Speaker 1: In just a moment X minus one. But first, there's
a certain water commissioner who's interested in the ladies, sometimes
overshadows his interest in civic affairs. His name is a
familiar one, Throckmorton, p. Guildersleeve, and he'll pursue his adventures
tomorrow night, when NBC Radio presents another comic episode of
the Great Guilder Sleeve. So when you hear the familiar
voice and hearty laugh of the Water Commissioner from Summerfield tomorrow,
why stay tuned and enjoy another romatic scramble with the
one and only the Great Guilder Sleeve on this NBC station.
And I'll stay tuned for X minus one on NBC.
Speaker 2: Com 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.
Speaker 3: A thousand, maybe worlds.
Speaker 4: The National Broadcasting Company, in cooperation with Galaxy Science Fiction magazine, presents.
Speaker 1: HE minus one.
Speaker 4: Tonight's story The Sea Shoot by Isaac Asimov.
Speaker 3: We were on our way home to Earth when it happened.
Six of us coming home as passengers aboard the Merchant
spaceship Starfire at the start of the second interstellar War,
the one between Earth and the planet Chloral. And then
it happened. Now hear this condition red. Condition red, we
are under attack from a Chlorine battle cruiser. All hands
forward to battle stations. Passengers will remain confined to the
after cabin.
Speaker 5: Condition red.
Speaker 3: We are being attacked. The interception by the Chlorine cruiser,
the murderous running jewel of energy blasts and force field defenses.
We huddled in the passengers after cabin, terrified, not knowing
how the battle was going. We could hear the desperate
bursts of steam through the steering tubes as a Starfire
and maneuver to dodge the enemy attacks. And then now
what the beginning of the end you might call it?
Speaker 5: Well, what does it mean, Stu, It you were the
space pilot.
Speaker 3: It means our generators have been drained of energy. We
can't fight back. But I don't worry. They won't destroy us.
They need our ship too badly. They simply bored us
and take over. But what about the crew crew, Colonel,
if they have any sense, they'll surrender if they choose
to fight their now they're coming aboard. Not be very still,
but in Heaven, help still, if only those fools will
surrender without a struggle. They are fighting. Ye see, We've
gotta help him, all right. Don't open that door.
Speaker 5: We just can't let them.
Speaker 3: Can't help him going.
Speaker 6: They stop him, all right, cat his city.
Speaker 3: Shut the door quickly, my brother, that poor fool.
Speaker 7: Get them, my brother, I swear to you, what get them?
Speaker 3: You better cover his body.
Speaker 5: The brutes, the monstrous green skin brutes.
Speaker 3: Are normal brutes than we are. Colonel. This is a war.
Speaker 5: Are you defending them?
Speaker 3: I'm merely pointing out the facts. You might not save
it for the Chloros.
Speaker 7: I will, I promise you I will.
Speaker 3: They're probably deciding right now what to do with us.
You might as well settle down and wait. We sat there,
for five of us, and listened while the Chloran invaders
killed off the members of the starfires Crew. Among us
was Colonel Anthony Wyndham, an old Colonel Blimp type with
a lame leg. Wyndham had spent his life in the
militia back on Earth, but had never seen a babble.
There was Demetrius Poliarchits, who had just watched his brother
being killed by a carbonizer. Paully was a huge man.
He and his brother had tried truck farming an arc
tourists and given it up after two seasons. Then there
was LeBlanc, a sensitive, frightened young man of twenty two,
and Randolph Mullen, who looked like somebody's caricature of a bookkeeper,
a mild, bawling, milk toast little man. And there was myself,
John Stewart. I was the only one who'd ever had
contact with the Chloro people. I had a pair of
artaplasm hands to prove it. It is quiet now, Yeah,
they finished with a crew. Who, mister Stewart, Yes, mister Mullen,
What do you think will happen next? Well, I'll put
a prize crew of two aboard and take us to
one of their home planets as prisoners of war.
Speaker 5: Only two of the Chloro's will say aboard.
Speaker 3: The two is all I'll need. Why, colonel, you're thinking
of leading a gallant raid to retake the ship?
Speaker 5: Simply a point of information, as you know.
Speaker 3: Then let me give you another point of information. If
you want to commit suicide quick, just open that bulkhead door.
Three steps inside you'd fallen your face. But why don't
you smell anything the blank? Get close to the door.
It smells like gas. It is gas, chlorine gas. They
breathe it like we breathe oxygen. They've chlorinated the whole
cruise compartment. One big whiff of that and we'd all
be dead. So just forget about rushing the chloros.
Speaker 8: How do you know so much about their habits, Stewart,
I lived on a.
