Speaker 1: Mm HM.
Speaker 2: Coddown for blast off x minus five FO three two
x minus one. Fire from the far horizons of the
unknown come transcribed tales of new dimensions in time and space.
Speaker 3: These are stories of the.
Speaker 4: 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 the night
Story A Gun for a Dinosaur by L. Sprague de Camp.
Speaker 5: Just whiskey, please, no soda, I's mister Rivers, good heavens No,
I have been in America for some time, but not
that long.
Speaker 3: Well to a fine dinosaur.
Speaker 5: Well, now, just a moment, mister Seligman, I won't take
you hunting late Mesozoic dinosaur.
Speaker 3: Why not? How much do you weigh? About nine stone
one and thirty pound? Yeah, I thought, sir, it's not
heavy enough.
Speaker 4: But your advertisement, you said, Safari's arranged to any time.
Speaker 5: Well, I'll take you to any period in the Cenozoic.
I'll get you a shot at any Intelli dand or
even mammoth or masterdon that they have fine heads. But
I'll jolly will not take you to the Jurassic or
the Cretaceous.
Speaker 3: You're just too small. But what's my weight got to
do with it?
Speaker 5: Look here, Oh boy, what did you think you were
going to shoot those dinosaur with?
Speaker 3: Well, I will look over here.
Speaker 5: In this case, that's my own gun, a Continental six
hundred that shoots a pair of Nitro Express cartridges the
size of bananas. It's designed for knocking down elephant, not
just wounding them, but knocking them base over apex.
Speaker 3: Well, now, I've handled guns.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 5: Look, I've been guiding hunting parties forever, twenty years, but
I've never known a man your size who could handle
a six nort.
Speaker 3: It knocks him over.
Speaker 1: For people have killed elephant with lighter guns, even the
three seventy five.
Speaker 5: Yes, but consider an elephant ways. Well, let's say from
four to six ton. You're planning to shoot reptiles weighing
two to three times as much as an elephant. I
tell you, mister Seligman, I won't take anybody hunting dinosaur
who can't handle a six nott. Let's pour another drink
and I'll tell you why. You see, I went into
the partnership with the Raja about five years ago. I
call him that because he's the hereditary monic of Janpour.
Speaker 3: It means nothing. Of course. We both wanted to do
a bit.
Speaker 5: Of hunting again, and Africa's all played out. It's too
civilized now. So when we heard of Professor Prahaska's time
machine at Washington University, we caught the next Plainder Saint Louis.
The foundation administering the machine had worked out an arrangement
splitting the time between scientific parties and hunters who wanted
to try their luck at prehistoric game. Hunter's paid through
the nose, of course to support the project. Well, it
was about our fifth Safari that Courtney James showed up.
Is what you chaps call a playboy, a big blow
handsome in a way, florid, beginning to turn to fat.
He was on his fourth wife, and when he showed
up at the office with a blonde I assumed that
this was the fourth missus James, and he left her
in the outer off and corrected my assumption.
Speaker 7: Bunny, Oh no, she's not my wife. My wife is
in Mexico. I think getting a divorce, but Bunny here
would like to go along.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, we don't take ladies not to the late Mesozoic.
Speaker 7: If she wants to go, she'll go. She skies and
flies my airplane.
Speaker 5: So why shouldn't there are enough risks at eighty five
million BC without adding to them.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, but it's against the firm's policy.
Speaker 7: Now look here, I'm paying you a lot of money.
I'm entitled.
Speaker 5: You can't hire me to do anything against my best judgment.
If that's how you feel, get another guide.
Speaker 7: All right, all right, but let me tell you.
Speaker 5: Oh, it ended with my telling him to get out
of the office, that I'd throw him out. And I
was thinking sadly of all that lovely money that James
would have paid me when he came another side and
August holtsing a slim ball chap with glasses.
Speaker 6: Mister Rivers, I don't want you to think I'm here
under false pretenses. I'm really not much of an outdoorsman,
and I'll probably be scared to death when I see
a real dinosaur.
Speaker 3: Well most of us have frightened at first. But it
doesn't do to speak of it, will you See.
