Speaker 1: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2: God down for blast off x minus five four three
two x minus one fire from the far horizons of
the unknown come transcribe 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 he he minus minus minus one.
Speaker 4: On the Night Story Cold Equations.
Speaker 5: There is no margin of safety along the rim of
a frontier. There can't be any until a way is
made for those who come later. Until then, the penalty
for mistakes is a grim one. The laws of physical
nature operate with irrevocable certainty, with no room for mercy, kindness,
or sentimentality. In space, life becomes a cold equation, and
the equal sign is often followed by death. I know
I'm the pilot of an EDS. Come in, you said
for me, commander, Yes, sit down, Barton. We just got
an E D from the Territorial Space Station on Wolden,
uh Wolden. That's in the crab nebula, isn't it. That's right.
Speaker 1: There are two exploration parties there on Manning's continent, eight
man each. They've got Kala fever in one of them
and no serum. Oh and I thought this was gonna
be a nice quiet passenger run. Computers are working out
your payload and your course right now. In exactly ten minutes,
we'll drop in a normal space and launch your ship.
Speaker 5: I'll get her ready.
Speaker 1: One thing, what's that Woden is at the maximum pay
limit for an DS. Figuring the weight of the serum,
we'll be able to give you just enough fuel to
land on Manning's continent if you'll make it the first pass.
Otherwise you'll burn out in mid air.
Speaker 5: Standard procedure.
Speaker 1: Report to launching control right, Good luck Barton.
Speaker 5: Thanks. Oh by the way, yes, when can I expect
to be picked up.
Speaker 1: We'll make a stop on the run back to Earth
sometime next year.
Speaker 4: You'll be notified by radio.
Speaker 5: Okay, sorry, we can't make it sooner. That's what happens
when you sign on for EDS work. I'll see you
next year, commander. Down in the belly of the stardusk,
the crew was working like Beaver's to get the EDS
the emergency dispatch ship ready. Mechanics and technicians were swarming
all over the place. Girls and inspector's uniforms were checking
the gauges in the supply cabinet. Nine minutes later, the
exact course was in the computer, the serum was stowed
in my supply cabinet closet, and little EDS four G
three was ready to be born into space.
Speaker 6: Martin. Yes, sir, thirty seconds to blast off.
Speaker 5: All sets, All set. I'm turning you over to traffic ready.
Speaker 6: Traffic control.
Speaker 5: Come in he DS four G three ready, twenty.
Speaker 3: Seconds, lock open, fifteen seconds, space drive on, space drive
on ten seconds, gravity neutralizer on, neutralizer on five seconds
or three two one blast off.
Speaker 5: I don't remember how long it was afterwards that I
first noticed something wrong, maybe an hour, maybe two. There
was nothing to show it except the needle in the
heat gage. It was on zero when we left the Stardust,
and now I noticed that it had crept up toward
the thirty mark. That meant something inside the ship was
radiating heat. That's something was in the supply closet and
it was alive. All right, come out, whoever or whatever
you are. If you don't come out in five seconds,
I'm going to blast you one two. Well, that'll be.
Speaker 7: I'm Marilyn Lee Craw.
Speaker 5: What are you doing in there?
Speaker 7: I'm a stowaway?
Speaker 5: Oh what's the matter?
Speaker 7: Do I have to pay a fine or something?
Speaker 5: What are you doing here?
Speaker 7: I wanted to see my husband.
Speaker 5: Who's your husband?
Speaker 7: He's with the government survey crew on Wolden. I haven't
seen him since he left Earth four years ago.
Speaker 5: Okay, but what made you hide in my eds?
Speaker 7: I have a job waiting for me on the mirror.
But I heard you were going to Wolden and there
was plenty of rooms, so I hid. Oh I knew
I'd be breaking some kind of rule. But what's one
little rule?
Speaker 5: Huh? What's one little rule? Humount of fuel will power
an EDS with a massive M safely to its destination.
Hum Out of fuel will not power an EDS with
a mass of M plus x safely to its destination.
How could she be expected to know? She was five
to two with brown, curly hair in the faint, sweet
smell of perfume. She was five two and she smelled
like apple blossoms, and her name was X in an
equation that would have to be balanced.
Speaker 6: Stardust, Come in, ads, come in.
Speaker 5: This is Barton Emergency dispatch Pilot four G three, go ahead,
give me Commander del Heart.
Speaker 6: What's the message? GDS.
Speaker 5: I have to consult Commander del Heart.
Speaker 6: The commander is busy.
Speaker 5: Listen you squirt. Give me Commander del Heart one moment.
Speaker 6: For G three Command of dell Heart.
Speaker 5: Emergency message from ETS four G three.
Speaker 6: This is del Hart.
Speaker 5: What is it? At eight hundred hours? I discovered a
stowaway aboard my ship?
