Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: Coddom 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.
Speaker 3: He minus minus minus.
Speaker 4: The Martian Death March.
Speaker 5: I've always been interested in lost causes, the revolt of
the Scottish Jacobites against England, the last stand of the
Cherokee and Sioux Indians, and the death March of the
Martian Highlanders in nineteen ninety seven. There has been a
lot written about that march. The UN Commission report covers
four volumes, but the whole story isn't down on paper yet.
I know it because I was on that march from
the beginning to the end. There's one part of the
story that no one ever mentions. The Martian Death March
of ninety seven was led by an earthman. Maybe you've
been over the root of the marsh. There wasn't any
highway there thirty years ago. In ninety seven, there was desert, hot,
burning desert. I lived at the edge of a Kalmac
canal then with my father. He was a prospector searching
the surrounding desert with sonar probe and Geiger counter, scratching
just enough or from under the Martian sands to pay
for our grub steak.
Speaker 4: The next year.
Speaker 5: I remember he was in the Adamson digger in the
north quadrant when I came running out that day.
Speaker 6: God, Dad, Dad, there's somebody coming, Dad, across the desert.
Speaker 7: You sure I saw them.
Speaker 6: There are a couple of miles out.
Speaker 8: Or how many cars they're on foot, on foot across
the desert.
Speaker 6: Honest, Dad, I saw them.
Speaker 7: Are you sure it wasn't a light reflection off the canal.
Speaker 6: No, it was dark against the sand.
Speaker 8: You don't like that. You run back and get the
rifles out. I've got to pull a digger into the shed.
Speaker 6: Is they're gonna be fighting, Dad.
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 8: I got a whole year's or piled out back in
the bins, and I ain't gonna lose it.
Speaker 7: No claim, jumpers.
Speaker 8: You go back the shack and break out those rifles
and see their lord you hear and jump.
Speaker 5: Dad had three surplus army rifles and a couple of
homemade grenades made out of or cans stuffed with adamson
A explosives. We crouched inside the shack waiting. The shadow
of the water tower in the doorway grew longer as
the quick Martian dust settled down over the desert.
Speaker 7: And there they come. Al, there's two of them.
Speaker 6: What's that on the first one's back?
Speaker 4: Why?
Speaker 7: I haven't seen one of those in twenty years?
Speaker 6: What is it?
Speaker 8: A one man desert tank? They used to carry water
that way before Adamson put out the air still units.
Speaker 6: There's something funny about that second one. Look he's all
spinley and it's funny.
Speaker 7: He's funny, all right. Hell, that's a Martian.
Speaker 6: I never saw one off the reservation.
Speaker 7: Before, hasn't been, not in ten years. I don't like this.
Speaker 6: Here they come into the dooryard.
Speaker 7: You remember what I told you. Wind up the sights
and just squeeze the trigger.
Speaker 1: Hello, Hello now dove, Hello, Wait a minute, what do
you want water?
Speaker 6: I need water?
Speaker 8: WHI My name is John Johannah. What are you doing
with that spider?
Speaker 4: His name is cantal Car.
Speaker 7: I don't care what his name is. What's a human
doing with a Martian?
Speaker 4: I found him in the dry bed of CalMac Canal.
Neil he did?
Speaker 1: He probably ran off from the reservation. When our brothers
are cage, they seek freedom.
Speaker 4: Brothers.
Speaker 1: Those spiders all living creatures out our brothers on mars as.
Speaker 8: Honay, wait a minute, bird Ulstrom at false whe told
me there was a screwball heads preacher over there hollering
about letting the spiders loose off the reservations. Let no
man call his own, no man, no tribe, no nation.
I guess that's you, all right, Britt told me they
called you're crazy, John. I don't suppose any harmony. Fill
your tank up at the air still, and you can
even have supper with us. We would be happy to
we What do you mean we can tell car and
my sulit that spider. Oh no, I ain't having a
Martian sitting down and eat with me. You come on, no,
thank you, sir.
Speaker 1: No where my brother is not welcome, I cannot go.
Speaker 8: Well, suit yourself. I'll get the key to the water tarer.
Come out here and put away the guns. We won't
have any trouble from these two.
Speaker 5: The old man filled his tank at the air still tower,
and the Martian went through the ashpile for half earned
fueled brick. When we went to the house for supper,
I could see them dis silhouetted against the fire, the
old man with his wild hair and beard, and the
thin spidery arms and legs of the Martian.
Speaker 6: Dad, what are all the Martians on the reservation?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 8: Oh, but a couple of wild ones in the mountains
up north. The patrol catches a couple every year. Why
they murder people?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 6: I mean why are they on the reservation.
