Speaker 1: In just a moment X minus one.
Speaker 2: But first, when you hear the hearty laugh and familiar
voice of the Great guiller Sleeve Tomorrow Night, you know
you're in for some hilarious adventures. Because wherever Guilty is around,
why somehow things never seem to go as planned. It
might be his impulsive nature, or maybe it's his incurable
weakness for the fairer sex. But whatever it is, the
Great Guildersleeve is bound to keep you laughing for a
full thirty minutes. Tune in Tomorrow night, meet Judge Hooker,
Nephew Leroy, housekeeper Bertie, and all the rest of the
friendly people from Summerville as they join the Great guilder Sleeve,
and I'll stay tuned for X minus one on NBC.
Speaker 3: Come tom 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, resents HE.
Speaker 4: Minus one.
Speaker 3: Tonight's story Junkyard by Clifford D.
Speaker 1: Simak.
Speaker 5: The funny thing about the whole thing was the fact
that we had never intended to land on Planet nine.
We circled it and decided it was strictly a low
grade affair, wouldn't amount to anything for a billion years
or so. As commander of the Galactic Survey Team, I
couldn't waste my time on it. Then my exec saw
this junkyard through the telescope. We landed, took a look
at a load of alien machine parts discarded by some
other spaceship, and then prepared to take off for Earth.
Speaker 1: It had all been a waste of time.
Speaker 5: Engine Roe Mac Iver is Commander Warren all secure, Yes,
sir very well.
Speaker 1: Count down for blast off.
Speaker 4: Engine Room ready, Sir x.
Speaker 5: Minus five minus four minus three minus two minus one.
Fire Mac. What's wrong down there? I don't know, Sir Brady.
Get the data analyze already. We'll have to correct for
a new takeoff time.
Speaker 6: It's the first time I ever heard of engine failure
before taking.
Speaker 5: Oh better before than after. Engine room, Yes, sir, what's
happening you boys ready yet? No, sir Well Burnett Man,
get going on? What those engines started?
Speaker 7: Sir?
Speaker 1: What is it. I don't quite know what to say.
Speaker 4: Well, say something or I'll have you busted.
Speaker 8: We can't start the engines, Commander, at least I can't.
Speaker 4: Well why not? I don't know Cline? What plane on?
Lieutenant c Sir, Lieutenant? What is going on down there?
Is there something wrong with the engines?
Speaker 1: No, Sir, I checked them.
Speaker 5: Well, then let's get them heated up or we'll be
on this god forsaken planet the rest.
Speaker 4: Of our lives.
Speaker 1: We can't do it, sir, Clian.
Speaker 5: Suppose you tell me exactly why you can't start the engines?
Speaker 4: Can you do that?
Speaker 3: Yes, sir?
Speaker 4: All right? Why because sir, we can't remember how what?
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, we've forgotten how to start the engine.
Speaker 5: Lieutenant report up here in one minute. Bring doctor Spencer
with you, yes, sir, all right?
Speaker 4: Brady, what have you got it? God? What don't play innocent?
Speaker 5: You and I have been doing planet surveys together for
fifteen years. You carry enough dead weight and grain alcohol
on every trip to keep you happy for a million
light years now. Obviously the boys in the engine room
have gotten.
Speaker 4: Into him past. Where is it?
Speaker 6: I got a few fists in my locker, but nobody's
touched it. I checked a few minutes ago.
Speaker 4: When somebody has got some of the engine room, come in,
Lieutenant client, Sir, I brought Douc to Spencer's ordin. Hello, Doc,
decline here, tell you what's going on?
Speaker 5: He did.
Speaker 4: How long will it take you to get these guys
sobered up?
Speaker 1: I can't.
Speaker 4: Why not?
Speaker 1: Because they are not drunk. I tested climb in my office.
Speaker 5: Now, wait a minute, Doc, are you trying to get
me to actually believe that these men, intergalactic engineers with
years of hyperficient experience, have forgotten how to stock the
engines of this ship.
Speaker 1: That's right, you You're serious, dead serious, Ira, Something somehow
has caused these men to forget how to start the engines.
There it was.
