Speaker 1: In just a moment X minus one. But first, an
important subject in these days of snow and blizzard is
how to fight the common cold, and tomorrow NBC's Weekday
deals with this problem in a special feature by doctor
Leona Bomgardner, New York City Health Commissioner. Yes, it's NBC's
Weekday to keep you up to date in every field,
from health to housekeeping, from politics to pots and pans.
And there's also the best variety entertainment on Weekday Tomorrow,
headed by Metropolitan opera star Robert Merrow. Listen every Monday
through Friday to NBC's Weekday and I'll stay tuned for
X minus one.
Speaker 2: Come 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
a thousand, maybe worlds. The National Broadcasting Company, in cooperation
with Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine, presents HE minus one.
Speaker 3: On the Night story one thousand dollars, a plate by
Jack mckentie.
Speaker 4: Ferry ship from Dema space station carrying cargo and passengers
from Earth now arriving in blasting Pit six. Radiation clearance
and quarantine officers report to passenger conveyor. Mars Airways to
New Chicago, Part Kelly Mars Park, Mars Park Park, New Amityville,
and Nova Massapequa take off in fifteen minutes.
Speaker 3: All aboard. Excuse me, sir? Could you help me? Sure? Buddy?
What'll it be?
Speaker 5: Cards die little shot of the still Hackerberry?
Speaker 3: No, I just wondered if you could direct me.
Speaker 5: Brother, You came to the right man. I can direct
you anywhere you want to go. That's what I'm here for.
You just get off the ferry.
Speaker 3: Yes, I came on the phobus queen.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, you know you can spin them in my business.
All right, what'll it be?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 3: I want to know how I can get to the observatory.
But what the Mars Observatory? You know, the Astronomical Research Center.
Speaker 5: What do you want to go there for?
Speaker 3: I work there, or at least I will.
Speaker 5: No kidding you one of them double dome stargazers. Eh, yes,
I'm an astronomer. Yeah. I heard there was a lot
of you guys out there under glass. But I don't
get out of town much. I got to keep my
hand in you know. Are you sure you wouldn't like
a little flutter before you settle down on your rut?
Speaker 3: No, no, I never played cards occasionally little chess.
Speaker 5: I don't know if they got any chess any of
the casinos, but if you want, I could arrange it,
you know, play against the house five bucks apiece for
the kiddy in a see note for checkmate.
Speaker 3: No, thank you. Can you direct me to the observatory.
Speaker 5: You'll have to get a sand hack. None of the
regular buses go by there. They just hit the casinos
on the stripy. I'll tell you what. The next fairy
won't player for another half hour. I'll walk you over
to the hackstand. Well, thank you. That's very kind of you, mister.
Just call me Pusher. It's on account of my occupation,
you know.
Speaker 3: Oh I see, I'm enright ce Ben Singer, Doctor Ben Singer.
Speaker 5: Well, it's a pleasure, doc right this way. This isn't
exactly what I expected your first trip to Mars.
Speaker 3: Uh, yes it is.
Speaker 5: Well, you'll get used to it out this way. Adjust
your gills. Gills, sure, but what do you think you're
going to breathe outside that door. There isn't enough oxygen
on Mars to keep a mouse alive. They give you
a standard issue when you got off the ferry.
Speaker 3: It's in that bag. Oh yes, I'm afraid I was
reading when they explained it. The quarterly journal from the
Harvard Observatory.
Speaker 5: You know, m oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I never missed
a copy. Now look, you put the nose clip in,
see and crack the valve. This way it compresses enough
air to keep you going. Okay, all right, let's go.
Speaker 3: Cold.
Speaker 5: Sure, it's cold. Sand hacks are right up the street there.
Speaker 3: Beautiful, beautiful, all the colors in the sky. I am surprised,
though in an atmosphere there's thin. Sunset shouldn't be as spectacular.
Speaker 5: That ain't the sunset chief. That's a new sign on
top of the Canal Casino right there behind you.
Speaker 3: See fun, fun, fun. Yeah.
Speaker 5: But if you want a square shake with the dice,
you go to Harry Harvey's place, the Red Sands Hotel.
Speaker 3: I suppose the seeing is excellent.
