Speaker 1: Mm hmm, Calm 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 Street and Smith, publishers of Astounding Science Fiction,
presents minus one one.
Speaker 2: One to Night Story courtesy.
Speaker 3: This is the story of the second expedition to the
planet of Lando. I am recording it for any future
expeditions which might land on this god forsaken sphere, the
hope that they may learn from our tragic example. As
I write, there are two of us left, two out
of an original complement of one hundred and eighty men.
One of us, myself, will be dead in less than
twenty three minutes. As for the other, Heaven have mercy
on him, I.
Speaker 2: Do not know.
Speaker 3: On June third, nineteen ninety seven, less than two months ago,
the last of our supply ships blasted off from Lando
for their return to Earth. After it had gone, I
remember looking out across the plain at the dead City,
one of thousands that dotted this planet. It had tall,
graceful buildings, atomic power systems, vacuum conveyors, all perfect, all deserted.
Speaker 2: All ominous. How had it happened?
Speaker 3: The best guess was that the plague had frightened the
original inhabitants of the planet, so that they piled into
rocket ships and headed for some distant planet. I often
wondered why a civilization so advanced as Landro could not
find a serum to beat the plague. It had taken
out Earth doctors less than six months to develop an
immunization method. Well, maybe those aborigines back in the hills
knew the answer. That strange, ugly little people who had
taken to the caves the day we landed. I was
thinking these things when something happened that gave me the shock.
Speaker 2: Of my life. Good evening, captain, what brings you here? Doctor?
It's the matter of the serum, sir, What about the serum?
Speaker 3: It's no good now, God, it's too old, ten years
too old. Didn't you examine it?
Speaker 2: Yes? I did, But well, my eyesight has been failing lately.
Speaker 3: Are you aware, doctor, that the last supply ship has
returned to Earth? Do you know we'll have no more
contact for two years. I just how long do you
give us? Well, the present immunity will last a week
or so. Then without booster shots, it's just a question
of time until someone picks up the plague. After that,
what about the natives? They don't die from the plague.
The accepted theory is that they have developed an immunity.
We suppose they haven't developed an immunity. Doctor, Suppose they
get the disease, then they must have a treatment for it.
If they don't, there would be no natives. Would you
be willing to go on an expedition to the hills
to find out?
Speaker 2: At this point, Captain, I'd be willing to do anything
at solutely anything.
Speaker 3: I I am truly sorry. You're sorry, Doctor Morgan. Some time,
when you aren't too busy, when you have a moment,
I'd hate to inconvenience you. Would you mind telling me
how it feels to murder a hundred and eighty men,
a hundred and eighty one, including yourself. I did a
lot of thinking after doctor Morgan left my hut. It
was still unreal for me. After all, the planning of
an expedition was no simple thing.
Speaker 2: You put into it.
Speaker 3: The result of years of training and experience, years of
study at the academy, years of learning how to handle.
Speaker 2: Men and natives.
Speaker 3: Every man on my crew was hand picked for his skin,
and yet a simple thing like a myopic surgeon misreading
a label could blast the whole thing.
Speaker 2: Yes, it was a.
Speaker 3: Shame, and I did the only thing I could think of.
I yelled for bat Ears. Brady, Brady, get your carcass
in here, take the lead off.
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, yeah, what's up?
Speaker 2: Sit down, bat Ears?
Speaker 3: You have trouble, keV. We got trouble, right, The serum's
no good? What Morgan forgot to check it? It's ten years.
Speaker 5: To holy jumping snails. You're gonna court myself. Wouldn't do
much good.
Speaker 3: We'll all be dead pretty soon unless somebody figures something out.
Speaker 2: Ah, what are you gonna do, keV? Well, there's only
one chance, one chance in ten million.
Speaker 3: What then, cave rats, what good can they do us?
They don't get the plague, so maybe they know a cure.
Speaker 5: Okay, let's get a few of them and beat it
at them.
Speaker 2: That's why you're here.
Speaker 3: Shoot, how'd you like to come along on a little
expedition up to the Cave Country, You, me, the doctor, and.
Speaker 2: Er Faulkner all listen, Cap. He's worse than.
Speaker 3: That, yes, but he knows more about the native culture
than anybody here. He's the only one who's completely familiar
with the records of the first expedition.
Speaker 5: Okay, so it's me, you, the dark, and Faukner when
we start.