Speaker 6: Stowaway?
Speaker 5: Yes, sir?
Speaker 6: Well, have you know the FIKE ship's records?
Speaker 5: Not yet, sir.
Speaker 6: You know the regulations as well as I do.
Speaker 5: Of course I know the regulations. That's why I'm called.
Speaker 6: What's going on?
Speaker 5: Sir? This is a girl, a young woman. Oh, she
wanted to see her husband on wooden. She didn't know
what she was doing. I see, I wondered, sir. Maybe
the cruiser could change course or something.
Speaker 6: I'm afraid not. We're hundreds of light years apart.
Speaker 1: Now we have a limited fuel supply ourselves with nine.
Speaker 5: Is there any chance, no, okay, Skipper.
Speaker 6: That I get the information to ship's records?
Speaker 5: Okay, button skipper, I'm sorry. Yeah, sure.
Speaker 7: We've got our acceleration, didn't you?
Speaker 5: Yes? Why save fuel for a while, How did you
manage to stow away?
Speaker 7: I was taking a language lesson in memory is from
a girl in the inspection corps. The order came in
for your trip. I just went long on an impulse.
That was easy. I'll be a model prisoner, I promise.
Speaker 5: If you're only a thief or a spy, it would
make it easier, make what easier? Forget it. Why couldn't
she have been somebody with some ulterior motive, a fugitive
hoping to lose himself in a raw new world, about
the crackpot with a mission. Why did she have to
be a woman, A beautiful, kind, trusting woman. Starts Barton,
Eds four, G. Three.
Speaker 6: I had three identify a stowaway.
Speaker 5: Give me your identification discuss cross here?
Speaker 7: Why?
Speaker 5: Well, it's for ship's records, uh identification number T eight
three seven four.
Speaker 6: Moment this is for the gray card.
Speaker 5: Of course, Yes, I'll need the time. I'll tell you later.
That's highly irregular, and we'll do it in a highly
irregular manner. The subject is a young woman. She's listening
to everything that's said. Are you capable of understanding that?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 6: Go ahead?
Speaker 5: Forty three number T eight three seven four dash y
five four. Name Marilyn Lee Cross, female, married born July seventh,
twenty one sixty. Good lord, you're only a child. Height
five feet two inches. Wait one hundred and ten hair,
brown eyes, blue complexion, light blood type. Oh original destination
Port City, Mimir. Listen, I'll call you back later. Look,
miss Marilyn. Look, Marilyn, I guess you don't know what
you got yourself into here. Well, it's like this. This
ship is carrying cala fever serum to the survey group Woden. Yes,
their supply was wrecked in a tornado. The fever is
always fatal unless the serum is given in the first
forty eight hours. Now, these little ships have exactly enough
fuel to reach their destination. If you stay aborder, your
added weight will cause it to use up all its
fuel before it can land.
Speaker 7: What happens then we crash?
Speaker 5: You die, I die, and six fever victims on Woden die.
Speaker 7: Can't they send out another ship to meet it?
Speaker 5: There are no ships to send.
Speaker 7: No, no, you couldn't do that.
Speaker 5: That's how it has to be.
Speaker 7: But that's crazy. I haven't done anything. I haven't heard
any pod.
Speaker 5: Sorry I should have told you before, but I wanted
to make sure there was no other way.
Speaker 7: You mean it going to make me leave the ship.
Speaker 5: That's how it is.
Speaker 7: We'll die, I'll explode. I'll be like those horrible.
Speaker 5: Pictures about try to understand.
Speaker 7: I do understand. You're going to kill me. And I
didn't do anything.
Speaker 5: I know you didn't. I know you didn't. That has
nothing to do.
Speaker 7: With it, has everything to do with it. Nobody just
dies like that for no reason. Oh, listen, maybe there
are other cruisers, cruisers you don't know about. Maybe the radio.
Maybe it isn't.
Speaker 5: No, listen to me. It's different here, different from anything
you've ever known. On Woden. There are sixteen men, sixteen
men on an entire world. They're fighting, fighting an alien environment.
The environment fights back. You can only make a mistake. Once.
Speaker 7: I made a mistake.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, no, Hope, absolutely none. You have to be
put out of the ship. It was better so with
the going of all, Hope would go to fear. Then
would come the resignation. She needed time and there was
so little.
Speaker 3: Eds Starship to Eds need pertinent data.
Speaker 5: All right, starship, when do you expect to complete your report?
I I need a computer check. I'll give you statistics statistics.
This is EDS four G three. I'm intersecting course vector
seven point three at eight three one deceleration seventeen fifty
Wait one ton. I would like to stay at point
ten as long as the computers allow. Will you give
them the question?
Speaker 4: Check, I'll call you back.