Speaker 5: It's telling me, you know, he's got a line of
girls like you never seen nowhere else. Oh, I'm afraid
I meant astronomical seeing the telescopes you know, Hey, you
got an idea the telescopes.
Speaker 3: What's that?
Speaker 5: Nothing?
Speaker 3: Fireworks to Marsi Gras. Don't find Marsi gras.
Speaker 5: You know, big party all over town, parades, costumes, lick
your fireworks, gambling, you know, big celebration.
Speaker 3: But what's the occasion and eclipse of the two moons? Oh,
but that occurs very frequently.
Speaker 5: Oh, sure you'd be surprised how much of Masi gra
ups to take on the strip. Well, hear the sand
hacks and look, don't let them hackes charge you more
than fifteen bucks for the trip. Just tell them, you
know me, Just tell him Pusher sent you.
Speaker 3: Gentlemen, I want you all to meet doctor Benzinger on
you car. These are doctors Fitzpiegel, Ortany and Clyve. I.
I'm sorry to introduce you to our team at such
a critical moment, but our situation is rather desperate. I'm
afraid I don't understand. Spiegel.
Speaker 6: Show doctor Benzinger your plate here.
Speaker 3: Just look at this. Just look. It took me eight
weeks working with a computer to plot this plate. And look,
look it seems fogged. These streaks. I don't believe I've
ever seen them on an astronomical photograph before what are
they skyrockets? That's what they are, skyrockets. Morton, I tell
you that they've fired them in our direction on purpose.
All right, all right, calm down, Spiegel, calmed down. Do
you realize there will be twelve years before this particular
conjunction can be photographed again? Morton, You've got to do something.
Couldn't you write a little note to the Chamber of
Commerce and ask them to eliminate the firework. We've written
a note every time a small boy lets offer roman.
Speaker 6: Candle, and it was no use. I tell you they
fired them this way on purpose.
Speaker 3: I'm afraid that's true. The other directions around town are
either oil refineries or homes of the casino owners. I
don't suppose there's any chance of moving the observatory then
out into the desert, my dear doctor Benzinger. We'd have
to bring in creuse to tear it down, other crews
to move it and set it up, not to mention
breakage and replacement, which would involve more afraid from Earth.
At seven dollars and ninety seven cents per pound dead weight.
As it is, the immense costs add up to a
staggering total. Do you know what a single photographic plate
costs US County overhead? One thousand dollars? But then, what
is the answer another letter to the town council. I
suppose let me write at this time, doctor Morton. My
grandmother used to have several rather picturesque phrases which I
believe I could transfer. No, no, no, no, Spiegel, dignity, dignity.
Remember we are an adjunct of Harvard University, Doctor Spiegel,
I shall ask you and doctor Benzinger to accompany me
in person to the town council. Surely they cannot turn
down a rational request in the interest of science.
Speaker 7: Well, gentlemen, the town council appreciates the problem.
Speaker 6: Yes, I felt certain it would.
Speaker 3: Naturally, you're aware of the importance of astronomical research, mister Harvey.
Speaker 6: Well, I can see your point. Doc.
Speaker 7: You sit out there in your little glass hut pointing
your brownie camera up at the stars, snapping away.
Speaker 6: But you got to look at our point of view.
Speaker 7: Oh, now you take my place, Harvey's red sands. I
gotta heavy investment, fourteen crap tables, I have a dozen
rule at wheels, and the rest of the overhead. I
gotta keep them wheels running. It's the marsie gra that
drags the suckers in.
Speaker 3: But really, mister Harvey, we were just asking you to
curtail the pyrotechnic display.
Speaker 7: Oh why just a minuteonymous clean living as the next guy.
Speaker 6: Oh, doctor Benzinger means the fireworks.
Speaker 7: Oh well, I'd like to help you out, boys, But
I look at it this way. Those stars you're looking
at are gonna be up there for a couple of
thousand years. But a sucker different you gotta grab while
he's still healthy.
Speaker 3: But in the interest of science, surely the town council
can't agree with you, doctor.