Speaker 3: Tonight in half an hour. We should reach the cave
country by tomorrow, but luck we'll be able to find
natives before night. Benny Faulkner was the expedition anthropologist, one
of the most unfortunate looking individuals I've ever met. An
ugly man with large ears and a big nose. His
body was small and consumpting, but he had a good brain.
He was the best anthropologist the InterPlaNet Institute could recommend.
He and doctor Morgan were the only two civilians on
the expedition. We set out and after several hours hard walking, Cap,
Now what is it? Don't look now, but very slowly
turn your eyes to the right and look behind that
big yellow rock. Okay, you see anything, No, keep looking,
don't stop walking.
Speaker 2: Then Okay, there, yes, look like a shadow or something.
Speaker 4: It's one of them gimpos he's been found us now
for almost an hour, dodging in and out behind the rocks.
Speaker 2: Shall I ring him in?
Speaker 3: No, not yet. Just pretend you don't see him. Tell
the others if they noticed, to show no fear, because
nothing will start these simple minded cavemen like fear. The
manual said, under no circumstances shall a member of the
patrol display fear before a native. The dignity of the
earth man must be preserved at all costs. Just before
dawn we reached the cave country. We were tired and hungry,
and we stopped to cook some food and rest. Everything
was quiet. There was no sign of the gimpo which
had been trailing us until.
Speaker 5: Okay, get in there.
Speaker 2: You're sneaking with a nucky man.
Speaker 5: Come on, come on, before I break this.
Speaker 2: Shovel on your star.
Speaker 5: What's the trouble, cap, I caught me one of these
gimpos sneaking around outside the tent.
Speaker 3: And bring him in the light of the fire. We
can get a look at him, Parkner, Yes, sir, keep
an eye on him. Try to establish some communication, all right,
look out, No need to knock him down, Patty.
Speaker 5: Oh, that's the only language I understand. See if you're
going to reaching Faukner. Okay, captain, I'll need a drummer
some sort. What.
Speaker 6: Well, they have no language as we know it, and
they have a very rudimentary sense of hearing it. I
find they communicate with one another through a very primitive
kind of vibration of the tongue. The closest I can
come as a series of drum beats, a sort of
Morse code. The psychologist on the first expedition had it
worked out before he was killed by the plague.
Speaker 2: I've studied his notes, and I think it'll work.
Speaker 5: You mean, these little critits can talk to one another.
Speaker 2: I believe they can.
Speaker 6: At any rate, we'll have a chance to find out. Uh,
do we have something I can use for a drum?
Speaker 5: Hear?
Speaker 2: Take my water bottle?
Speaker 6: Thank you doctor. Now, I'll tap it three times. That's
a greeting of some sort.
Speaker 2: Just a moment, sir.
Speaker 3: I don't want you treating this fellow like an equal.
Don't give them the idea that we're desperate. Once they
sense that you're lost, I have to communicate with him, sir.
I'll just bear in mind what I say, dignity.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, I'll do my best, sir. It was a
strange sight.
Speaker 3: On one side of the water bottle, crouched little Bene Faukner,
looking for all the world like a human spider. Across
from him crouched the Landrier, a humpbacked, gray little creature
with an enormous head in those huge, soft lavender eyes.
Every few moments, one would stop the strange tattoo of communication,
and the other would take it up. I'm setting forth
in this narrative the most vital part of their conversation,
as Benny Faukner later transcribed it from the best of
his memory, Benny asked, why were your cities abandoned? Was
it the plague? The native said yes. Benny said, do
you still fear the plague? The native answered yes.
Speaker 2: Do any of your people become afflicted? The answer was some.
How do you treat them? Silence?
Speaker 3: How can we find a cure for the plague? More silence?
Then the native said, go among my people. Then he asked,
will we find the answer among your people? The native replied,
my people have the answer. Then he said, will you
tell me the answer? The native repeated, go among my people.
As far as the Landering was concerned, the conversation was ended.
He rose to go, and Faulkner stepped from his path,
but Brady was there to ensure the bed.
Speaker 2: Hold on there, Bucko, you ain't going no place. Don't
maltreating Brady. What did he say, Tony? He says, his
people have the answer. What do you think?
Speaker 6: There may be some truth in it, he says, some
of his people still get the plague.
Speaker 2: That must mean it isn't a question of immunity. They
must have a cure. Well, he wasn't clear on that.
