Speaker 1: Mm hmmm. Calm 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 he minus one one to Night's story The Vital
Factor by Nelson Bond. I doubt that anywhere on Earth
there's a man, or woman or a child who doesn't
know the name Wayne Crowder. I doubt whether there's a
human being who hasn't one time or another used one
of the Crowder products, the can opener, or the razor blade,
or the patented tooth powder dispenser, or the.
Speaker 2: Crowder Improved slideless fastener.
Speaker 1: In the magazines which write about men of business, Crowder
was described as a man of ice and stone and
ink and steel, no warmth to his blood, and a
heart to pump, not feel human emotion. And he built
a battery of buttons into his desk, so that when
he wanted something, all he ever had to do was
press a button, and like genies springing out of the bottle,
the proper personnel would come running.
Speaker 3: Yes, mister Crowder, got me my engineers, Yes, sir, right away,
mister Crowder here your engineers all.
Speaker 4: Right, close it daring it out now, gentlemen, sit out, gentlemen,
I want you to build me a spaceship.
Speaker 2: Spaceships, that's right.
Speaker 4: I've decided that I am going to be the man
who gives spaceflight the mankind.
Speaker 1: Any questions, sir. We can design such a ship. That
part isn't too hard, but we have no way of
providing the motor to power such a ship.
Speaker 4: When the ship's ready to fly, there'll be a motor, sir.
Speaker 1: I don't like to contradict you, but you can't go
ahead of the total technology of a historical period. It's
like asking somebody in six teen hundred to build the
internal combustion engine. You see, scientists have been searching for
a mode of power for space ships for decades now
without success. You will have a ship, but we can't
lift that ship from the Earth's surface. That is not
to the point of free flight at any rate.
Speaker 2: Mister Crowder.
Speaker 5: You see, you'll be spending millions of dollars, hundreds of millions,
perhaps for nothing.
Speaker 4: What's your name, Phillips, Sir, you're fired. Go down to
the cashier and draw your paying it out, Watson, get out.
Nobody who works for me thinks of how much something costs.
Speaker 2: We use money.
Speaker 4: We don't let expense provide a rationalization for not beginning
a project. All right, Phillips, I give you permission to
leave right now.
Speaker 2: Any other comments.
Speaker 1: The ship will be built, of course, mister Crowder. The
fact still remains. We can't power it.
Speaker 2: You design the ship.
Speaker 4: I'll find the motifoil where, sir, I don't know, but
somewhere in the world as a man who does know
the secret. I want that motor and I'll root out
the man who has the theory which will.
Speaker 2: Let us build it. How quickly do you want this done, sir? Yesterday? Yes, sir.
Is there anything you need?
Speaker 1: We will need a construction yard, sir, and certain machinery
and a great many materials.
Speaker 2: Of course, labor force, get.
Speaker 4: Them send me the bills. I don't want to be
bothered with minor details.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, And one more thing, sir, Phillips. Yes, we
need him, sir. He's a top man on electronics. He's
a vital cog in our team.
Speaker 4: I don't want Phillips working for me, that's clear. I
hope who else in the country knows what he does.
Speaker 1: No one in this country, sir. There's a man in India, though,
get him. We've tried before, mister Crowder. He's working on
an important project in his country. I'm not concerned with details.
Get that man. Pay him what he wants, but get him, Sir,
you don't understand. If this man quits his job, that
whole project will collapse. It means the welfare of many people,
millions of people in his country.
Speaker 4: He has a high sense of patriotis. By that sense
of patriotism, that's all. I don't want to see any
of you again until you have a report of work
in progress.
Speaker 2: Yes, Sir.
Speaker 4: Ms Holmes, there's a man named Phillip's going to draw
us pay. I want two company policemen to meet him
at the cashier's office and escort him from there, directly
off the premises. And I want them to be emphatic
about it and notify the newspapers, the television and the
radio networks, the periodicals and the scientific journals. That I'll
receive the press in my office this afternoon at three thirty.
I have an important announcement to make. Anyone not here
at three point thirty will be barred and the publication
or company he represents will not be given any further information. Yeah, gentlemen,
you can finish your drinks later. Gentlemen of the press
and ladies, it's my pleasure to be able to tell
you that I'm in the process of constructing a spaceship.
Speaker 2: Any questions. Did you say spaceship? That's right, that's what
I thought you said. I know the drinks weren't that's wrong,
mister crowd. Is this spaceship under construction now?