Speaker 5: It fit in perfectly with a lot of other annoying
little things that have been happening to us ever since
we put.
Speaker 1: Down on planet nine.
Speaker 5: It was to you have been a routine exploration of
a low grade, uninhabited planet. Some routine exploration, All right,
Klan to listen to me. Do you have manuals aboard
engineering manuals?
Speaker 1: Yes, sir.
Speaker 5: Take the engine room boys and study those manuals. They'll
tell you how to start the ship, won't they? Yes, sir, okay,
get going, Doc, I'd like you to stay here with
me and Brady for a minute.
Speaker 4: Okay, report back to me Klin.
Speaker 5: Yes, sir, okay, Doc, you're supposed to be an expert
on space medicine.
Speaker 1: What is it. I've never seen anything like it, Iira Brady,
search me, Captain.
Speaker 6: I've seen them with space blues, alien psycho sees the works,
But I've never seen a disease that could make a
crew forget how to start the engines.
Speaker 1: Maybe it isn't a disease, Okay, what then, maybe it's
a deliberate thing.
Speaker 4: You mean they're faking No.
Speaker 1: I know Klein and the others too well for that.
I mean, maybe there's some outside influence.
Speaker 4: Doc.
Speaker 5: We've surveyed this planet from top to bottom. We know
there is no living cell on it.
Speaker 4: What about the junk yard?
Speaker 1: What junkyard?
Speaker 5: Well, he means that pile of rusty space engine parts
we found. The boys nicknamed it the junkyard. He's right,
somebody put it there. Well, Oh, that another space ship
landed here. We know that from the blast marks on
the rock. We know that, for some unexplained reason, they
took their engine the part and tried to put it
together again. We know they succeeded in building a much
simpler engine, leaving a lot of spare parts, and we
know that they took off the blast off marks tell
us that too.
Speaker 6: What we don't know is whether or not they left
somebody behind or something.
Speaker 1: What about that stone tower, Ira, The boys looked it over.
It's just a pile of stones.
Speaker 4: They probably threw them together as a shelter while they
were rebuilding their engine.
Speaker 1: Oh that sounds too simple.
Speaker 4: I don't like that tower, Ira, Why not? I don't know.
It was scary.
Speaker 6: It had that black look about it, the smell of death.
I felt it when I walked past with Klein and McIvor.
That's the Selton you band, sheees and spooks. I still
don't like it. I need a drinkip it.
Speaker 5: We should be ready to blast off in a few minutes.
Engine room, Engine room. What's going on down there? Engine room?
Lieutenant Climb?
Speaker 1: Daddy? Is that you daddy? Did you bring me a Breton? Paddy?
Speaker 4: I'm scared.
Speaker 5: Holy mackerel, that's clin he's gone off his rocker, Climb, Doc.
I think we better get down to that engine room.
When Doc examined Kline, he found him to have the
mind and memory of a six year old.
Speaker 1: That's it, Irah. Something drained Cline of his memory. And
that's as much as I can tell you. That's a
big help. Here's the manual he was reading.
Speaker 5: Well, at least we can follow this manual and get
off this stinking planet and hand it.
Speaker 1: To me right here. Yeah, anything wrong in Ira? Is
it all there?
Speaker 5: That's all here, Doc, This is the engine manual that
tell us all about the engines, how they operate, how
to locate trouble, how to fix them, how to stark pool?
Speaker 1: What is it?
Speaker 5: Then you're sweating like a pig all of a sudden,
I can't remember the symbols, Doc, I've forgotten how to read.
I left the engine room and went out through the
lock to stand on the outside platform of the ship.
I looked over the junkyard where the metal of the
rusted engine parts gleamed. There was a riddle there, a
riddle we hadn't been able to figure out. Why had
an alien spaceship landed here, ripped out its engines and
then put together a simple, less efficient engine and taken
off again? And they had worked in an awful hurry.
Judging by the mess thing left?
Speaker 1: Why why mind if I join you? Arah? Now'll help yourself. Doc,
ho's Klein. We've made him some toys. He's playing with them.
I've assigned Mac to see that he doesn't hurt himself.