Then they must have a vaccine to keep it from spreading.
Does he know his answer is for us to go
among his people.
Speaker 3: Well, and that leaves it up to us. The first
level of caves is on top of that cliff about
a mile ahead. It's a trap. I'll bet my last
dollar on it. Hell, maybe not, We'll have to risk it. Wait, well,
let me go. I got you all into this.
Speaker 2: How will you talk? Benny here can give me enough
of the code so I can ask the big question.
Speaker 3: You understand that they might just decide to cut your throat.
I'm fully aware of the risk. All right, doctor, you
go ahead. We'll wait at the foot of the cliff.
If you aren't back down in three hours, we'll come
up after you.
Speaker 2: What about the gimpo here, we'll hold.
Speaker 3: Him as a hostage to ensure the doctor's safety. If
the doc comes back all right, we'll let him go.
If not, that's your job, Brady.
Speaker 2: A pleasure.
Speaker 3: It took Dr Morgan about an hour to pick his
way up the side of the cliff to the first
of the openings, where the Landrian's lift. He waved to
us before he entered the mouth of the cave, and
we waved back. Then we settled down to wait. It
was a long, long wait.
Speaker 2: Eight o'clock. He's been up there more than three hours. Cap.
We'll give him a little more time.
Speaker 5: It's getting colder. Let's keep that fire going. How much
long are you gonna wait?
Speaker 2: Cap? Oh, we've got lots of time.
Speaker 4: You'd think we'd have heard of something by now if
they were gonna knock him off on me, not necessarily.
Speaker 2: Wait, look up on the cliff. That's him, all right,
And what's your running for? Don't know? He looks scared.
That's crazy, fool.
Speaker 5: If you don't look out, doctor Morgan, look out, look out.
Speaker 3: We've found the doctor at the foot of the cliff
crumpled and broken. There were no marks on his body,
nothing except a twisted mocking grin on his face. Oh yes,
and one other thing. Scrawled across the pad he had
taken with him on which to make notes concerning the
answer was a single word.
Speaker 2: The word was courtesy. We threw the paper away.
Speaker 3: The expedition was a failure, though Battiers claimed he'd get
it out of the gimpo fied letter. I nodded in agreement.
Battiers took the little native off behind an outcropping of rock.
He was back in fifteen minutes, dripping with sweat.
Speaker 4: Well, let's go camp. Nothing but nothing is he. They
ain't made very good, these little gray people. They come
apart too easy.
Speaker 2: So let's go. I'll camp all right, Benny, Benny, what
is I feel kind of sick, all of a sudden
in the back of my head, dull kind of pain.
Speaker 3: Let me see your tongue. Ugh, come on, give me
my hand. Bat here, we've got to get him back
to camp.
Speaker 2: What is it?
Speaker 3: I'm not sure, but that blackness on the tongue and
the headache, it could be the plague. By the time
we got Benny Faulkner back to camp. He had the
red spots on his body, and then the fever began
to rage. It was the plague, no mistake about it.
Before morning, Collins, the supply sergeant, had it.
Speaker 2: Then it was Peabody.
Speaker 3: After that the men went down like ten pins. Then
one morning bat Here's Brady dragged himself into my tent
and sat down. The lines in his face told me
the end was coming pretty fast.
Speaker 2: Sit down, Brady.
Speaker 4: What's the count six left? We buried the chaplin today?
Got anything to drink?
Speaker 2: Sorry, I'm all out? How about a cigarette? Then? You
you got a cigarette? Yeah? Sure, yeah? How was fucking?
Speaker 4: I don't get it. He's still alive, still alive, yep.
In fact, he's getting better. He's sitting up.
Speaker 2: Holy mackerel. It's a good cigarette. It's like any other. No, no,
this one's different. This is my last. What do you mean, Brady?
Speaker 4: Take a look at my tongue, see little black spots.
Speaker 3: Somehow I managed to get him into bed. He was
already raving when I gave him the last of the morphing.
It was incredible, big brawling bat ears Brady, a tower
of strength, lying sick and whimpering in a cot when
he died. I went out on the moors to think.
The sun was a dull rape glow, cold breeze with done. Somehow,
I couldn't forget Faulkner. Why should Faulkner recover from a
plague from which no man has ever recovered? Surely there
must be a reason. Nothing happened without a reason. I
turned and went back to see Benny Faulkner. Hello, Captain, Hello, Benny,
how are you pretty good?