Speaker 7: Because it's the safest place to keep them and past
us off.
Speaker 6: How many are there?
Speaker 7: Oh, I don't know, a few thousand. They keep dying off.
Speaker 8: Why they catch earth diseases? Chicken pox almost wiped out
the whole gang of them two years ago.
Speaker 6: Chicken pox. I had that. It didn't wipe me out.
Speaker 7: You ain't a Martian.
Speaker 6: I was born on Mars.
Speaker 7: Well, I mean, you ain't one of those spiders. Now
eat your food, it'll get cold.
Speaker 6: Okay, dad?
Speaker 4: Oh what now?
Speaker 6: Were the Martians always on the reservation.
Speaker 8: Well, since the Outpost three massacre they have been that.
But before you were born, they lived wild in the
mountains up north.
Speaker 6: Were they fierce?
Speaker 8: Fierce enough? Only place for them spiders behind wire?
Speaker 6: Yeah, it sure is.
Speaker 5: Out in the dooryard, the campfire flickered at the base
of the water tower. The first of the Martian moons
had set. The other wouldn't rise for several hours. I
could hear the sand peepers out of the desert as
I stood there. The old man and the Martians were
sitting on the ground, huddled close to the fire. It
gets cold fast on the desert when the sun goes down.
Speaker 4: Is that you, boy? You can come up to the
fire if you like. My dad wouldn't like it, all right.
Speaker 6: But I'm not afraid of no spider.
Speaker 4: No, there is nothing to be afraid of.
Speaker 6: How come his arms are all skinny?
Speaker 4: Ask him?
Speaker 6: Does he talk?
Speaker 4: Yes? His name is Cantalca.
Speaker 6: It is huh.
Speaker 9: Hello, hello, boy.
Speaker 6: He talks funny.
Speaker 9: It is not my language.
Speaker 6: Why isn't he on the reservation. You can get in
trouble helping spiders to escape.
Speaker 1: No man has the right to imprison the innocent. They
that are enslaved will be freed. They that are in
sickness and misery will be comforted.
Speaker 4: They that are exiled in a strange place will be restored.
Speaker 6: My dad says, the spiders are treacherous, cowardly, murdering savages.
That's what he says.
Speaker 9: Boy.
Speaker 10: There was a time on this world when there were
no earthmen, when the ships and the machinery of Earth
were unknown. Then the people of the highlands lived in peace.
But today they are a handful, starving, dying behind the wire.
Speaker 6: But the reservation isn't so bad.
Speaker 9: Our home is in the mountains of the north, not
the desert.
Speaker 1: I heard a voice cry it out to me in
the desert. Go to your brothers.
Speaker 6: Did they really call you crazy? John?
Speaker 4: I have been called manything.
Speaker 6: You really think we ought to let those old spiders
off the reservation?
Speaker 10: Why we die here in the desert. We die in
the sun, and of the sicknesses you have brought from Earth.
Speaker 6: That's cause Martians are just weak. I'll bet I could
knock you down myself.
Speaker 9: You could.
Speaker 10: We are a different people. We have not the strength
of muscle of earthmen. But we will not stay here
to die.
Speaker 6: You won't get off the reservation. The patrol takes care
of all that. They won't let any stinking old spiders out.
Speaker 1: Ah, even in the minds of children splanted the poison
of evil?
Speaker 4: How long.
Speaker 7: That night?
Speaker 5: Through the window I could see the flicker of the
old man's campfire. He was walking up and down now, shopping,
singing hymns verse after verse, his white beard catching the
light as he passed behind the fire. The Martians sat
slumped over his thin, spindly arms folded across the huge
barrel chest that had developed over the sentries. As the
air of Mars thinned and escaped into space in the morning,
I looked out and they were gone. Looking back now,
we wonder how they did it. The high voltage wire
around the reservation carried a fatal charge. The patrolman in
the tower had fifty caliber machine guns. The desert around
the camp was mined heavily, yet at dawn on August seventh,
nineteen ninety seven, they broke out. I was down at
the dried up canal bed hunting sandpeepers when my father
came running after me.
Speaker 6: Hell oh, here I am.
Speaker 7: Come on back to the house.
Speaker 6: What's the matter?
Speaker 7: Dare and shut up and run?
Speaker 6: What is it?
Speaker 8: The spiders busted boots, burdles from radioed inn They come
in here they're headed this way, the murdering devils.
Speaker 6: They kill anybody.
Speaker 7: Six patrolmen. When I busted through the wire.