Speaker 4: Doc, Yes, have you got any ideas on what's happening
to us? Well?
Speaker 1: Man experiences incidents, gathers knowledge, snows emotions. Then as he
grows older, he begins to forget those experiences, forget that knowledge.
That's what life is, a long series of forgettings. Here
on nine, in some impossible way, the forgetting is speeded up.
Speaker 5: It happens overnight. Now there's more to it than that.
Oh well, I'm going back to my cabin, try to
get some rest. And you Ara, that's me matters what gives.
Speaker 1: We're in a jam.
Speaker 4: There's been planets I wouldn't mind being marooned on, you know,
but this ain't one of 'em. There's something here, Ira,
I can feel it.
Speaker 1: I can feel it myself. Maybe we should have looked
around more.
Speaker 4: Klein looked around. Klein was the one found that tower.
Speaker 1: That's right, he did.
Speaker 4: He said he didn't like it, he said, it scared him.
Speaker 1: In the morning, bad ears. We'll go and see that tower.
Speaker 4: In the morning.
Speaker 5: I took Doc and MacIvor and Brady with me, and
we walked across the valley to the stone tower. This
wasn't much of a tower, maybe eight or nine feet high,
made of rocks piled one on top of the other.
Speaker 1: Pretty solid, well built and odd type. If culture, I'd.
Speaker 4: Say, did anybody bother to look inside this thing? Magiva?
Speaker 8: You were here with client yesterday, Yes, sir, we couldn't
find a way in. Captain Klimb poked around, but gave a.
Speaker 5: We'll make away and stand back. I think I can
shoot the top of it. Oh no, that should be
big enough for a man to lower himself into. Okay,
pass a rope around my shoulders.
Speaker 8: A captain, Yes, in case there's anything well dangerous, maybe
I ought to go.
Speaker 1: After all, I'm survey engineer. Macg Ivery's right, Ira, okay
mackew responsibility, Yes, sir, Just fasten the rope under my arms.
Speaker 8: That's it now, I'll climb up and lower myself in.
If I pull twice, haul me out. One pull means okay,
give me a hand.
Speaker 6: Brady how about a quick shadow whiskey first, never touch it, Auddy, yep,
can you see him?
Speaker 4: Side black is a tomb. I'm going to lower myself,
pay out a little rope. Well, it's been lovely.
Speaker 7: Here we go.
Speaker 1: One tug. He's on the ground inside. I wonder what
he's found.
Speaker 5: I still don't like it, Old Brady, there's probably another
thing in there, except the future.
Speaker 1: There's two tugs, three coming, all them out, Get.
Speaker 6: Brady heavy, pull the top right, easy, No, Mac, what
the heck is in there anyway?
Speaker 4: Mac? Mac?
Speaker 9: Dad, Dad, Holy jumping asteroids.
Speaker 4: Doc, he's flipped.
Speaker 1: No, he hasn't lost his mind. He's just reverted to babyhood.
We stood there at the foot of the tower, stunned.
Speaker 5: Mac Iver sat on the ground, happy as a clam,
playing with his fingers and talking happy little nonsense syllables.
Speaker 4: Doc, take a look at him.
Speaker 1: Make sure that he's okay physically. Jack. If it's fright,
his pulse will be way up. Mike, let me have
your hand. That's a good fellow, now, good heavens? What
is it? Hi, I've forgotten what the normal pulse rate is.
Speaker 5: Pulse pulse, Doc, let's get out of here, Brady, pick
up a guiver and bring him back to the ship.
Come on, let's get away from this tower. A few
minutes later, Brady and I sat in.
Speaker 1: The captain's quarters.
Speaker 5: He didn't do much talking, just sat and tipped his
bottle to his lips. Ever so often, Well, at least
we know in a general way what we're up against,
do we? We know there's been knowledge lost, important information forgotten.
Check for that memory, that lost skill, That knowledge went somewhere.
Maybe there's something in that tower that takes it away.
And I have a silly feeling we might even get
it back. Have a drink, that is, get a couple
of men volunteers. Now, now we're going to find out
what's inside that tower. We lowered a rotating infra red
movie camera into the tower, took some pictures, and went
back to the ship for a look.