Speaker 6: I've always run a grocery store till my uncle died,
and well I've got a great deal of money now, huh.
And I'm building a new house I'm engaged, you know,
getting married, and well, I'm determined to hang a dinosaur
head over my fireplace or die in the attempt. A serrahtopsy.
And I think that's the one with the big horned
head in the frill over the neck.
Speaker 3: Well, you want to think twice about that.
Speaker 5: You know, if you put a seven foot triceratop's head
into a small living room, that's apt to be no
room left for anything else.
Speaker 6: I know it's ridiculous, but I'm determined to do something
big for once, since there's no more real big game hunting,
I'm going to shoot a dinosaur and hang his head
over my mantle. I'll never be happy otherwise.
Speaker 5: The Raja and I decided to make it to the
Middle Cretaceous that's about eighty five million years ago. It's
the best period for dinosaur in Missouri. So we drove
Holt Singer into the country to let him try the
six note.
Speaker 7: It's rather heavy.
Speaker 3: Look you look out, that's quite a kick. Couldn't you
fire at prone? Oh? Not a gun that big. There's
not enough to give.
Speaker 5: You'd break your shoulder, all right, take the safety off
like this, Yeah, take my hand.
Speaker 3: I'll help you up, I thank you. I think I
better try something small.
Speaker 5: Well, he took a fancy to my Manchester seventy chambered
for a three seven five magnum cartridge. It's a little
light for elephant. I'm very definitely light for dinosaur. But
we were in a hurry, and then, of course, just
before we were ready to trick, James showed up and
apologized for insulting me. He'd had a run in with
the girl and he wanted to go along, and so
we were off on safari.
Speaker 3: You are ready, gentlemen? Why yes, I suppose so.
Speaker 5: Mister Holtzinger, you've met my partner, the Raja of Jianpour.
Speaker 3: How do you do sir? How do you do? Well?
Speaker 1: Shall we get cracking after you, mister Holtzinger, mister James,
thank you.
Speaker 7: That's good.
Speaker 5: Going all set and we'll slam the hatch and off
we go. What happens nothing until the force field is
built up? Ah, then she goes, what happened to the lights? Well,
there's no current while we're in transition.
Speaker 3: I don't feel well. There's usually a touch of verdigo.
I shouldn't worry about it.
Speaker 7: Look, what do you shoot for her? I mean with dinosaur.
What is the best shot?
Speaker 5: Well, you don't try for his brain, you know, they
don't have any Well, to be exact, they have a
little bump about the size of a tennis ball on
the top of their spines, and you're not likely to
hit it when it's embedded in a six foot skull.
Speaker 7: Try for the heart.
Speaker 1: They have big hearts, over one hundred pounds, and exploding
shell in the heart will slow them down at least.
Speaker 3: Oh, oh, I see.
Speaker 7: Why don't we have to go so far for a game?
Why couldn't we just go back fifty years and shoot
lions of Africa?
Speaker 5: Well, the machine won't work more recently than one hundred
thousand years ago. Why well, I'm no afford dimensional expert
on the subject, but it has something to do with
what they call time paradox. You know, if people could
go back to recent times, they might do something to
affect history or kill their own grandfather, you know. And
there's also some kind of taboo about sending people back
to the same time again. Paradoxes mustn't have them, What
would happen? I'm not sure, but the university isn't taking chances.
They've got about a billion years to cover, they won't run.
Speaker 3: Out of ears. Hello, here we go. Oh cheers.
Speaker 5: Eh, well that's done it April twenty fourth, eighty five
million years BC. Now, then, careful, keep the safety on
your gun and don't shoot unless I give the word.
Speaker 7: Why Why should we have to wait for you?
Speaker 5: Because I'm responsible for everything you do, especially if something
goes wrong.
Speaker 3: I say, Rajah, open the door, will you?
Speaker 5: In this period, the time chamber materializes on top of
a rocky rise.
Speaker 3: At the west, you see the arm of the Kansas.