Speaker 7: Town councils made up of Joe Rocco, Pete Connie, Alex
the Armenian, and me. We own the four biggest houses
in town. So go ahead, fellows, take all them snapshots
you want to. If you happen to lawyer Telescope, get
a couple of good ones. Slow window the Grand Canal Hotel.
I'll take a couple of eight by ten enlargements.
Speaker 6: I see it around. Well, I'm afraid the town council
was no help.
Speaker 3: They just remain insensible to reason. Well, I'm afraid the
only thing those gentlemen understand is money, My dear doctor Bensinger,
the smallest bit allowed in mister Harvey's establishment is approximately
the same as your monthly salary. Oh, Dr Morton, Suppose
the gambling op raiders were suddenly to lose a great
deal of money. They never do, of course, with the
ordinary layman playing against them. But suppose the best scientific
brains were to concentrate on a simple matter, like the
probabilities of a given roulette wheel, or the combinations and
permutations applicable to a game of poker. We could put
the main computer on it. Doctor, Are you seriously suggesting?
I think he's got a point. If we could give
those casinos a shellacking, they might stop the fireworks just
to get rid of us.
Speaker 5: Now let me get this straight, Doc, All you eggheads
up there made up a kiddy to get into a
crap game.
Speaker 3: Well, uh, that's right. I thought you might direct me
to the largest establishment in mister Harvey's place. I believe I.
Speaker 5: Look, Doc, I come over here, now over here in
the corner. Now look, I'm a push you see. My
job is to take these tourists by the lapel and
shove the in front of a dice table quick before
they spend any of their letters foolishly on food and lodging.
But these rubes, they come here expecting to get to it.
They don't miss it. You understand it's all part of
a good time. But you guys out there running your
Harvard peekaboo racket, you're different. What do you want to
get mixed up in this for? You take your peanuts
home and shove in the piggy bank, save up and
buy yourself a new telescope or something.
Speaker 3: I appreciate your solicitude, mister Pusher, but I'm quite determined
which way is mister Harvey's place.
Speaker 5: Well, if you've made up your mind, the bus leaves
some right over there in about fifteen minutes. Uh, get
around trip ticket because mister Harvey don't want no suckers
stuck without. They got car fair away from his place.
Speaker 3: I shouldn't worry about that. Frankly, I expect to leave
mister Harvey flat broke. I'll see you just before dawn.
I don't understand it. I just don't understand it. But
what happened. Luckily, a certain mister Pusher was generous enough
to lend me fifteen dollars for a sand hack. Otherwise
I would have had to walk. Well, that was rather
decent of him. Well, not exactly. He said, he gets
a percentage when he pulls in a ripe chump. You
mean it's all gone, every dollar. I just can't understand it.
I kept careful notes. I followed the formula that was
worked out by the computer. I calculated the odds by
slide rule, carrying them to the fourth and fifth decimal place.
I just can't understand it. Mister Pusher said that I
had a frigid digit. A what a cold finger? I
gather that's the opposite of a hot hand. But according
to the games theory as outlined in the last International
Congress of Theoretical Mathematics, Unfortunately at the Last Mathematical Congress
they weren't trying to make it for the hard way.
There they go again, sky. I was hoping to get
at least three plates in before they started, and the
crushing blow occurred with mister Pusher offered to sell me
my horoscope.
Speaker 6: No, yes, he said.
Speaker 3: Anyone was a fool to get into a dice game
if the stars weren't right. Now, there's an example of
what we're up against medieval superstition, existing side by side
with hydrosign rockets and nuclear space drive. Shocking. I'm not
so sure. Might be a good idea, Doctor Morton sent
for the staff Psychiatris Benzinger has scratched his reflector. No, no, gentlemen,
push who was right? Every man who's going to gamble
should have a horoscope. It's very important to know what
the stars say. What are you talking about? And where
on Mars is the place best equipped to tell you
what the stars say?
Speaker 6: Oh no, doctor Bensinger.
Speaker 3: Gentlemen, I tell you it may be a stroke of genius. Hello,
is this the advertising office? This is doctor Bensinger. I
should like to play an ad. No, no, there would
be no pretty girl. Just this, free, free, for the
first time ever, your horoscope scientifically cast by the staff
of the famous Mars Observatory. Learn your luck, your future,
write or call Mars Observatory. No charge, no obligation. Yes,
thank you. I'd like to run that every day until
further notice.