Speaker 6: What are you gonna do? Dad?
Speaker 7: Why are a peg of adamson A across the gate?
You get in there and get the guns out.
Speaker 5: I got the rifles and shoved the full clip in
each one. Then I slipped the primer fuse on the
homemade grenades and lugged them out to the porch. Dad
was running lead wires back to a detonator from a
half keg of adamson A he'd set across the gate.
Speaker 7: There, and that said, now, give me one of those rifles.
Speaker 6: Will they be here soon?
Speaker 7: You can see the dust over the rise litering spiders.
Speaker 6: What'll they do?
Speaker 7: I don't know. Now make sure you get a good side, Al,
don't waste any bullets.
Speaker 6: There they are, Dad, There they come.
Speaker 7: Wait a minute, hold up now, I want to get
a good shot. Let him get closer, Dad.
Speaker 6: That's crazy John up in front there. He's taller than
the spiders. You can see his beard.
Speaker 8: You're right, and that run a gave rat. He probably
helped him break out of the reservation. Listen now, if
anything happens to me, you ride out back to the shed.
You can hide out in the empty orbins till they
go away.
Speaker 6: And you got that, all right, Dad. The spider's shouting something, Dad.
Speaker 8: Probably a trick. Get down, a little leavel you're in
the way.
Speaker 7: I got him, clear now, right in my head. Up
a little now, got him? Got him?
Speaker 6: Hell, Dad, look out, they've got good down.
Speaker 8: Get down, Get out out, Get out to the shed.
Speaker 6: Yeah, your here, go on.
Speaker 7: Spiders are going to rush. Don't get gory.
Speaker 6: No, no, I can't.
Speaker 1: Up and get out of here.
Speaker 4: You're here, get out.
Speaker 5: I ran back through the heart to the shed. Behind me,
I could hear the Martians sweeping up to the dooryard.
Then suddenly the ground shook and I could feel the
dull concussion waves hit my ears as the adamson A exploded.
I could hear the high, whispered screams of the Martians
and the rattle of fragments on the metal roof of
the shed. I dived into the empty orbit and slammed
the hatch, almost chucked. I sat there waiting. Then suddenly
a shadow fell across the edge of light and the
hat slid open on top of me.
Speaker 6: You leave me alone, I'll kill you, boy.
Speaker 4: I've been looking for you.
Speaker 6: Where's my dad? What did you do to my dad?
Speaker 4: He's dead?
Speaker 6: You kill him? You and those spiders, I'll kill you.
I'll kill all those thinking, murdering spiders.
Speaker 4: They are our brother's boy.
Speaker 1: Your father shot without warning, and the fire was returned
against my orders.
Speaker 6: You mean you weren't gonna attack us.
Speaker 1: Our brothers came in peace. They are going home to
their mountains. We came to get water for the journey.
Speaker 6: You mean you just wanted water? Yeah, Dad deadn.
Speaker 9: The Earth Patrol will be following us soon.
Speaker 4: We must go and the boy. We have to leave
him here with water and supplies.
Speaker 9: The Earth Patrol would question him. We need the time
he goes with us.
Speaker 5: They tore the Adamson air still from the top and
mounted it on poles. They piled our supplies in the
yard and loaded them on their backs, and then they started.
I marched with the old man of the head and
the columns stretched out behind us on the desert. I
turned to look back at our house, but the sun
was behind it, blinding red. The old man pulled me
around as he marched, his eyes fixed on the horizon,
where far to the north rose the cool mountains that
were the ancient home of the Highlanders. Fourteen of the
martians died the first day. They dropped to the side
of the colum where they could go no farther, and died,
but the march went on. On the fifth day, we
swung wide to avoid a mining settlement, but not wide enough.
The miners were in ambush behind a pile of rocks.
Speaker 4: O boy, reservation horse.
Speaker 1: I shall lead them home to the promised rest, home
to the mountains.
Speaker 3: March forward, march.
Speaker 4: How wold, and the march went on.
Speaker 5: We wound across the desert in wild zigzags, following the
paths the old man had traveled through the years. Only
once a patrol plane hovered on the horizon and then
shot away. The days went on, the weeks, and the
martians died. They died of exhaustion, They died of the
diseases we had given, and they died of thirst. The
Adamson still could produce twenty seven units of water an hour,
no more, and on that they died of thirst.
Speaker 4: Here, boy, here's your water.
Speaker 6: But that's more than the others. God take it, it's yours.
You're giving me.
Speaker 4: Your water it will be provided to me.
Speaker 1: He that brings justice to his brothers will drink deep
of the water of righteousness.