Speaker 5: Sea that reaches across Missouri and the Big Swamp where
the sauropods live. To the east, the land slopes up
to a plateau. It's good for sarahtopsuins. But the finest
thing about the Cretaceous is the climate. It is barmy
like the South Sea Islands and not so muggy as
the Jurassic.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 5: He sent the time chamber back off and looked about.
It was springs, with the dwarf magnolias in bloom all
over down towards the Kansas Sea, cycads and willows grew,
while the uplands were covered with scoopy Yeah, well, I'm
no ruddy poet, But I can appreciate a beautiful scene. Well,
I was looking through the haze and sniffing the air.
Speaker 7: I got him, I got it.
Speaker 3: What the devil? You see it?
Speaker 6: There?
Speaker 3: Does confounded you? Idiot? I told you not to shoot
without word from me, And what happened?
Speaker 1: And on ether of mine wandered out of the cops,
mister James gave him both barrels.
Speaker 3: Miss.
Speaker 5: Now look here, James, one of the biggest dangers on
a safari is trigger happy sides who get panicky.
Speaker 3: You're not to shoot unless you're told. You understand?
Speaker 7: Who do you think you were to tell me when
to shoot my own game?
Speaker 3: Now look here.
Speaker 5: Firstly, if you shoot off all your ammunition before the
trip is over, your gun won't be available in case
of a pinch. And secondly, if you empty both barrels,
what would happen if a big theoropod should charge before
you could reload? And finally, it's not sporting to shoot
everything inside?
Speaker 3: Is that clear?
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 3: All? Right? Well? Now, then first task is fresh meat.
Speaker 5: As I told you, Holdzinger wanted to sell a topsy
in head. James insisted on a tyrannosaur. Then everybody would
think that he shot the most dangerous game. The fact
is the tyrannosaur's overrated. But everybody's read about the tyrant lizard.
And while he does have the biggest head of the
fear of pods. Oh, and he will snap you up
if he gets the chance, No fear. Oh, we started
off searching for meat the rajah and I put the
scibes in front if we told them so that they'll
get the first shot, which is true. But another reason
is that they're always tripping and falling with their guns cocked.
Speaker 3: And if the guy were in front, he gets shot.
Bone heads where.
Speaker 1: See crouching over there feeding on those psych kids. It's
about the size of the men. They look intelligent and
not likely. That bulge on the head is solid bone,
not being Hold on there, James, you had your shot
for the day. We'll go fired until Holzinger shoots. Yeah, sure, right,
go ahead, mister Holtzinger. It doesn't matter which one.
Speaker 3: No here, try that one by the rock.
Speaker 5: There's a good clear shot. Or take your safety off.
Oh go ahead now, Well, sh I'm not so bad
enough of this, James, don't.
Speaker 7: I got him clean right through the heart first shot.
How was that?
Speaker 3: I thought you were going to give Holtzinger the first crack.
It's his turn.
Speaker 7: Well, I waited took so long I thought he'd gotten
buck fever.
Speaker 3: Very well. But if this sort of thing happens once more,
we leave you at camp the next time we go out.
Speaker 5: The next couple of days, we treked around the neighborhood
and then headed over to the Sauropods swamp over to
the west. We were staked out along the edge of
the lake watching a big beggar out in the swamp,
waving his head about.
Speaker 3: And they're the big ones. It looks something like the Brundez.
Speaker 7: Or can we shoot him?
Speaker 3: I wouldn't.
Speaker 5: Why not, Well, there's no point to it, and it's
not sporting, Like if you kill one in the water,
he sinks and can't be recovered, And if you kill
one on land, the only trophy is that little head
on the top of that long neck.
Speaker 3: You can't bring that whole beast back because he weighs
thirty tons or more.
Speaker 5: That museum in New York cut Oh, yes, well, they
sent a party of forty eight to the early Cretaceous
with a fifty caliber machine gun. They spent two solid
months hacking and sawing the carcass apart and hauling.
Speaker 3: It to the time machine.
Speaker 5: I know the chap on the project, and he still
has nightmares in which he smells decomposed dinosaur. And they
also had to kill a dozen big sauropods who came
in for the party, and they had them lying around too.