Speaker 6: For sure. Yeah, mister Harvey, did you do like I said?
Speaker 5: Sir? I went out to the observatory just like you
told me. You know, I had to share the sand
hack with five other guys.
Speaker 3: I understand the bus companies putting.
Speaker 5: The route out there a big crowd. Sure, mister Harvey,
you know them horoscopes are given. They're the only thing
on Mars that don't cost the tourists anymore.
Speaker 3: Right or right?
Speaker 6: What happened?
Speaker 5: Well, when I got out there, it was this Doc Benzinger,
you see, all dressed up in a dunk scap with
stars on it or something, in a big robe.
Speaker 3: They showed us all around the place.
Speaker 5: You never saw telescopes as big as a ride.
Speaker 3: All right, skip the traveler, all right.
Speaker 5: Well, finally they took my name and my birthdate, my callis,
and they run it through this computer. You should have
seen that thing, lights and bells, I'm telling you look
like the biggest pinball machine you ever saw. I kept
waiting for it to tilt.
Speaker 6: The horoscopes, the horoscope.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well I give it to me finally. I mean,
the first couple of pages is the ordinary boucheoip, but
the sun and the moon and the stars. But on
the fourth page that's the kicker.
Speaker 3: What did say?
Speaker 5: Well, it said that I'd be real lucky at most
of the gambling places, but I'd lose my shirt a, boys,
you're not gonna like this.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 5: I'd lose my shirt if I played at Harry Harvey's place.
Speaker 7: A pretty shrewd, you know, for a bunch of scientists
are pretty smart.
Speaker 3: That isn't gonna work.
Speaker 6: Hoona's right mind is gonna pay attention.
Speaker 3: A lot of who he liked that?
Speaker 5: Sure, Miss Dolly? Uh can I go?
Speaker 7: Now?
Speaker 6: What's your hurry?
Speaker 5: Well, I'm going over the Purple Flamingo to play a
little poker. I mean, after all, they say I'll be
lucky any place, but here.
Speaker 3: I mean, you can't.
Speaker 5: Argue with science.
Speaker 3: Gentlemen, I think we're on our way. I checked mister
Harvey's establishment. You can shoot an elk in the gambling
room empty. There was nobody playing but an elderly mazarchist
who likes to lose. Doctor Morton, we have a visitor,
Ben Singer. I have asked you please to take off
that confounded astrologist hat when you come into my office.
He didn't. It embarrasses me. Oh I'm sorry, but doctor,
allow me to present mister Harry Harvey House business.
Speaker 7: Mister Harvey, yeah, yeah, yeah, Well look, gentlemen, let's put
our cards on a table. You put a hole in
my pocket, and I haven't had since I once ran
into an honest police lieutenant in Cincinnati.
Speaker 6: I presume you've come about our horoscope.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's shoot or get off the foul line.
Speaker 3: How much I beg your pardon?
Speaker 6: How much will it take the lay you off? Mister Harvey?
Just a promise? Why you're on the town.
Speaker 3: So, mister Harvey, Now, the next time the question of
tourist entertainment is discussed, we want you to vote against
any fireworks display.
Speaker 7: Well, sure, that's no problem, but look, I'm only one vote.
Speaker 3: Or don't worry, mister Harvey, and every one of the
casino owners on the council will have his turn to
be mentioned in the stars.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you're gonna knock us on one by one like
a flight of ducks.
Speaker 6: Well that's the general idea. I gotta hand it.
Speaker 3: See, I gotta take off my hats to ye, mister Harvey.
We're desperate. We cannot afford to let valuable and irreplaceable
photographic plates be spoiled by fireworks. Okay, you went, but listen,
here's five bells, five hundred dollars. But we couldn't take it,
mister Harvey. I've already explained.
Speaker 6: It's not for me.
Speaker 7: I want you to take a full page head into
the Purple Flamingo in your next horoscope. I like to
see Joe Rockles's face when he gets a load of it.
Speaker 3: All right, mister Harvey, we'd be glad to take him next.