Speaker 3: Chloro planet for six months. You see these hands. They
were mangled in the oxygenating machinery of my own quarters.
They grew these artaplasm things and operated. They're weak, but
at least I have hands again, missus Stuart? Yeah, well
they will they kill us. No, why do you say that,
because in their own way they're gentlemen. Probably we'll be
interned for the duration.
Speaker 9: You call them gentle men? After they kill my brother
in cold blood?
Speaker 7: You call them gentlemen?
Speaker 8: You know, Stuart, you sound more and more like I've
blasted greene sympathizer, blusted man.
Speaker 5: Where's your patriotism and loyalty?
Speaker 3: How loyalty is where it belongs with honesty and decency
regardless of the shape of the being it appears in.
This is a ridiculous war. Why are we fighting these people?
We can live only on planets with oxygen, and oxygen
is poisoned to them. They can live only in chlorine atmosphere,
which is deadly to us. Yet we're fighting them over
a bunch of worthless asteroids that neither of us can
live uncomfortably. It's a matter of principle, it's a matter
of stupid pride and greed.
Speaker 7: I can't try what you say, mister.
Speaker 9: Why not because you talk too nice about these greeny
scamp They're good to you, Eh, well, they weren't good
to my brother. They killed him, and I think maybe
I'll kill you, you rotten.
Speaker 6: I can't break his hole.
Speaker 3: They are coming.
Speaker 5: Let him go.
Speaker 9: They saved your life this time with the name finished
with dead.
Speaker 5: I think they're opening the lock.
Speaker 7: Who didn't get between us.
Speaker 5: Only don't lose your head. They'll kill us all I
greet you Earthman.
Speaker 3: The Chloro was not a pleasant sight to anyone unused
to him. He was about the height of an earthman,
but the top of him was just a green stalk
with eyes. He was still wearing a spacesuit to protect
him from the oxygen in our compartment. In one of
his tendrils, he carried a chlorine gun. As he stood
in the doorway, I could see Polliokeitha's eyes begin to
glisten with rage. Then, with a bellow like a huge bully,
threw himself at the chloro.
Speaker 10: He is not dead, temporarily paralyzed. You five will remain
together as prisoners of war. We expect to reach our
own planet within several weeks. Your time there, you will
be in turn for the duration of the war. If
any of you attempts to leave this compartment, we shall
be forced to destroy you. That is all I.
Speaker 11: Have to communicate.
Speaker 12: Hadn't we better do something for mister Polly archidies.
Speaker 3: Oh, he'll be all right, Just hoist them up on
the cot by Polly. Can you hear me, you stupid brute?
His voice is coming back now. I know what's going
on in that thick scull of your Polly. You think
that when the paralysis wears off, you lease your feelings
by slamming me around some more. Well, if you do,
it'll be curtains for all of us.
Speaker 5: How do you mean, sir?
Speaker 3: None of you know the Chloros the way I do.
Unlike us, they assume automatically that any group of earth
men they find together comprises of biological grouping, like an
ant colony. The result is that they consider the group
as something well, something holy. Now, they'd never break us up,
and if one of us did any harm to another,
they'd have us all executed as a bunch of Chloro
type perverts, a non functioning group. So call all the
names you want, but keep your hands to yourself, or
we're finished. My little speech had a sobering effect on
the group. For the next twenty four hours we did
little besides eat our rations and things. I tried to
evaluate them. The colonel I had figured for an old windbag.
Poliarchidas was a hate filled brute. The blank would crack first.
It was like a frightened child. Mullen. Mullen was a
non entity, a mouse instead of a man. Everything he
did seemed precious. His voice had the quality of furtively
rustling underbrush.
Speaker 13: How long did you say the trip would take, mister
Stewart well.
Speaker 3: Le Chloro said about two weeks.
Speaker 8: Gentlemen, If I may interrupt, Colonel, now it has occurred
to me that perhaps you know of some weakness that
might enable us to overcome these Chlorals.
Speaker 3: The only weakness they've got is that they can't stand oxygen.
Speaker 8: But there must be some way to get the best
of the man. After all, there are only two four.
Speaker 3: I answered, colonel, I have to know your motive. Is
it to save your own skin or help Earth win
the war? Oh?
Speaker 5: Dash, it'd meant to help us side.
Speaker 8: Of course, what we're looking for is the way to
save the ship for Earth without.
Speaker 5: Losing our lives.
Speaker 3: Yes, all right, let's take a boat, then a blank.
I have a wife waiting on Earth. Mister Steward, I
do not want to die. Hero number one, what about you, Mullen?
Speaker 12: I don't see how we could accomplish it?
Speaker 3: Well, Hero number two, Well, Paula Ketis.