Speaker 2: I got up and walked a couple of steps to day.
How goes it? Brady's gone? Oh?
Speaker 3: I just buried him. Listen, Benny, there must be some reason.
Speaker 6: Why is nothing strange about me, nothing different from any
other man?
Speaker 3: There must be You survived the virus, Benny. I want
you to tell me everything you know about yourself, everything
you can remember, because somewhere in your makeup is some
little thing that makes the difference. If I can find
that thing, then maybe I can do something to save
myself and the rest. Even if I can't, at least
I can leave a record for any future expedition that
comes to Lanrew.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, Captain, Where should I start.
Speaker 3: At the beginning? I'm going to take notes.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 6: I was born on the second of July in nineteen
seventy one. My parents were ordinary people.
Speaker 2: My father was.
Speaker 6: Look captain. I've told you everything I can remember. Three
days now you've gone over me. Pardon me, question me?
Speaker 2: What else can I I tell you?
Speaker 3: Benny, let's go over that last part once again.
Speaker 2: Where should I stop?
Speaker 3: Take it from where the natives started to walk away?
You stepped out of his path and Brady grabbed him.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I stepped out of his path. Why what
do you mean? Why? Why did you step out of
his path? Why not? Courtesy? I guess what's the matter? Courtesy?
Speaker 3: That's the word that doctor Morgan had scrawled in his notebook.
I don't see that. I don't either. Tell me, Benny,
why should you want to be courteous to a native?
Speaker 2: Why not? What about maintaining your own dignity? Are you
talking about dignity or arrogance?
Speaker 3: I don't know, Benny. Listen, Maybe we were all wet
in our deductions. Maybe these cities here and Landro weren't
deserted centuries ago. Maybe these little people up in the
caves are the same people who used to live in
those big cities.
Speaker 2: Why would they leave?
Speaker 3: Maybe they found out the big cities weren't the answer.
Maybe they found out that civilization doesn't necessarily bring happiness,
so they just packed up and left, returned to the simple.
Speaker 2: It doesn't make sense. You're forgetting the plague. What is
the plague? Benny Well, I don't know. Is it a virus?
I don't think they ever found out. You know what
I think why?
Speaker 3: I think the plague is nothing more than what we
know as greed and arrogant. Captain, you're going off your ruck.
I think maybe we're in line to die. Syum was good.
In fact, I don't think the Syrium had anything to
do with.
Speaker 6: I never heard anything as crazy fantastic in my life.
Speaker 3: No, I think I'll go back to my tent and
finish writing the report. I am beginning to sweat a little, Captain.
Maybe it isn't a blank. It is I've seen her
too many times to kid myself about it.
Speaker 2: Maybe hot compresses or something. No better.
Speaker 6: Listen, Captain, you don't you don't believe that junk about courtesy,
do you?
Speaker 2: I mean, that's a lot of nonsense. You must know
that micro Captain, you you do believe it, don't you.
Good night, Benny. I think I'd like to be alone
for a while. Okay, good night, captain.
Speaker 3: Maybe the supply ship will be early. You can you
can probably stick it out.
Speaker 2: Sure, good night, captain. And this concludes my report.
Speaker 3: I'm turning it over to Benny Faulkner in the hopes
that he will be able to transmit it to any
other expedition commander who contemplates exploring the planet of Landron.
The fever is beginning to mount. Now my hands tremble.
Speaker 2: Is I right?
Speaker 3: The end should not be far off. There's little question
in my mind as to what.
Speaker 2: It will be.
Speaker 3: You see, I didn't have a chance. I stepped out
of no paths. I showed no courtesy.
Speaker 7: 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, an X minus
one has brought you courtesy, adapted for radio by George
Lefferts from the story by Clifford Symad Featured in the
cast where Brett Morrison as Captain Irah Warren, Arnold Robertson
as Battier's Brady Edwin Jerome as Doctor Morgan and Bill
Griffiths as Benny Faulkner. You're Announcer Fred Collins. X minus
one was directed by Ken McGregor and is an NBC
Radio Network production and now next week. The Frontier is
a strange place, and the Frontier is not always easy
to recognize. It may lie on the other side of
a simple door marked no admittance, but it is always
deadly dangerous. What happens when an innocent girl ignores a
single regulation You will find out.
Speaker 2: Next week at X X minus minus one one one.
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