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 2: You've solved the problem of motive force? Then no, sir,
well what sort of you mean? You have no means
of propulsion for the spaceship.
Speaker 4: That problem is not solved as yet. Oh it will be.
That's why I called you in this afternoon. I want
you to announce that I have one hundred thousand dollars
in cash waiting for the man or woman who first
brings me the basic idea for the Chamoda. I'll supply
all equipment for research and construction and I'll see that
the rights of the inventor are protected and more than
adequate royalties will be paid.
Speaker 2: Him or her. That's all I have to say.
Speaker 1: Now, mister Crowder, one more question please, Yes, you have
a name for the spaceship yet No?
Speaker 2: Not yet? Well then let me suggest one. Yes, Crowder's folly.
Speaker 5: Ah, I'll have your piet.
Speaker 2: What is your paper? The Daily Time?
Speaker 4: Sir ms Holmes informed the company police that under no
circumstances is any representative of The Daily Times ever to
be allowed on company property. Again, strike that paper from
the list of those to be invited to future conferences.
Speaker 1: It was Crowder's folly, but the word of what he
wanted circulated to the far corners of the globe. It
was known in the white ice block huts of the
Eskimos and in the grass thatched villages of Central Africa,
as well as Place is Less Remote, and the Crowder
office became the mecca and the heaven for the lunatic
fringe of humanity. Their blueprints and scale models clogged its corridors.
Speaker 4: I told you I don't want these people in my office,
so they're.
Speaker 2: Screen I'll get out, get out. Every time I opened
that door. They surge in like a tidal wave. I
have a progress report for you, sir. The ship is
finished as far as we can go. Mister Crowder.
Speaker 1: Certain additional construction can't be done now because it depends
on the shape and mass of the engine, on the
type of fuel, on the weight of that fuel.
Speaker 2: I say, all right, lay off everybody. We don't need.
Speaker 1: I've ordered that, mister Crowder. Is it possible that no
one will turn up with the motor? That's the one
thing that's not possible. He will come money and determination
will buy anything. Close the door on your way out.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir.
Speaker 4: Ms Holmes, order the proper department to put a name
on the forward end of the ship. I want letters
and pure gold one foot high. The name of the
ship is Crowder's Folly. Get it done today.
Speaker 1: The sun came up in the morning, and the sun
set at night, glinting rows on the silver sheen of
the hollow ship's skin as it lay in the yard.
Speaker 2: The golden letters on.
Speaker 1: The prows spelled out the fu of Crowder for the
world to see. A staff of fifty were employed as
time went on, and taking rust preventive measures to ensure
the ship's well being. The staff of fifty worked in
three shifts around the clock, armed with oil cans and
grease cans and other containers and sprayers of preservatives. In
a year, the first experiment seemed ready to bear fruit,
and a test was held the atomic fission motor in
exactly forty five seconds. Now we'll hold the tests to crowder.
The sound you hear is our generators here building up
power to supply the motor by remote control.
Speaker 2: If this needle goes.
Speaker 1: Round to the part of the dial marked in red,
there'll be an explosion.
Speaker 2: Any questions, sir Percy with the.
Speaker 6: Tests watch the need of sir eight thousand, eighty five
hundred nine thousand, ten eleven, twelve.
Speaker 2: Fifteen. That's an overload, now, sir e eighteen twenty. Don't
know how much more it can do. What happened? You
generated blew out? What kind of a common I beg
your pardon, sir? The motor blew up? What are you
talking about it? I would have heard you, see, sir.
Speaker 1: It takes a while for the vibrations of an explosion
to travel three miles and then reach through fifteen feet
of concrete.
Speaker 2: I see.
Speaker 4: Well, there are other experiments in progress. Let me know
when they're ready for testing.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, mister Crowder, the inventor of that motor, had
to be right with it. Of course, during the tests,
he had a family. The fool knew what he was doing.
He understood the danger. He was paid enough to be
able to afford insurance. The cost of insurance on such
a project was prohibitive, sir.
Speaker 4: Well, if his wife was thrifty, she saved out of
what he earned this last year.
Speaker 1: His salary was relatively small, Sir. Most of the money
went for the research.
Speaker 4: He should have demanded an adequate salary. I haven't stated
that money. The fool failed. I have no further responsibility. Yes, sir,
he want us to continue screening applicants. Of course, all right,
make a settlement on the widow, and don't turn any
one away if he seems to have the remotest possibility
of success. I'm telling you, my man will come money
and determination will buy anything.