Speaker 9: When I kill Chloris, it will be with my bad
hands on the planet. I will kill dozens, I promise you.
Speaker 3: Ah three down, Well, colonel, don't you want to march
to glory an old militia man like you?
Speaker 8: Your attitude is very cynical, and I'm becoming slice sea.
Speaker 3: Well then I'll have to blow the ship up myself
to it. Don't worry, Colonel, I don't intend to be
a dead hero.
Speaker 12: Of course, there is a way we might do it.
Speaker 5: What did you say, mister Molon.
Speaker 13: There's a spacesuit and magnetic boot stored in that locker
over there. We might be able to reach the control
room from the outside of the ship.
Speaker 3: The outside, But how would we get outside?
Speaker 13: This compartment has a sea shoot, it must what is
a sea shoot?
Speaker 3: A sea shoot, my boy, is a casualty shoot. It
doesn't get talked about much, but all the main compartments
have them. They're just little airlocks down which you slide
a corpse burial in space.
Speaker 8: Oh, plastic melon. I suppose you did get outside. How
could you re enter the ship through the steam tubes?
The ones they used to guide the ship.
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, Mula, what do you know about steam tubes?
I thought you were a bookkeeper.
Speaker 13: Well, on Arcturis, I got interested in spaceship models. I
studied all about them on my own time, of course, yeah, naturally,
At any rate, I learned that the steam tubes have
an access vent directly to the control room for repairs
and so.
Speaker 3: Forth, and the close they are in the control room.
Speaker 8: H what do you think, Stuart, Well, it's a video
sort of idea, But it might just work.
Speaker 3: We could get permission from the Chlorus to open the
sea shoot and bury Poly's brother, and one of us
could slip into it, work forward and climb up through
the steam tube, the question being which one.
Speaker 9: Well about you, you, with your loud talk and your sneeze.
Speaker 3: I'm no hero. I've already said that my object is
to stay alive the steam tube let go while you
were in it. You'd be broiled like a lobster. I'll
at the colonel here.
Speaker 8: If I were younger, blessed, I troublet you, you know
very well, with my injured.
Speaker 3: Leg, of course, not to mention my artificial hands. Well, now,
what unfortunate deformities do.
Speaker 12: The rest of us have?
Speaker 9: Holly, you just keep talking, mister big Martin. Pretty soon
we'll kick your teeth.
Speaker 3: Of course, that's your standard reply to everything, isn't it
the blank? Will you do it? I cannot not even
to get back to Denise.
Speaker 12: Please, I I can blank and even go I'll do it?
Speaker 9: What?
Speaker 12: After all? It is my idea?
Speaker 3: Wait a minute of you serious? Mullen?
Speaker 12: Yes, well.
Speaker 13: I don't understand why why you Well, it seems no
one else.
Speaker 12: Will do it.
Speaker 3: But that's no reason, man.
Speaker 12: I can't think any other.
Speaker 8: Look here, really intend to go through with it, sir, Yes,
I suppose I do.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 8: Daesh it, man, let me shake your hand. You're you're
an earthman by heaven. You do this thing, and we
know die. I'll bear witness for you.
Speaker 3: It was quite a moment, mull and the mouse had
suddenly turned into a man. He just stood there awkwardly
while the colonel pupped his hand. All your Kita seemed stunned.
Le Blanc was wide eyed, and I well, I was
in a peculiar position, one which I rarely found myself.
I had absolutely nothing to say that.
Speaker 5: Ought to bring them.
Speaker 3: I hear one, what is an earthman? One member of
our unit is dead. As you know. We request permission
to jettison his body out of the casual is shoe.
Speaker 10: You may do so.
Speaker 3: You'll have to open the shoot lock from the control room.
Speaker 10: I will do so. Is there anything else?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 3: Nothing else? Thank you?
Speaker 7: Oh boy?
Speaker 3: Yeah? All right, come on now we'll have to work fast. Mulling,
get into a spacesuit from the emergency locker. Holy help, mama,
those magnetic boots.
Speaker 12: I'm working as fast as I can the arm.
Speaker 3: All right, give me the helmet. Okay, Now, Mullen, you
better scratch your nose if you have to, at your
last chance for a while.
Speaker 12: What about radio content.
Speaker 3: You can talk to us. We're listening on the helmet
set in one of the other suits. The Chloros won't
have their set on the interphone frequency.
Speaker 5: Wait a moment, What for DA what's he going to
use for the weapon? He isn't big enough to fight
them bare headed?
Speaker 3: No, that's true. Well, how about one of those oxygen cylinders.
Speaker 5: Good idea, use it to brush them over the head.