Speaker 1: There was something in there all right. Now, as far
as we can determine, this thing we photographed is shaped
like a water melon standing on end. The movement of
the hairs all over it suggests vibrations such as an
antenna of an insect underneath the wires leading to terminals
that seemed plugged right into the thing. Do you think
it's a form of life. My guess is a combination
of living organism and machine. After all, man and machines
work together. The difference is that man retains his individual identity.
Speaker 5: Or since it doesn't locomote, somebody or something must have
put it exactly. It looks like some kind of communication organists.
Speaker 1: If it is, it's a communication machine that is built
to take in information rather than pass it along.
Speaker 6: Doctor, do you really think that egg in there has
been stealing our memory?
Speaker 1: Why not? Because it's too too wild. That's why it's
no wilder than a lot of other things we found.
Say that that egg is a device for gathering knowledge,
but there's no knowledge here to gather.
Speaker 4: I mean, how.
Speaker 6: Often does a ship land on and out of the
way melon like this?
Speaker 5: Wait a minute, Brady, who says that knowledge has to
be collected here?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 4: I said?
Speaker 5: Why do we assume that knowledge has to be collected
right here on planet nine? We forget things back on Earth.
Speaker 1: Don't we.
Speaker 5: Good Lord, suppose you were some race setting out fish
traps for knowledge, and you had plenty of time to
gather it.
Speaker 1: Where would you put your traps on.
Speaker 5: A planet swarming with intelligent beings where the traps would
be found and destroyed, or their secret snatched away, Or
would you put them out on some second rate world
where nobody would ever bother them? Good heavens, I'd pick
a spot just like this, doc. I think that some
unknown race is bent on trapping knowledge throughout the galaxy, Ira,
if what you say is true.
Speaker 1: If it is, then every time someone on Earth forgets something,
it's because one of these eggs has drained it out
of him. Well, it's too fantastic.
Speaker 4: Have you got a better guess? No? The question is
what do we do next?
Speaker 6: If anybody gets near that egg, he winds up like
some puling little baby.
Speaker 1: You were pretty near it that first day. Did you
forget anything?
Speaker 4: How should I? Now?
Speaker 6: I was too pleasantly lit up in grain spirits to
know the difference.
Speaker 5: Well, the question is still what now I'm going outside
to think, Ira.
Speaker 1: Yes, there is one thing to keep in mind. What
is that dug If those are memory traps, then there
must be a way for somebody to empty them. And
if we're ever going to get away from here, what's
gone in has got to come out.
Speaker 5: I stood out on the platform of the ship and
tried to make some sort.
Speaker 1: Of pattern of it. Forgetfulness.
Speaker 5: That was the key word all through the galaxy, in
every culture there was forgetfulness. There were lots of learned theories,
of course, kinks in the brain, roses data processing.
Speaker 1: But suppose they were wrong.
Speaker 5: Might it not be that forgetfulness was by thousands upon
thousands of these memory traps planted throughout the galaxy, nibbling
away at the conscious memory of all the sentient beings
that lived among the stars. On Earth, a man forgets
slowly because the traps are far away, but here, in
their very shadow, a man forgets suddenly. And then another
thought ended my mind. What kind of race had set
these traps? How did they empty them?
Speaker 1: Ha?
Speaker 5: Ha?
Speaker 4: Ready, huh where do you keep your liquor? Na chee?
Come on, where it's in my locker?
Speaker 5: Get it out of there, all of it, Ira, It's
a direct order, Okay, all of it?
Speaker 4: Got it? Yeah? I never thought i'd see the day
when you pulled rank on me. Ira.
Speaker 5: If you confiscate this stuff, so help me. I'll never
foresaid anything about confiscating. That is, have you ever really
hung one on? I mean, just pie eyed drunk.
Speaker 4: Let's see, there was once on Mars. Was that the worst?
It was beautiful. Took me three days to sober up.
Speaker 6: They say I fought off the whole galactic patrol for hours.
Speaker 4: Well do you think you got enough here to get
that polluted again? I got a pretty good supply iron.