Speaker 7: Oh and the one more thing before I go, Can
I look through the ternoscope?
Speaker 3: I never looked through one before. Well, that's the last
of them. The Red Sands, frank Lands, Paradise, the Martian Gardens,
the Two Moons Clubs, and the Purple Flamingo, Doctor Martin,
We've got them all. There will be a meeting of
the town council a week from now, and after that,
no more fireworks. All those beautiful stars and nebulae are
not a misbegotten skyrocket to stand between us. Art, beautiful gentlemen,
I have some news for you. Have I am in
receipt of an interplanetary radiogram from my parent organization, the
Harvard Observatory. Are they going to send the new mass spectroscope? Please? Please?
Morton Earth. Newspapers carrying accounts of horoscopes published by your
organization very unscientific. Harvard Board of Overseers aghast must stop
at once find other solution.
Speaker 6: Sign LK. Bell Director. I thought Thursday was.
Speaker 3: The regular day for personal message delivering it is, Oh,
mister Harvey. I asked mister Harvey to wait in the washroom.
He brought the message down.
Speaker 7: Oh sure, all of us have contacts in the radio
of us. We can get a hold of messages a
couple of days before they're clear.
Speaker 3: Did you come down to gloat over our misfortune? Mister Harvey?
Speaker 7: You got my promise to help you boys, and now
stick by you. But the rest of them while it's
tough fellas, but business is business. I'm afraid the fireworks
will go on as usual.
Speaker 3: Thank you, mister Harvey.
Speaker 7: Look what would happen if you brought all the boys
out here, show them around, and then you can offer
the name of star after them or something. I'd sure
like to be able to point in the sky and
say that's Harvey's star.
Speaker 3: Well, mister Harvey, I'm afraid any star is worth looking
at with the naked eye already have names besides Harvard.
Obser he wouldn't stand for this idea either. It would
make as much sense to them as you naming a
pokerchip after me. But doctor Morton, we've got to think
of something. We tried rigging up a photoelectric cell. It
closes the shutter when a rocket goes up, but it
cuts the exposure time too much. But if we can't
get these plates, we may not be able to duplicate
them for years. Why right now, they're preparing the first
trip to a newly discovered planet, and the work of
the observatory is necessary to ensure the success of that trip.
Surely your colleagues will realize that, mister Harvey, the future
of the human race is at stake.
Speaker 7: Not the only race those jokers are interested in. Takes
place at Tropical Park.
Speaker 6: Look out there, they're starting the fireworks.
Speaker 3: All of them heading this way again.
Speaker 6: Ah nah, it's nothing personal.
Speaker 7: It's just that if we point them any other way,
they're likely to splash people or maybe set something on fire.
Speaker 3: You mean, if the rocket's misfired and get the tourists
all wet, there would be trouble.
Speaker 7: Oh sure, you couldn't have that. A guy with wet
pants ain't gonna stand around a crap table for hours.
Speaker 3: Mister Harvey, do you really want to help.
Speaker 6: Us well, sure, I promised, didn't I?
Speaker 3: Doctor Spiegel? Do you think the research library would have
any material on pyrotechnics, Ben Singer? What do you have
in mind? Well, doctor Morton, I was thinking of fighting
fire with fireworks. Careful with that match, Harvey.
Speaker 7: Oh, don't worry with the oxygen around here. You need
a blow torch, lighter cigarette.
Speaker 5: Have you got the rockets ready, doctor Benzinger?
Speaker 3: Well here they are in the launching racks. I've got
all my instruments, compass, a klinometer, an asthmethyl radioscope, and
a blowtorch. Well what are we waiting for? Spiegel? He's
bringing the calculated trajectories from the computer. See.
Speaker 7: I don't know if I like this. What if they mess,
they go off too soon something?
Speaker 3: Oh nonsense, mister Harvey, You forget we're scientists. Here are
the figures, Ben Singer. We double check them on the
master computer. All right, then let's go. They'll be starting
the official fireworks any minute. As I'm a three six
zero point three five seven Oh check vision four nine
point three seven four Oh check that's corrected for wind velocity,
temperature change, and magnetic eddie currents.