Speaker 3: They lost three men.
Speaker 7: Reggie duck bill.
Speaker 3: Where where are they up there.
Speaker 5: At the shoreline? I keep your voices done? You see
with the crest on the back of their heads, mister Rivers.
I've been thinking over what you said about those heads.
If I could get one of those duck bills, I'd
be satisfied. It did look big enough over my man.
Speaker 3: I'm sure of it. Old boy.
Speaker 5: Well, let's be off, Roger. You wait here with mister James.
Shouldn't take us long. Holt and I crept along the shoreline,
narrowing the range to the duck bills.
Speaker 3: I think I can make the shot from here. I'll
be ready in a minute. My shoe is looser. He's
getting away. I won't get a shot.
Speaker 5: I'm afraid mister James has fired both barrels again.
Speaker 3: James, that's the second time you spoiled my shots.
Speaker 7: I am be a fool. I couldn't let them wonder
into camp stamping everything flat.
Speaker 3: There was no danger to that.
Speaker 1: You can see that the water is deep offshore. It's
just that our triggered a happy mister James. Can't see
any animal without shooting, And.
Speaker 5: If it did get close, all you have to do
is to throw a stick of fire wood at it.
Speaker 3: They're perfectly harmless.
Speaker 7: So how was I don know?
Speaker 3: I believe I mentioned it.
Speaker 7: Well, what are we on this miserable trip for except
to shoot things?
Speaker 3: Certain rules? You know?
Speaker 7: You call yourselves hunters. I'm the only one who was.
Speaker 5: Hitting anything now just a moment, old man, you're behaving
like a confounded skite with more money than brains.
Speaker 3: I should never have brought you along, that's.
Speaker 7: How you feel. Give me some food and I'll go
back to the base by myself.
Speaker 5: Don't be a bigger ass than you can help. That's
quite impossible, all right, I'll go along.
Speaker 7: I wouldn't want to pollute your air with my presence.
Speaker 1: That's an attractive fortbridge. But we can't let him go
and get lost to starve, all right, I'll go after him.
Speaker 3: We stumbled along for several more days.
Speaker 5: James on his good behavior for a change, and on
the first of May we broke camp and headed north
to the hills. That was hot and sticky, and we
were soon panting and sweating like horses. When I picked
up the smell of carrion and heard the thumbing of
the flies. We found a huge ceratopsy and lying dead
in a little hollow on the edge of the coups.
He must have weighed six or eight tons alive. Why
couldn't I have gotten him before he died? That would
have made a darn fine head on your toes chaps.
The sauro pod that's been at this carcass is probably nearby.
You see how the hide's been ripped off and the
bones are scattered. Sora pods will hang around a carcass
like this for weeks, gorging and then sleeping their meals
off for days at a time.
Speaker 3: What do we do, well, that's what we came after. Raja.
Speaker 5: You take mister James through that way and we'll parallel
you forty feet distant. Now, keep your eyes open. It'd
be hard to see in these woods unless you're right
on top of him. We pushed through the edge of
the copse, looking for the huge flesh eater who'd been
at the carcass I could hear James and the Raja
are pushing a head on my right. We were separated
by a gully when I head a noise ahead on
our left.
Speaker 7: What is it?
Speaker 3: I don't know. Take the safety off your gun. Oh,
there it is. It's one of those boneheads.
Speaker 5: Oh well, they're not dangerous at any rate, but be
careful that sour pud might still be around.
Speaker 7: I've got him, cut him clean.
Speaker 3: Well, he's done it again. He shot the bonehead.
Speaker 7: I've got him. Have a go, Tyrannus harm.
Speaker 5: The tyrannosaur heaved his head out of a shrubbery just
in front of us. The scientists can insist that Rex
is bigger than Trinchy's, but I'll swear that this tyrannosaur
was bigger than any Rex ever hatched. It must have
stood twenty feet high and been fifty feet long. I
could see its big, bright eye and six inch teeth.
He'd been sleeping off his last meal, and James fired
off both barrels over his head at the bonehead and
the tyrannosaur up.