Speaker 5: We wouldn't have longer wait. The new factors would be
fed into the steel mall of the computer bank, and
the electrical impulses would go through the complex circuits. Here
and there a relay would click, a tiny cog turnover,
but it would be the current formless, mindless, invisible, which
would determine with utter precision how long the pale young
girl beside me would live. Little segments of metal in
the second bank would trip against an inked ribbon, and
the machine would spit out the answer, he will.
Speaker 4: Resume deceleration at nineteen ten.
Speaker 5: It was eighteen ten when he spoke one hour. She
has one hour to live.
Speaker 7: One hour.
Speaker 5: That's it.
Speaker 7: All I did was hide in a closet, And now
you tell me I have to die. I don't believe it.
Speaker 5: You might as well get used to it.
Speaker 7: This happened back on Earth. A thousand ships would fill
the sky, the whole world would know about it. They'd
do everything to say.
Speaker 5: This isn't earth.
Speaker 7: It's such a big dream. Jerry and I separated almost
five years ago. We were too young, and I was
going to see him to try to everything all right again.
I are you married?
Speaker 5: I was, Oh, she ran off with some guy in
the weather Service.
Speaker 7: Do you still think about it?
Speaker 5: I don't let myself. Where is she back on earth? Look,
if you don't mind, I'd just as soon talk about
something else.
Speaker 7: Okay, what do you do when you've got an hour
to live? What do you talk about?
Speaker 5: What's Jerry like?
Speaker 7: Jerry? Oh he's a funny guy. Well he found out
I mean about the other fella. He didn't get mad.
He cried. That was all he felt, sadness.
Speaker 5: So you walked all over him.
Speaker 7: I thought I wanted him to get mad at me,
to be jealous. No thinking about him for five years.
So when I heard this ship was bound for Woden
and I knew Jerry was there, I stowed away. I
didn't know about the fuel. I didn't know this would
happen to me.
Speaker 5: She had violated a man made law that said keep out.
The penalty was not of man's making or desire, and
it was not a penalty. Man could revoke h amount
of fuel will power an EDS with a mass of
m safely to its destination. The time was eighteen thirty
forty minutes. It was beginning to get me. A space
frontier is a rough place, and I'd seen a hundred
men die since I left Earth, but this was different.
I watched her as she wrote a message to her folks.
I watched her as she fought her way through the
black horror of fear toward the calm gray of acceptance.
And then there it was on the view screen, the
planet Woden, a red enshrouded in the blue haze of
its atmosphere, swimming in space against the background of star
sprinkled blackness. The chronometer on the instrument panel said eighteen
forty five. Listen, we're in radio range of Woden. Now,
I mean, would you want me to try to contact
your husband, Jerry? It'd mean he would know you're going
to die. There'd be nothing anyone can do.
Speaker 7: Yes, I would like to talk to him. Do you
think we can?
Speaker 5: The planet is turning. If his group is on the
side facing us, we might be able to reach it.
All right, Hello, hello Woden, DS to Government survey group.
Can you hear me? Come in Woden. They may not
be monitoring. Hello, hello, hello, identify yourself please?
Speaker 6: Is this Government Survey group one on planet?
Speaker 7: Won't?
Speaker 5: This is John Barton EDS pilot.
Speaker 6: You have the serum?
Speaker 5: Yes? How bad is it?
Speaker 1: One man died last night?
Speaker 5: Six have the fever?
Speaker 6: How long will it take them?
Speaker 5: I start deceleration at nineteen ten hours. I should be
able to land at nineteen thirty, Thank god. Look, do
you have a Gerald Cross in charge of the.
Speaker 6: Group Command of Cross?
Speaker 5: Yes, we do, but I speak to him.
Speaker 6: He isn't here, he's out with the survey team.
Speaker 5: When do you expect him?
Speaker 6: I can't say.
Speaker 5: How do you read me? How much time do we
have left for communication?
Speaker 6: Less than fifteen minutes?
Speaker 5: All right? If Commander Cross comes back before we lose
radio contact, will you have him buzz me? It's important? Okay, DS,
I'll keep a set open.
Speaker 6: Check.
Speaker 5: The minutes passed like small bits of eternity. On the
view screen, I could see Manning's continents sprawled like a
gigantic hourglass in the eastern sea. There was a thin
line of shadow where it was beginning to disappear as
the planet turned on its axis. I looked at the
pale woman next to me, and I thought of another
woman long ago who had sat next to me and
cried because I wouldn't try to understand. What had she
written in those letters back home? What would they think
of the faceless, unknown pilot who'd sent her to her death?
What would I think of myself alone nights reliving this voyage?
Speaker 7: Cold, isn't it?
Speaker 5: I'll turn up the thermostadic.
Speaker 7: Nothing from Jerry.
Speaker 5: We have about two minutes of radio contact left.
Speaker 7: Maybe it's better. I mean, suppose it were you and
your wife tried to call you. How'd you feel?