Speaker 6: Are you sure you guys know what you're doing with
them skyrockets.
Speaker 3: Don't worry, mister Harvey. They're going to explode in the
Grand Canal and get everybody in the Canal Casino all wet.
You shouldn't object, after all, it's your competition. Coming up
to zero hour, Benzinger, light the torch five seconds or
three two one fire there they go ooh interesting effect,
purple color. Oh do you like it? Yes, that was
my idea, radioactive fluorides. They're up over the town now.
Speaker 6: Hey, hey, one of them's beginning to wabble.
Speaker 3: I can't understand that. The computer was absolutely certain it's
going over the south of town. The other one's tracking
correctly on the radar. It'll hit the canal square.
Speaker 7: Yeah, but look the purple one. There are bounds it hit.
Speaker 3: Looks like it's starting a fire.
Speaker 7: Hey, must hit somebody's house. Hey, you can see it now,
it's a house burning.
Speaker 3: Oh, dear, dear, there must have been a week tube
in the computer.
Speaker 7: Yeah, some guy's gonna be real saw. I can see
it real clear with the glasses. Now, that house on
top of the hill there by the geeko push boy.
Speaker 6: It's burning lot.
Speaker 3: Mister Harvey, what's the matter. That's my house, Doctor Bensinger.
I've called you in to read a letter that I've
written to mister Harvey. Oh do you know his address?
I believe he's staying at his gambling establishment. His house
was a total loss. Yes, well, yes, this has been
a very difficult letter for me to write. I believe
the letter is academic Dr Martin. Mister Harvey is outside.
He is with two very low gentlemen with bulging pocket. Oh.
I don't know what to say. Uh.
Speaker 6: Well, well, mister Harvey, what a surprise.
Speaker 7: You two apes sweat outside and doctor Martin a lot
those fireworks.
Speaker 6: I want you to know. I believe in direct action.
I don't like filling.
Speaker 3: Around, of course, not that.
Speaker 7: At the time I had some trouble with the bottom
dealer from Luna City. I didn't fall around. I sent
him back to the Moon in a cargo rocket.
Speaker 6: With no air. How interesting now about your problem?
Speaker 3: Are you sure you we we we apologize?
Speaker 6: I apologize.
Speaker 3: That's great. Ah, I just remembered I left a few
plates in the bar. I don't go way, doctor, you're
in on this tone. No, there wouldn't be roomed and
not for two of us what are you talking about? Well,
in the cargo rocket, especially without air. What I'm trying
to tell you, the console voted against fireworks. As a
matter of fact, I have a very bad sinus and
no air with definite what Oh?
Speaker 7: Sure, we decided anything that could burn down and honor
citizen's house was too dangerous.
Speaker 6: Very civic minded that castle.
Speaker 3: But I don't understand.
Speaker 6: I kept my promise. I said I'd help you, and
I did.
Speaker 3: Well. I'm terribly embarrassing. We were trying to get a
collection among the staff to help you pay for your loss,
but I'm afraid the total assets of the observatory wouldn't
reconstruct your garage. Yeah, but we held a staff meeting
and we decided on a more permanent kind of remembrance.
Mister Harvey.
Speaker 6: On this photograph, you see this trail, this bright trail.
Why I'm skyrockets again. I'm sorry, I can won't happen again. No, no, no,
this is no skyrocket.
Speaker 3: It's a comet. It will be quite bright for several months,
and we've decided to call it Harvey's comet.
Speaker 6: Harvey's comet. That's real nice.
Speaker 7: Hubby's comment, Hey, Doc, you put me on top of
the world. Them boys at the Canal Casino boasting about
their new sign. But me, I got a comment Harvey's Comets.
Why every sucker on Mars will see it every night.
It's the best advertisement since they wrote seven down across
the face of the moor.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm glad that you'll please.
Speaker 7: Well, as a matter of fact, I kind of heard
about it in advancing one of your boys. You need
to comment after me. Okay, I brought something for you.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, what is it? A poker chip for my place?
Go ahead read it? Harvey's Club, Dr Morton's poker chip
five thousand.
Speaker 7: That's dollars, doc, don't spend it all in one place.
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 an NBC
Radio Network production