Speaker 3: Get back, Get back your guns empty. Rajer can't get
a shot found it. There goes the beasting behind those ferns, Holtzinger,
hold Singer, come back. Your gun's too light for that beggar.
Speaker 5: James came bolting back in a panic and blunded into
the rajah sending both of them scrawling under the ferns.
The tyrannosaur came after them to snap them up. Holtzinger
began to blaze away. He got off three shots through
the beast's body with that little light gun. The tyrannosaw
whirled around to see what was stinging it. The jaws
came open and the head swung around and down again.
Holtzinger got off one more shot and tried to leap
to one side. The tyrannosaur continued its lunge.
Speaker 3: And caught him in its jaws as he fell.
Speaker 8: Regie, stand clear, hot. Hot's the only chance. It's no
use there he goes. Tie Your long shot, ah missed
him clean, Poor hold Singer.
Speaker 3: Well that's the end. You stop screaming. Did you notice now? Yes?
Speaker 5: Well, I expect we best tracked the Beastie. You might
be dying. We should try to recover hold Singer's remains. Yes,
there's nothing else to do, no nothing, the bad show
all around. An hour later we gave up and went
back to the glade, looking very dismal.
Speaker 7: Where have you two been?
Speaker 5: We were occupied the late mister Holtsinger. Remember you shouldn't
have gone off and left me.
Speaker 7: None of those things might have come along so bad
enough to lose one hundred through your stupidity. What sure?
You put us in front of you, so if anybody
gets eaten, it's one of us, that's you.
Speaker 3: Stinking little swine.
Speaker 5: If you hadn't been a first class idiot and blown
those two battles again, this never would have happened. Hold
Singer died trying to save your worthless life, and I
wish he'd failed. Not but I'm glad you did that.
It gives me a chance i'd been waiting for. Not
get up, and I'll be glad to finish off.
Speaker 3: You won't finish anybody off, all right?
Speaker 1: Put your hands up, put that gun away, don't be idious.
Speaker 7: I won't let anybody do that to me.
Speaker 3: You can't get away with murder? Why not?
Speaker 7: Will be much left to you after your hit with
a six hundred explosive show? Nobody could prove anything. They
can't hold you for a murder eighty five million years old,
the statute of limitations.
Speaker 3: You know, nice work, rider, old chef e.
Speaker 1: Gretaceous rock doesn't quite have the balance of a cricket ball,
but it's a bit hot.
Speaker 3: What well suppose we tie this chap up and take
him back to camp.
Speaker 5: When the time transition chamber finally arrived, we fell over
one another getting into it.
Speaker 3: We dumped James in a corner and threw the switches.
Speaker 7: You too, should have killed me back there.
Speaker 3: You don't have a particularly good head.
Speaker 7: You wouldn't look at all well over the mantel.
Speaker 3: You're gonna laugh.
Speaker 7: But I'll get you someday. Yeah, close quarters, isn't it.
Someday I'll find a way. I'll find a way, and
I'll get off scot free too.
Speaker 5: My dear chap, if there was some way to do it,
i'd have you charge with Holtzinger's murder.
Speaker 3: You'd best let well enough alone.
Speaker 7: I'll kill you both of you somehow.
Speaker 3: Cigarette Roger thanks.
Speaker 5: When we came out in the present, we handed him
his empty gun and off he went. We paid everybody off,
found that we were broke, but quite Luckily, a steel
manufacturer turned up who wanted a mastodon head for his den.
While we were standing in the laboratory at the university
waiting for the time chamber, the technician, he's a bokhist
chapter theoretical temporal physicist, was watching his dials and scopes.
Speaker 4: Oh, by the way, mister Rivers, you just missed him,
missed too, that last client of yours, mister James.
Speaker 3: Well, that's good luck. And what was he doing here? Oh?
He told me quite a tale.
Speaker 4: Said he'd lost his wallet back there, so it contained
some very valuable paypers must.
Speaker 7: Have been valuable.