Speaker 4: Eat it, drink, drink your water. Boy.
Speaker 5: Across the desert, from the CalMac Canal to Fever dep
past the towering mass of the Higgins bad Lands, across
the dry sea bottoms, they marched on the fifty fourth
day of the march. We halted at evening. The air
was thinner, colder, now the rations had long since been exhausted.
I lay down to sleep, wrapped in the old man's coat.
Early in the morning, before sunrise, I awoke. Suddenly the
ground mist that had covered the desert the night before
was lifting.
Speaker 7: Slowly.
Speaker 5: I saw the old man standing by the burned out fire,
the vapor swirling around his legs in the cold light.
Speaker 4: Of the false dawn, edging his wild beard. Go back
to sleep, Boy, I can't. The end is near.
Speaker 1: I have led them through the wilderness, drive shod across
the seas, and before us lie the mountains.
Speaker 6: You mean we're almost there.
Speaker 1: When the mist is taken from the eyes of man,
the place of refuge can be seen.
Speaker 6: You mean the mountains. It's over where there.
Speaker 1: I have led them to their home, and I must
go back to the desert.
Speaker 4: You mean alone now now, even.
Speaker 1: Now I hear a voice in the wind, carry the
message to the men of Earth.
Speaker 4: Bring to this new world, the message of the old.
Speaker 1: All beings created in the universe are my brothers.
Speaker 4: And he that hums my brother hums me. Goodbye, goodbye boy,
you will be safe now.
Speaker 6: Goodbye, joh, goodbye.
Speaker 5: The Martians found him five hundred yards from the camp dead.
Now the mist rose and before us towered the highlands, the.
Speaker 4: Tall green mountains in the cool sky.
Speaker 5: The march was over. Of the seven thousand Martians who started,
nine hundred were alive. They gathered now on the rise
of ground and faced the hills. Their thin bodies wavered
as they stood, and some dropped to the ground as
they stood there, but there was a light of hope
in their large, staring eyes. Most of them had died,
but they had died on their way home, And now
the march was over. Then the patrol planes were spotted
on the horizon, and within ten minutes they had landed.
The Martians stood silently as the squads piled out and
set up the fifty caliber machine guns and the petroleum
jee flamethrower.
Speaker 3: All right, you spiders, hands up and stay together. Gather
in a bunch and don't try anything. Sergeant, Yes, sir,
shoot the first spider that moves and shoot to kill. Alright,
where's that boy? There was a boy reported here? Oh
are you all right?
Speaker 7: Kid?
Speaker 4: They hurt you.
Speaker 6: No, I'm all right. John gave me his.
Speaker 4: Water rash the leader. Uh well, I've got a warren
for him.
Speaker 3: Where is he there?
Speaker 6: He's dead?
Speaker 3: Oh well, just as well. I hate to be him
in front of a settler's jury.
Speaker 6: What are you gonna do to them?
Speaker 3: The spiders see those transport planes coming in. We're going
to ship them all back to the reservation where they belong.
Speaker 6: You can't. I can't do that.
Speaker 4: What are you talking about, kid, You can't.
Speaker 6: Take them back. They're home. John said they were home.
You can't take them back. It isn't there. I won't
let I won't.
Speaker 7: Sag.
Speaker 4: Yes, peel this crazy kid off me?
Speaker 7: All right now, kid, take it. I must be shot.
Can't believe safety.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess that's it.
Speaker 3: All right, You spiders, step it up, move along to
those transport planes. It's all over now you're headed right
back to the reservation.
Speaker 5: They separated them in groups of fifty and loaded them
on the plains, nine hundred out of seven thousand, and
soon the first big bellied ships waddled out on the
hard sands and lifted slowly into the air. Headed back
to the south, flying over the trail of dead and dying,
and started on the march to the highlands, the march
to home.
Speaker 3: Don't worry about them spiders, kid, We'll take care of them.
Come on out, kid, you'll feel better as soon as
you get back.
Speaker 4: It's civilization.
Speaker 5: I looked once more at the green mountains towering through
the mist, and then just before the motor raced, I
saw John Crazy John propped up against a dognut bush
where the Martians had placed him. The wind from the
south gave the wild hair and beard a rippling life.
He faced the hills, the home and rest he had
promised his brothers as he led them through the wilderness
of Mars.
Speaker 2: You have just heard X minus one presented by the
Night Broadcasting Company in cooperation with Street and Smith, publishers
of Astounding science fiction.
Speaker 4: Your announcer, Fred Cowens.
Speaker 2: X minus one was an NBC Radio Network production