Speaker 3: I give them one of the cylinders equipped with a
reducing valve. Now, look, mullin, if you're magnetic boots fail
and you start drifting away into space, open this valve.
See that you can use it like a miniature jet
and try to blow yourself back to the ship. Understand,
I think so. One of my only hope it works.
All right, Here goes the helmet. You bet to hovey.
The light is on over the sea. Shoot, yeah, all right,
that means I'm opened the lock here. How can you
hear me? Leblank can be that other space helmet? Yes,
let me switch on the radio. Can you hear me, Mullen,
I hear you. Fine, well name er, here's okay, Pully
open the sea shoot okay, now help me man already ready, well,
good luck close the shot fully ejective valve. Now he's out,
Oh God help him. The light is out. Yeah, the
Chloro's have closed the shoot lock.
Speaker 5: I I don't suppose he has much of a chance.
Do you think Do you think he knew it?
Speaker 3: I don't know. I just don't know. Should I I
try to contact him on the lady? Yes, Wait a minute,
what is it? Listen? The Chloro's coming.
Speaker 5: Good lord, he shouted a miss Mullan.
Speaker 3: Wully, get your brother's body on the cot. Put a
blanket over it. Pretend it's Mullin asleep.
Speaker 5: Pull me.
Speaker 3: For Heaven's sake.
Speaker 7: Brother, You've got to do it.
Speaker 3: Man, it's our only chance.
Speaker 5: Listen.
Speaker 3: If Mullin could go out there, well, I.
Speaker 7: Will do it.
Speaker 10: Earth man, Yes, you have Jennison in the body.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 10: Good. Is there something further.
Speaker 14: We can do?
Speaker 3: No? I we are very tired. Our grief is very
great at losing one of our unit. We would like
to rest alone.
Speaker 10: I will respect your wishes. I see that one of
your units sleeps already.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, mister Mullen was overcome with grief. I leave you, Oh,
brother Pauley, I thought sure you were gonna rush.
Speaker 7: Him with that brave little guy out there. What do
you think I am? Anyway? And to think I laughed
at him makes me ashamed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess. I guess I've been saying some things
that maybe weren't too funny. I owe all of you
an apology.
Speaker 5: H Do you think it's safe to try the radio?
Speaker 3: Yeah? We better. Hello, Hello, Mullin, can you hear me?
Speaker 14: Yes, I hear you.
Speaker 3: Where are you standing on the outside of the ship?
All right? Now? Take care. One misstep and you'll be
marooned in space. Now, can you find the steam tubes?
Speaker 14: I think I've found one of them already. I can
feel the rim. I just hope it doesn't let go
and I get inside.
Speaker 3: Be careful.
Speaker 14: I'm going into the tube now. I can feel the
ladder rungs they used to.
Speaker 3: Repair the inside, and we'll keep in contact.
Speaker 8: I'm in the tube now, good lord, they've let go
with a blasto.
Speaker 3: Well, it may be the starboard tubes, Mullen, Mullen, still here.
Speaker 14: They use the other tubes. Fortunately, now if they don't
try to correct.
Speaker 3: For over deflection, keep moving.
Speaker 14: I seem to be waiting. Yes, so yeah, I'm at
the end of the tube now where it opens into
the control room.
Speaker 6: Good.
Speaker 3: Good, Now, look there's a small metal door there. Can
you feel it?
Speaker 13: Yes?
Speaker 14: Huh, I'm afraid it's slocked from the other side. I
can't budget well.
Speaker 3: Well, and listen to me, Steward.
Speaker 14: I'm scared. I'm terribly scared.
Speaker 3: All right, all right, now, hang on, don't blow up.
Listen to me. Are you listening? Yes, Take the spare
oxygen tank. Bang on the metal door that leads to
the control room. The chlorals are bound to hear you.
When one of them comes to investigate, try to hit
him with the cylinder. Now, aim for the stalk on
top of his body. Try to blind him. Will you
do that? I'll try well, now go on, only one
can come. The other will stay at the controls. I'll
start banging any luck.
Speaker 14: No, I wait, I hear something, something's opening the lock
the door.
Speaker 5: Knock.
Speaker 9: Ah, Mullin, mullon, what happened?
Speaker 3: Mullin? Can you hear me?
Speaker 6: Mullin, Mullen, Mullen.
Speaker 7: It's no use. They must have gotten He was one
brave little guy, that one.
Speaker 3: But suppose they have just got him in the control room.
I mean, maybe he's not dead. Well, then maybe one
of us could watch them.
Speaker 5: We could bang on the door and jump the clock.
Speaker 3: The first guy would be a cinch to die. I
would be willing to take the chance.