Speaker 4: Paid the university fee of five thousand dollars for the
use of the chamber. He's on his way back there now,
back where Well, he told me to send him back
a few minutes before he arrived the last time. Then
he could see himself drop the wallet.
Speaker 5: He's going to stand there and watch himself come out. Yeah,
but doesn't that create what you chips call a paradox?
What happens when a man tries to occupy the same
time twice.
Speaker 7: No, we don't know, it's never been tried before.
Speaker 3: We tried to warn him, but.
Speaker 5: Yes, I know he's a headstrong chef. Still, he wouldn't
think he'd chanced it just for the sake.
Speaker 3: Of a wallet. Was he armed? Yes, he had a
three seventy five Express. He's seventy five.
Speaker 1: That's odd.
Speaker 7: He knows it's too late for Dinas, yes, but.
Speaker 3: Not too late for a man.
Speaker 5: I say, Roger, you don't think mister James is lurking
behind a bush back there until we show up again,
planning to put us as we step out.
Speaker 1: That's impossible. We already did step out of the chamber,
nothing happy.
Speaker 5: But that was before mister James was waiting with an
Express rifle copped.
Speaker 3: Hey, doctor, but you mean he's planning to murder the
two of you.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't be a bit surprised, Ni, And I suppose
there's anything you could do to stop the process.
Speaker 3: Now, No, it's too late. The chamber's in transition.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: Look, hadn't you better get out of here before he
kills you? There's no point in running.
Speaker 5: If mister James's theory is right, we've both been dead
for eighty five million years.
Speaker 3: You might as well wait and see what happens. Transition
point coming up.
Speaker 5: Well, it's been quite a whorld up to this point. Hi, Roger, Yes,
right here it goes, Reggie.
Speaker 7: Are you all right?
Speaker 3: I seem to be what happened the time chamber? It's back.
Speaker 7: We'd better get it open.
Speaker 3: Good lord? Look at that ghastly isn't it?
Speaker 7: Where did it come from?
Speaker 3: I'm not sure?
Speaker 5: I rather think it came from the Middle Cretaceous era.
Wasn't here a moment ago?
Speaker 7: Ghastly mess looks as.
Speaker 1: If every bone was pulverized in every blood vessel.
Speaker 5: Burstsay, but that's his gun, all right, it's James, There's
no doubt of it.
Speaker 3: So that's the story, mister Seligman.
Speaker 5: Of course I don't understand the mathematics, but the ideas
rather easy to grasp. Nobody had shot us when we
first emerged on the twenty fourth of April eighty five
million BC, and so of course that couldn't be changed.
The instant James started to do anything that would make
a paradox, the space time forces snapped him forward and.
Speaker 3: Ripped him to bits.
Speaker 5: Well, they know a good deal about that now, and
there's a safety margin of five hundred years between each trip.
You can't have paradoxes, you know, just isn't done, and
you see I'm a lot more careful now. I shouldn't
have taken James, and I knew what a spoiled, unstable
sort he was, or the hold Singer either. When I
saw that he was too small to shoot a dinosaur gun.
With a heavier gun, he probably have knocked the tyrannosaur
down and saved his own life. So, mister Siligman, that's
why I won't take you to that period to hunt.
I'm sorry, but you're just too light. You're not big
enough to handle a gun for dinosaur.
Speaker 4: 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 story of a man who
develops a spaceship that travels so fast that its pilots
vanish mysteriously into thin air. Read the Von Shelton story
point of Departure in Galaxy Magazine on your new stand
now tonight.
Speaker 3: By transcription.
Speaker 4: X minus one has brought You a Gun for Dinosaur,
a story from the pages of Galaxy, written by el
Sprague de Camp, patent consultant and one of our leading
authors of science fiction. It was adapted for radio by
Ernest Cannoy.
Speaker 7: Featured in the.
Speaker 4: Cast were Alistair Duncan, Wendell Holmes, John Gibson, Donald Bucha,
Warren Parker, and Alan Hewett. Your announcer Fred Collins. X
minus one was directed by Daniel Sutter and is an
NBC Radio Network production.
Speaker 1: A