Speaker 5: That's good because in one minute I'm gonna give you
a direct order to hang on the biggest, most monstrous
drunk in the entire history of the universe.
Speaker 1: But first you have to volunteers.
Speaker 4: I volunteered. No, no, no, not until I explain why.
Speaker 6: I'm doing this era this sort of project.
Speaker 4: Don't need reasons. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 5: Let me finish. You know that egg up in the tower, Yeah,
let me. If you get near it, it grabs your mind,
wipes it clean.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and a lead space helmet doesn't shield you, as
we saw with Mackaibern. Right now, Doc thinks this egg
is a kind of communications thing.
Speaker 1: It must be.
Speaker 5: Okay, you're a communications man. What do you do when
you can't shield a communicate?
Speaker 6: Well, that's easy. You scramble at any fool knows Holy mackerel,
exactly are you still game? You think it'll work?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think it might suppose it doesn't.
Speaker 5: Maybe you're babbling infant like Klein and mac Ivery.
Speaker 6: If we don't stop that thing, it'll happen anyway unless
we can remember how to start the engines. Okay, Ira,
I'll do it. Why do I start right now?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 6: Ira, here's Mudd and you're ever loving indragalactic eyeballs. You
know something, I'm beginning to like this mission already.
Speaker 1: Oh that kills the last bottle?
Speaker 4: How am I drew an irol? Buddy?
Speaker 5: Not drunk enough? I should have picked somebody like Doc,
except you'd probably pass out.
Speaker 4: I'm not drunk enough, huh, old buddy, pound not yet? Well?
Speaker 6: And in which case, old Buddy, I'm gonna have to
do something I never like to have to do.
Speaker 1: What's that?
Speaker 6: I'm gonna have to go into my extra special emergency
reserve supply little supply I keep in case of getting
marooned on a planet. You know, I don't like to
go into it, but in this case it's my duty.
I rambling wreck from Georgia Tech, a heck of an engineer,
A rambling wreck from Georgia Tech, and a heck of
an engineer.
Speaker 4: Whoo blast.
Speaker 1: Okay, I guess you're ready. What do you think, Doc?
The most amazing thing I've ever seen is he drunk enough.
What I want to know is what's keeping him consciously?
Speaker 4: Bet he is on your feet?
Speaker 1: Help him up right?
Speaker 4: Rambling erec from Georgia Tech.
Speaker 9: Let's go batres right Rambling wreck from Georgia.
Speaker 5: And somehow we pushed, hauled and stumbled bat ears Brady
out of the ship and up to the rocks to
the egg tower. We erected a tripod over the hole
with a block and tackle, passed a rope around Brady's chest,
and hauled him over the entrance to the tower. There
he swung like some over stuffed pig, singing raucously under.
Speaker 1: The eerie moonlight.
Speaker 4: Ram Runner wreck from Georgia Tech.
Speaker 5: Well, what do you say? I got the earphones on
him so they can't slip off there. I guess we're
going to the lower.
Speaker 1: You sure it's a man's life.
Speaker 5: I'm not sure, Doc, but it's commander of this expedition.
I sometimes have to risk the lives of my men.
Speaker 7: Okaylor, away before I start to get sober.
Speaker 4: Wor away flashed up fire one fire? Do oh boy?
Good luck, Brady, good luck.
Speaker 1: He's at the bottom. Irah, that is can you hear me?
Speaker 4: Gise your hands on my hair? Some guy's hands my hair, Irah.
Speaker 1: The thing must be picking at his brain.
Speaker 4: Brady Brady listened to me. Do you see the egg?
Speaker 6: See that's my buddy, Irah, egggad buddy, you mean buddy?
Speaker 4: They get right avenger?
Speaker 5: Oh good lord, he's got a bottle with him. He's
pouring it on the egg.
Speaker 4: Brady Brady listened to me.
Speaker 5: The wires, wires, the lead wires you took in with you. Yeah,
pull out the studs on the egg and hook your
wires to it.
Speaker 4: You got that.