Speaker 6: You why not?
Speaker 5: I could try back you.
Speaker 7: I am the strongest. I do it now.
Speaker 8: Listen, Listen to you, chaps. I'm an old man. I've
got nothing to live for anyway. Suppose I throw myself
at the eragon.
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, what's going on here? Twenty minutes ago,
there wasn't one of you who'd risk his little finger
to get us out of here, And now you're falling
all over each other.
Speaker 7: Maybe mister Mullen teaches us a lesson.
Speaker 3: Eh yeah, uh okay, poorly, give me the wrench. I'll
start banging on the door. They say that selflessness is contagious.
I guess maybe it is. I'd been a cynic all
my life, a man who believed in nothing. Well, I'd
come face to face with four human beings who proved
that I'd been living a lie. I knew what I
was going to do now when the Chloro came to
investigate our compartment, I had it all planned, if only
my poor weak hands would hold out long enough. Ready, Ready,
here goes that should bring him.
Speaker 5: Get wait, wait, listen, shit, he's at the door.
Speaker 7: Get ready, and it's opening the lock.
Speaker 11: For poor old Mullin. Now steady, wait, good lord, it's Mullin.
Speaker 3: Get the helmet off, I said, well, wellin, are you
all right?
Speaker 12: I seemed to be quite all right. Well, the Chloros
both dead at least, I hope soon.
Speaker 6: What happened?
Speaker 13: Well, I banged on a steam tube hatch and a
chloro open it. I hit him with a cylinder. It
blinded him, I guess, but didn't kill him. He grabbed
me and pulled me into the cabin. In the struggle
he broke my transmitter. That that's why I couldn't talk
to you. Finally I managed to club him down.
Speaker 3: What about the other one?
Speaker 13: The other one almost got me. It must have heard
the scuffle and came into the cabin with a ray gun.
Speaker 12: But I did I guess was pure reflex.
Speaker 13: The cabin atmosphere was chlorine, of course, and the Greenie
didn't have a spacesuit on, so I just turned on
the oxygen valve and that spare tube. It was like
bring an insect with poison.
Speaker 3: But you're a brave man, Mullin. I'd have been scared
to death. Mullen, what is it? An hour later, false
hands and all. I was at the controls of the ship,
headed for Earth. We'd gotten rid of the chlorinating equipment
and restored the oxygen. Naturally, Mullin was asleep in the
cabin under a sedative, or so I thought, until the
cabin door opened. Mullin, for Pete's sake, get back to bed.
Speaker 13: No, I'm quite all right now. Really, do you mind
if I watch how you operate the ship?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: No, not at all. Sit down, you know, I guess sir.
I owe you an apology and think too much of you.
That's your privilege, now, it isn't anybody's privilege. Wellin to
despise another for years now, I've abandoned hope of finding
any decency in human beings. I owe you a vote
of thanks.
Speaker 12: You embarrass me, mister Stewart.
Speaker 13: I didn't do it for any heroic reasons, I assure you,
far from it.
Speaker 3: Why did you do it? Mullet That puzzles me very much.
Speaker 13: Well, mister Stuart, I'm a bookkeeper. Seventeen years ago I
left Earth to work on Arcturis. I never made much
impression on anybody on Earth, although I wanted very much
to have people like me. Well, about a year ago
I started to write to my family again, don't ask
me why. And then I asked for a leave of
absence to go home after seventeen years.
Speaker 3: Well, I still don't understand. It wasn't patriotism, lovable woman,
or money or any of those things.
Speaker 12: What was it, mister Stewart? Haven't you ever been homesick?
Speaker 4: You have just heard X minus one, presented by the
National Broadcasting Company and cooperation with Galaxy Science fiction magazine,
which this month features a Gun for Dinosaur by l.
Sprague de camp, a story of hunters in the bloodiest
and most ferocious arena of all prehistoric Earth, where hunting
reptal heavyweights is no job for human lightweights. Galaxy Magazine
on your news stand today tonight. By transcription. X minus
one has brought you The s Shoot, a story from
the pages of Galaxy, written by Isaac Asimonv and adapted
for radio.
Speaker 3: By George Leffards.
Speaker 4: Featured in the cast were Lyle Soudra, Stan Earley, Bob Hastings,
Mercer McLeod, Danny acoll and John Gibson.
Speaker 3: You're Announcer Bill McCory.
Speaker 4: X minus one was directed by Daniel Sutter and is
an NBC Radio Network production.
Speaker 3: Next week on a distant planet.
Speaker 1: In a forgotten colony of Earth, a man is ordered
to commit a murder. Listen to skulking permit on X
minus one next week.