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 7: Do you ever hear from her?
Speaker 5: I got a letter about a year ago. I tore
it up. That was foolish, yeah, it was.
Speaker 7: Life is so terribly short to be wandering around alone.
Speaker 5: Well I had wait a second, we're getting something.
Speaker 7: How much time before I have to leave the ship?
Speaker 5: How about ten minutes?
Speaker 7: Slow?
Speaker 6: EDS? Hello?
Speaker 5: DS, come in, come in DS.
Speaker 6: This is woton. I have command a cross.
Speaker 5: All right, go ahead?
Speaker 4: Hello, this is command a Cross.
Speaker 5: Jerry Cross. Yes, I have someone for you. Go ahead,
Hello Jerry.
Speaker 7: Hello, Jerry, who is it? It's me, Marilyn. Marilyn, I
wanted to see you again. I stowed away on the EDS.
You what, But Marilyn, it doesn't matter, Jerry. All that
matters is that I can tell you all the things
I've kept inside for so long. Jerry, I want you
to know it. I've never forgotten.
Speaker 6: It's been so many years.
Speaker 7: I can't believe it. I thought i'd see you again,
but no, I can't, Jerry. You don't hate me? Do
you hate you?
Speaker 6: Arlyn?
Speaker 5: I've never stopped loving you, not for an instant.
Speaker 7: Jerry.
Speaker 4: Listen, we don't have much time to train. This mission
is getting fuzzy.
Speaker 6: Marilyn. I've got to see you.
Speaker 4: There's got to be some way there is. Let me
talk to the pilot.
Speaker 5: Give me hello, Pilot.
Speaker 4: Have you called the mother ship?
Speaker 6: Did you have them.
Speaker 4: Checked with the computers.
Speaker 5: I've done everything. You've been on the frontier long enough
to know the setup in an DS.
Speaker 6: Oh, dear God, there must be something some way.
Speaker 5: Do you think i'd let this happen if I wasn't sure?
Speaker 7: He tried to help me, Jerry. He tried, And it
really doesn't matter. I'm not frightened anymore, not now.
Speaker 6: But how did you get here?
Speaker 1: I don't understand.
Speaker 7: I was going to be there to take a job,
I thought. Now I realized it was I was just
going because i'd be closer.
Speaker 5: To where you were.
Speaker 7: Oh, Jerry, all this time.
Speaker 4: Let me tell you something, Marilyn.
Speaker 6: I've always known you'd come back to me. I've known
it every minute.
Speaker 4: It's what's kept me alive.
Speaker 6: I want you to hold that in your mind.
Speaker 7: Jerry. I can't hear you.
Speaker 6: We haven't much time.
Speaker 7: We're losing radio concent Jerry, don't cry, darling.
Speaker 4: Just know how I feel.
Speaker 8: I do.
Speaker 7: There was so many things to say, Jerry. If you
can still hear me, maybe I'll come to see you again.
Maybe I'll come to you in your in your dreams.
Or I'll be the touch of a breeze or one
of those golden winged little birds singeing my silly head off.
Maybe I'll be nothing you can see or hear, but
you'll know I'm there. Think of me like that, Jerry. Goodbye.
Speaker 5: She sat motionless in the hush that followed, and then
she looked at me. No, No, I pulled down the
black lever and the inner door of the lock slid open.
She walked with her head up and the brown curls
brushing her shoulders. I let her do it alone. She
stepped into the lock and turned to face me, and
I could see the pulse in her throat.
Speaker 7: I'm ready.
Speaker 5: I pulled a red lever and there was a slight
waver as the air gushed out. I thought I sensed
a bump, as if something had bumped the outer door,
and then there was nothing. The white hand of the
closet temperature control was back at zero. A cold equation
had been balanced, and I was alone in the ship.
Speaker 8: You have just heard X minus one, presented by the
National Broadcasting Company in cooperation with Street and Smith, publishers
of astounding science fiction. Tonight by transcription, X minus one
has brought you Cold Equations, written by Tom Godwin and
adapted for radio by George Lefforts. Featured in the cast
were Court Benson as Barton, j. Meredith as Marilyn Myle
of Bolton as Commander Delhart, Bob Hastings as.
Speaker 5: Jerry Cross, Jack Arthur as traffic.
Speaker 8: Control officer, and Walterkinseller as the Woden Monitor. Your announcer,
Bill Rippi X minus one was directed by Ken mc
gregor and as an NBC Radio Network production.
Speaker 4: And now next week.
Speaker 8: In the days of the wind jammers, Whaler sometimes went
on cruises that lasted as long as two years, and
so sometimes they had to resort to rough methods to
gather a crew. But one of the future, when a
cruise to a destant star may last for fifteen years
or more, we hear of such a voyage next week
on X minus minus minus minus one one one one