Speaker 9: Drink?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 5: Good, heavens, it's no use. He's too drunk to know
what he's doing. I'll try again, Brady. Listen, your friend
the egg can't hear you. See, he can't have a
drink until you hook your wires into him.
Speaker 4: You got that?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 4: Nice? An awful things readful? Okay, Okay, what's he doing? Doc?
Speaker 1: You getting any impulses? Not a thing.
Speaker 5: We better haul him out if he starts to sober,
and maybe we'd better okay one, two?
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, wait, I'm getting something, Hirah, what this
is fantastic?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: I'm getting something.
Speaker 7: I'd haul him out quick from Georgia. Check caramble and ready, ready,
you're all right, Doc, help me take a look at him.
Speaker 4: Is he okay?
Speaker 1: Yes, he's okay, just passed out. Let's getting back to
the ship right. You know what, Irah, Tomorrow about nine am,
we're going to be in on the most colossal hangover
in the history of mornings.
Speaker 5: After we were in on more than Doc Spencer had
bargained for, more than any human being had any business
being in on.
Speaker 1: Oh well, Brady, how do you feel? Shoot me?
Speaker 4: You turn the trick drick the tower you hooked into
the egg.
Speaker 1: The stuff is rolling.
Speaker 5: Out now dark and the boys have got a recording
hooked up. The stuff they're listening in on is enough
to set your teeth on edge. The information that mind
Trap has been collecting for hundreds of years. It'll take
us years to sort it out, but we're getting some
of it straight already.
Speaker 6: Any of our own stuff plenty, anything on engines, well
not on our engines.
Speaker 5: So we got the dope on the Junkyard engine. Mack
and the boys are helping to get it assembled. We're
ripping out our own engines and just keeping some of
the parts another junkyard, another junk yard. The engine we're
building now is superior to anything ever built.
Speaker 6: Pretty handy little gadget. That egg only one thing. What's
that tell Doc if he comes across a good hangover
remedy to let me know.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 5: It took us about six days to assemble new engines
using some of our parts and some of the advanced
designs from the junkyard. During most of that time, Doc
Spencer sat down at the tower with a set of
headphones monitoring the information from the egg.
Speaker 1: It was like a man possessed. I didn't think anything
unnatural was happening until the night of the sixth day.
Speaker 4: Well, that does it. The boys have got the engines
ready for blast off.
Speaker 1: There's a full moon too.
Speaker 4: We should be able to lift your by tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1: Huh.
Speaker 5: We're blasting off in exactly one minute, that is what
in exactly one minute?
Speaker 6: But I ara a doc and some of the techno
boys are down monitoring that egg.
Speaker 1: I know it.
Speaker 6: Well, it'll take them twenty minutes to get back into
the ship with.
Speaker 4: All that equipment.
Speaker 5: They're not getting back. Huh, I said, they're not getting back?
Speaker 4: Are you nuts?
Speaker 1: Come here.
Speaker 5: That is, I want you to take a look through
this s fieldscope. You can get a good close up
of Doc and they who have been monitoring that egg.
Speaker 4: Where'll I get it focused?
Speaker 5: You got them? Yeah, take a close up. Mother in Heaven,
you see why we have to leave them here. Those faces,
they're like like some kind of beast.
Speaker 4: What is it, Iira, what's happened to us?
Speaker 5: The same thing that must have happened to the crew
of the last ship that touched here, the same thing
that made them blast out of here in such a
tearing hurry.
Speaker 4: What that is?
Speaker 5: There isn't only knowledge in that thing. Those boys are
monitoring something else, something else, personality. That is, they're not
human anymore. They're turning alien. Wow, they were still there
when the ship roared up away from planet nine and
pointed her silver nose toward Earth. We could see them
in the scopes, A group of tiny figures crouched over
the recording equipment, their earphones plugged into the age. They
didn't even look up when we blasted off. They were
no longer human. Now there was something else, something a
million like years old and of another world.
Speaker 3: Who have just heard X minus one presented by the
National Broadcasting Company in cooperation with Galaxy science fiction magazine,
Your Announcer, Fred Collins. X minus one was directed by
Daniel Sutter and is an NBC Radio Network production.