Speaker 1: And strangely enough, Trowdler was right, because one day there
came to his office a stranger, a small man. He
looked even small that tremendous room.
Speaker 2: He was an unusual.
Speaker 1: Visitor in that he carried no briefcase, fat with blueprints
or formulae. He was unusual in that he neither blustered, cowared,
nor deferred to his host. He was a pleasant little stranger,
birdlike of eye movement, bright and smiling.
Speaker 5: Mister Crowder, my name is Wilkins. I can power that
ship you want. Oh, of course, what I have in
mind won't be anything like that meaningless huge bullet your
engineers built for you. Rockets are a foolish waste of time, sir.
My motor requires a different sort of vessel.
Speaker 2: We are your plants right here in my head.
Speaker 4: It so happens that I am presently supporting half a
dozen people who make the same claims.
Speaker 2: None of them have been successful. What makes you think
your idea will work?
Speaker 5: Simple enough, sir. The common magnet electro magnetism, utilization of
the force of gravity or its opposite, in this case,
counter gravity.
Speaker 4: Oh, thank you very much. Now, if you'll forgive me
now just.
Speaker 5: One moment, mister Crowder, there is one thing more this
Now I've seen pieces of metal before.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 5: How high from your desk would you say that I'm
holding it?
Speaker 4: I'm very sorry, mister Welkers. Now do you want to
leave or do you want to be escorted out?
Speaker 5: This will only take a second, sir. How high from
your desk? Would you say that? I'm holding this piece
of metal foot and a half I'd say, And if
I let go, then in less than a second, a
fraction of a second, it should fall to your desk.
Speaker 1: Nah.
Speaker 5: Look, I don't want the surface of that desk, mard,
But will it be you see I have let go
of the metal. Is that right?
Speaker 2: God Lord?
Speaker 5: Many seconds ago it should have crashed to the desk
and I right, well, this is incredible. Well, if you
want to speak to me anymore, I'll be right outside.
Speaker 2: But it hasn't fallen, It's right, sir. It hasn't fall
It floats in the air.
Speaker 5: That's right, sir.
Speaker 2: How do you do it?
Speaker 5: Why don't you call your engineers and ask them. I'll
wait outside.
Speaker 2: It's horns. Can me my engineers immediately?
Speaker 4: All right, mister Wilkins.
Speaker 2: You're quite right.
Speaker 4: The piece of metal is apparently counter gravity, and my
engineers can give me no explanation.
Speaker 2: Thank you, sir.
Speaker 5: Now what do you want for my services?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 5: You already set the price to build a pilot model
based on this sample. No, great, expenditure a hundred of
the cost of your behemoth sitting out there in your
building yard. Three other things, a workshop, expert, mechanical assistance,
and an answer to one question.
Speaker 2: What is your question?
Speaker 5: Why do you want so much to build this ship?
Speaker 4: Frankly, because I love power, because I'm ambitious. I want
to be the first to conquer space, because if I
can do it, it'll make me greater, richer, stronger than
any man has ever been. I want to be the
master not only of one world.
Speaker 2: But of worlds.
Speaker 5: That's an honest answer. But is it the only one?
Speaker 4: You see those letters and go on the prow of
my ship. Crowded folly, that's what they named it. That's
what they think of me. I want to cram those
words down their petidal throats and let them eat mud.
Speaker 2: That's another answer, And that's.
Speaker 5: All that is as far as your thinking goes.
Speaker 2: What other answer is there to your question?
Speaker 5: Is my own answer? I want to leave this planet
and go elsewhere, to Mars, perhaps because there are strange
wonders yet to be found, Because there will be scarlet
sunsets over barren wastes, and in the starstrewn night, the
thin cold air of a dying world, stirring and restless
size across the valley the dry canals. You may laugh
out loud if you wish, mister Crowdon, I would prefer
that to the peculiar, repressed smile you are now exhibiting.
Speaker 4: You're a very lucky man, mister Wilkins, and that you
have scientific talent, because your talents is a poet, are
inferior and very sentimental. All right, you're a sentimentalist and
I'm a man of action. No matter, we can work together,
you and I. Your workshop will be ready by morning.
