months now,
you've been telling me two things, One that you used
to be a gambler. Two your precious little lungamina is
the most wonderful place in the universe. The question is
is he the statement true? They're both true. You'll back
them up with my life. I'm not asking it a
back then with your life. Just back then with that
nice little hoarde you've been accumulating all these years. Well,
you've said you were a gambler. Bet with me and
prove it.
Speaker 1: Suppose I do. How do we prove my statement about
the lungomina.
Speaker 6: That's easy.
Speaker 5: We have with us at this table at hicks Abroad,
in a conversation with him, I found out that he's
just visited every planet Natazian Shane. Now is everyone no,
it's a hicks Abrod never lies. Do you think you
could judge this point?
Speaker 7: Do olyossis the point can be Judd Well gambler, Hey,
it's a trick.
Speaker 3: Don't bet. How much will you bet? Kid?
Speaker 5: All I got the equivalent of ten years?
Speaker 3: Pay? Well, you're on.
Speaker 5: Do olyassis? Okay?
Speaker 6: If I question him, proceed.
Speaker 5: You've been to the planet Nitazian Shaine, which this man
calls his home.
Speaker 7: I must ascertain the position of the planet, the fourth planet, Yes,
the one with six moons.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 7: I've been there recently, as you well know, since we
spoke of it only this afternoon we did speak.
Speaker 5: If it that's true? Now would you tell me you
know the planet? Yes, you know it's geography. I do
not repeat myself. Is it a large planet?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 5: Is it a rich planet?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 5: Was there not a rain of radioactive fallout from an
explosion of a nearby star only five months ago?
Speaker 6: There was?
Speaker 5: It did not destroy every piece of vegetation and leave
this planet a gutted, smoking ruins, chod and ugly.
Speaker 6: It did.
Speaker 1: Well, Gambler, you haven't asked him the main question yet, kid,
Would you like to ask him? All right, Hicks abroad,
the question to be judged is this is lu lung Goomina,
the most beautiful and the most wonderful place in the universe.
Speaker 5: Yes, it is what well, kid, that's a trick. It's
a rotten trick.
Speaker 3: I don't believe it.
Speaker 1: The hexes the eyes of the hicks Aprod are narrow
and baleful. As he pushed back his chair, you could
almost feel them burning. As he dragged his scaly feet
over toward the kid. He stopped about six inches from
the kid and held both his hands up, palms near
the kid's eyes. There was a clicking sound, and we
watched eleven sets of gleaming razorlike claws showed up from
the tips of the Hicksibrod's fingers. Their points were almost
against the kid's eyes.
Speaker 6: Look at my hands, earth men, are they not clean?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 6: Do you doubt that I have told the truth?
Speaker 3: Not? Know?
Speaker 7: Then there is nothing further to discuss. I bow to you, gentlemen.
I thank you for your hospitality. You will excuse me.
Speaker 4: We stood around and watched that proud, frightening figure drag
itself out of the room. The kid was trembling like
a leaf as he drew a bank draft for ten
years pay and handed it to Clay Harbag. The next morning,
Clay and I boarded the Hicks Abroad ship and four
days later, we touched down at the outer planet of
the Tarjan Chain.
Speaker 1: Well, this is where I get off more. I I
don't know what to say. Really, I guess you know
how I feel. I think I do play. Let's just
say so long. There will be no need for goodbyers.
Both of you are leaving the ship here. But I
thought I intend to return to intergalactic headquarters empty hand.
Speaker 7: Empty handed. But they'll question you. What will you tell
them the truth? Of course, But you have told me nothing.
But I assume I am not interested in your assumption.
You asked me my mission. I told you it was
a criminal investigation. You said you assumed you would go
back with me, and I told you when my ship
was departing.
Speaker 6: There is nothing more to be said.
Speaker 1: But surely you know what. Don't say anything. A exerbrod
deals only with facts, what is absolutely known. They're the
most literal beings in the universe.
Speaker 3: Let it go with that.
Speaker 6: Goodbye, gentlemen.
Speaker 7: I am grateful for the pleasure of your company.
Speaker 4: Five minutes later, Clay Harbank and I shook hands at
the exit of the spaceport on Tarsa's ten. But before
we parted, there was one thing I had to know,
Clay one thing before you go. Yes, How did you
know the hicks Abrod would lie about lu lungamina?
Speaker 1: He didn't lie. Moor A hicks Abrod never lies. But
lulonga mina mort Let me tell you something. Lulungo mina
is a word in use throughout the Tarsian planets. Actually
it's a hicks Abrod. Would it means home? All I
did was as the hickserbrod if home was beautiful? He
simply said yes. And a hicks Abroad, as everybody knows,
doesn't lie.
Speaker 8: You have just heard X minus one, presented by the
National Broadcasting Company in cooperation with Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine,
which this month features the finn O'Donovan novelette Bad Medicine,
the story of a robot therapist that never failed to
effect a cure, even if it had to convert itself
into a typhoid Mary to do so. Galaxy Magazine on
your new stand today tonight. By transcription. X minus one
has brought you Lungemina, a story from the pages of
Galaxy written by Gordon R. Dixon that adapted for radio
by George Lefferts. Featured in the cast were Ralph Camargo,
Net Weaver, Jack Grimes, Bob Hastings, and Kermit Murdoch.
Speaker 3: You're announcer Fred Collins.
Speaker 8: X minus one was directed by Daniel Sutter and is
an NBC Radio Network production.
Speaker 5: X minus one came to you from our Radio City
studios in New York.
Speaker 3: Next week, listen to Project Mastodon Clifford Seamac story on
X minus one. Follow the News with Chet Huntley to
night on the n b C Radio Network