I don't need to hear from you again till you
have suddenly to show me. If you need to see me,
call me day or night. I'll be available, but don't
bother me with details because I probably won't understand what
you're talking about anyhow. If you need money or materials
or personnel, just how my engineers. You'll get it or
I'll know the reason why.
Speaker 2: That's all, Thank you, sir.
Speaker 4: Ms Holmes, get me my engineers. Yes, mister Crowder, we
have fifty men working on preserving that ustless hulk out
there in the construction yards.
Speaker 2: Lay them off. The shiny o deteriorate. If we do that, sir,
let it rot lay them off. Yes, sir.
Speaker 4: How many other employees are still working for us on
the project, about.
Speaker 2: Three thousand, sir, including the people working on experimental motors.
Get rid of them, sir, get rid of them. Mister Crowder,
I never thought you dropped this project. You were so adam.
Speaker 4: I'm not dropping anything but dead. Would you saw what
Wilkins had to offer. He's my man, and the rest
is junk and nonsense, Mister Crowder.
Speaker 2: He might fail. We ought to have a minimum of protection.
Speaker 4: I say he won't fail. I know the goods when
I see it. The rest is nonsense.
Speaker 1: Several of the experimenters were making much greater progress than
I thought was possible.
Speaker 2: There are great opportunities there. I'm not interested, not only
in the field of spaceship, sir.
Speaker 1: One man a motor no bigger than a football, which
will drive an automobile twenty four hours on four cents
worth of fuel.
Speaker 2: It's almost finished. Side interesting. It will be a great
benefit to mankind, Sir. Your name will go down, My
name will go down in history for this spaceship. The
profits in such a motor, Sir, I have.
Speaker 4: More money now than I even know how to count.
And when I make my spaceflight, i'll have more than that. Yes,
you just lay everybody off that isn't needed, give them
two weeks pay and my thanks for a thankless job
well done.
Speaker 2: That's all, yes, sir, I'll get it done.
Speaker 4: So one more thing. There's no need to let the
folly rot, dismantle it. Sell the basic materials we don't need.
Salvage whatever will be useful to us. That's all yes.
And ten years or twenty years, and I do the
same thing. That's why you're an engineer and I'm an executive.
That's why you work for me, because when I have to,
I can be ruthless with my own mistakes. When a
thing has lost it's usefulness to me, I get rid
of it.
Speaker 1: Well, I was just thinking, mister Crowder, what would happen
to me if my usefulness to you were over?
Speaker 2: I've worked for you twenty years now.
Speaker 4: That just don't give me any occasion to consider your
usefulness terminated.
Speaker 2: That oughtn't to be too hard. What, well, nothing, sir,
I'll make the arrangements at once. Oh yeah, what do
you want?
Speaker 4: I tried to stop him last figu up man.
Speaker 7: My name is Jarvis Ustuli. I'm an electronics expert.
Speaker 2: Ah, yes, I remember you're the Indian. Come in, come in.
Speaker 3: Do you want me, sir?
Speaker 4: I never mind, miss home, just stay outside closet door
behind him.
Speaker 2: Anxiously thank you.
Speaker 7: No, I want to give you a gift before I leave.
Speaker 4: Oh you leaving? I thought we still needed you. I resigned,
sorry to hear that, and told you're a good man.
I want you to understand what's behind this gift. I
was working on a power project in my country which
would have meant a tremendous rice in the standard of
living for millions of my people. I was unable to
resist the money you offered. Well, had you resisted, even
more money would have been forthcoming.
Speaker 2: I placed no limit on your worth to me.
Speaker 7: I understand. But you see I did not come without
a sense of guilt because there was no one in
my country who could take my place. I would assume that,
And now I discover that what I did was for nothing.
The spaceship on which I worked is being dismantled.
Speaker 2: That's right. So I have been corrupted by you at
a whim.
Speaker 7: I think you have too much power, sir, I think
you use your power for evil selfish purpose.
Speaker 4: Selfish yes, evil, No, only sentimentality is evil.
Speaker 2: I think otherwise.
Speaker 7: And so in order that you shall not corrupt anyone else,
I have this gift for you.
Speaker 2: Here you are, sir, and just.
Speaker 7: One more shot for good, measure to make sure you're
really dead.
Speaker 2: Good, Miss Holmes.
Speaker 4: As a man in his way out by the name
of the job, he's usedually an engineer. He's not to
be molested. He probably won't stop in the cashier. So
I want to check for six months salary in advanced
mail with his home address. The man showed a certain
quality of ruthlessness which is deserving of recognition. Oh and uh,
have the chief of the company police bring me a
new bulletproof vest. This one seems to have been dent
in a couple of places.
Speaker 1: A new spaceship, according to Wilkins plans, as executed by
Crowder's engineers, was finished within four months. It was small,
It was shaped like a disk. It gleamed brightly even
in the smoky haze of an October sunset. Inside crowd room,
mister Wilkins, in a small cubicle at the heart of
the machine, sat surrounded by many instruments of a complicated nature. Outside,
huge crowds gathered to witness the test. They stirred and murmured,
waiting restlessly as inside the control room of the craft
Wilkins installed the final secret party had not revealed to
those who built his driving apparatus.
Speaker 2: Well, Wilkins, what's holding us up?
Speaker 5: Nothing new, oh sentiment? A wish to look funce more
on Earth's familiar scenes. Yeah, now the screening is removed. Look,
look at the people out there.
Speaker 4: Never mind looking out there. Let's say that thing closed.
You're a sentimental fool?
Speaker 2: Or are you afraid?
Speaker 4: Or did you decide at the last minute that your
invention would work?
Speaker 5: It will work. Sit down, mister Crowder. Thank you. Do
me a favor when I press this button? Will you
please press the button on the arm of the chair
in which you're seated. I'll tell you when.
Speaker 2: Turn on your motor.
Speaker 4: I want to hear its roar and feel its tug
as we cut loose from Earth's gravity and fly outward
into space. That might be a moment in which I'd
share your sentimentality.
Speaker 5: Press your button now, sir, Thank you?
Speaker 4: Yeah, when can I beginning to distrust you? If this
is all a hoax, why are we going to take off?
You said it five and it's two minutes after five.
Speaker 2: Now, well do we move it?
Speaker 4: Don't we?
Speaker 5: Mister Crowder, We're already moving. The button you pushed was
to nullify the effects of acceleration. If you don't mind, sir,
I'd like to open the screen again. No care, look
see for yourself, Wilkins.
Speaker 2: We're in space.
Speaker 5: Look down at the Earth. How far we've come. It's
not bigger than a toy balloon. No dying, no a
firefly man. Man Wilkins, you've done it. Yes, I swore
to be the first man to conquer space, and I've
done it.
Speaker 2: It's a triumph of power and ambition.
Speaker 5: And send my sentiment your moreer than dreaming would have
died on Borne except for me.
Speaker 2: I made this possible, Wilkins.
Speaker 5: Don't you ever forget that, My cat, my forcefulness, my will.
Look out there space stars that never were seen from Earth.
Speaker 2: And this is only the beginning.
Speaker 5: We'll build a larger model, one great enough to hold
one hundred men, a thousand and cargo. Besides, whoever wants
to leave Earth this.
Speaker 2: Moment must come to me. I am the Master of
the Planets.
Speaker 5: Yeah, all right, Wilkinson, turn back now?
Speaker 2: No, h I said, turn back? No, Well we proved
the ship can fly. Now now turn back.
Speaker 4: I want to start working once in preparation for the
long flights to come.
Speaker 5: Not so we will go on.
Speaker 2: What are you doing defying me?
Speaker 5: I'll break your puny little body into paces and you
control this ship.
Speaker 2: Mister Crowder.
Speaker 5: Would you like to be stranded out here in space?
Just to drift in space without control? Would you like that?
Speaker 2: Turn back?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: What's the matter with you? Are you out of your mind?
Speaker 5: Oh? I am a sentimentalist, mister Crowder. Your money and
ambition paved the way, that's true. But sentiment was the
vital factor that sent me to you. Sentiment, sir. You see,
mister Crowder, I wanted to go home.
Speaker 2: Home, home. You are out of your mind.
Speaker 5: You will forgive me if I remove these primitive clothes.
Speaker 2: Who are you?
Speaker 5: Oh it's all right, mister Crowder. I hold no special
malice towards you. There's no need to be so terrified.
Because you've had your first close look at a Martian.
Speaker 1: 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 The Vital Factor by Nelson Bond, as
adapted for radio by Howard Rodman. Featured in the cast
were Joe DeSantis, Guy Currell, John McGovern, Rant Richards Louis
Van Ruten, Richard Hamilton, and Florence Williams. Your announcer, Fred Collins.
X minus one was directed by Daniel Sutter and is
an NBC Radio Network production
Speaker 3: O