In just a moment, X minus one. But first, when you hear the hearty laugh and familiar voice of the Great Gilder Sleeve tomorrow night, you know you're in for some hilarious adventures. Because wherever Gildy is around, why somehow things never seem to go as planned. It might be his impulsive nature or maybe it's his incurable weakness for the fairer sex. But whatever it is, the Great Gilder Sleeve is bound to keep you laughing for a full 30 minutes. Tune in tomorrow night, meet Judge Hooker, Nephule Roy, Housekeeper Bertie, and all the rest of the friendly people from Summerville as they join the Great Gilder Sleeve. And I'll stay tuned for X minus one on NBC. Countdown 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 X minus one. Tonight's story, Junkyard by Clifford D. Simak. The funny thing about the whole thing was the fact that we had never intended to land on Planet Nine. We circled it and decided it was strictly a low-grade affair. It wouldn't amount to anything for a billion years or so. As commander of a galactic survey team, I couldn't waste my time on it. Then my exec saw this junkyard through the telescope. We landed. Took a look at a load of alien machine parts discarded by some other spaceship and then prepared to take off for Earth. It had all been a waste of time. Engine room, MacGyver. This is Commander Warren. All secure? Yes, sir. Very well. Countdown for blast off. Engine room ready, sir. X minus five, minus four, minus three, minus two, minus one. Fire. Mac, what's wrong down there? I don't know, sir. Brady, get the data analyzer ready. We'll have to correct for a new takeoff time. That's the first time I ever heard of engine failure before takeoff. Better before than after. Engine room? Yes, sir. What's happening? Your boys ready yet? No, sir. Well, burn it, man. Get going on what those engines started. Sir. What is it? I don't quite know what to say. Well, say something or I'll have you busted. We can't start the engines, Commander. At least I can. Well, why not? I don't know. Klein, what Klein on? Lieutenant Klein, sir. Lieutenant, what is going on down there? Is there something wrong with the engines? No, sir. I've double checked them. Well, then let's get them heated up where we'll be on this godforsaken planet the rest of our lives. We can't do it, sir. Klein, suppose you tell me exactly why you can't start the engines. Can you do that? Yes, sir. All right. Why? Because, sir, we can't remember how. What? Yes, sir. We've forgotten how to start the engines. Lieutenant, report up here in one minute. Bring Dr. Spencer with you. Yes, sir. All right, Brady. What have you got it? Got what, Iron? Don't play innocent. You and I have been doing planet surveys together for 15 years. You carry enough dead weight in grain alcohol on every trip to keep you happy for a million light years. Obviously, the boys in the engine room have gotten into it. Impossible. Where is it? I got a few fists in my locker, but nobody's touched it. I checked a few minutes ago. Well, then somebody has got some in the engine room. Come in. Lieutenant Klein, sir. I brought Dr. Spencer as ordered. Hello, Doc. Did Klein here tell you what's going on? He did. How long will it take you to get these guys sobered up? I can't. Why not? Because they're not drunk. I tested Klein in my office. Now, wait a minute, Doc. Are you trying to get me to actually believe that these men, intergalactic engineers with years of hyper-fission experience, have forgotten how to start the engines of this ship? That's right. You... You're serious? Dead serious, Iron. Something, somehow, has caused these men to forget how to start the engines. There it was. It fit in perfectly with a lot of other annoying little things that have been happening to us ever since we put down on Planet Nine. It was to have been a routine exploration of a low-grade uninhabited planet. Some routine exploration. All right, Klein, now listen to me. Do you have manuals aboard? Engineering manuals? Yes, sir. Take the engine room boys and study those manuals. They'll tell you how to start the ship, won't they? Yes, sir. Okay, get going. Doc, I'd like you to stay here with me and Brady for a minute. Okay. Report back to me, Klein. Yes, sir. Okay, Doc, you're supposed to be an expert on space medicine. What is it? I've never seen anything like it, Ira. Brady? Search me, Captain. I've seen them with space blues, alien psychoses, the works. But I've never seen a disease that could make a crew forget how to start the engines. Maybe it isn't a disease. Okay, what then? Maybe it's a deliberate thing. You mean they're faking? No, I know Klein and the others too well for that. I mean, maybe there's some outside influence. Doc, we've surveyed this planet from top to bottom. We know there isn't a living cell on it. What about the junkyard? What junkyard? Oh, he means that pile of rusty space engine parts we found. The boys nicknamed it the junkyard. He's right. Somebody put it there. Well, we know that another spaceship landed here. We know that from the blast marks on the rock. We know that for some unexplained reason they took their engine apart and tried to put it together again. We know they succeeded in building a much simpler engine, leaving a lot of spare parts, and we know that they took off. The blast off marks tell us that too. What we don't know is whether or not they left somebody behind or something. What about that stone tower, Ira? The boys looked it over. It's just a pile of stones. They probably threw them together as a shelter while they were rebuilding their engine. Oh, that sounds too simple. I don't like that tower, Ira. Why not? I don't know. It was scary. It had that black look about it. The smell of death. I felt it when I walked past with Klein and MacGyver. Oh, that's the selt in you, banshees and spooks. I still don't like it. I need a drink. Skip it. We should be ready to blast off in a few minutes. Engine room. Engine room. What's going on down there? Engine room. Lieutenant Klein. Daddy? Is that you, Daddy? Did you bring me a present? Daddy, I'm scared. Holy mackerel, that's Klein. He's gone off his rocker. Klein! Doc, I think we better get down to that engine room. When Doc examined Klein, he found him to have the mind and memory of a six-year-old. That's it, Ira. Something drained Klein of his memory. And that's as much as I can tell you. That's a big help. Here's the manual he was reading. Well, at least we can follow this manual and get off this stinking planet. Could you hand it to me? Right here. Anything wrong, Ira? Is it all there? It's all here, Doc. This is the engine manual that tells all about the engines. How they operate, how to locate trouble, how to fix them, how to start them. What is it then? You're sweating like a pig. All of a sudden, the engine is off. Doc, I've forgotten how to read. I left the engine room and went out through the lock to stand on the outside platform of the ship. I looked over the junkyard where the metal of the rusted engine parts gleamed. There was a riddle to solve. I was the only one who could solve it. I was the only one who could solve it. I was the only one who could solve it. There was a riddle there, a riddle we hadn't been able to figure out. Why had an alien spaceship landed here, ripped out its engines, and then put together a simple, less efficient engine and taken off again? And they had worked in an awful hurry, judging by the mess they left. Why? Mind if I join you, Ira? No, help yourself, Doc. How's Klein? We've made him some toys. He's playing with them. I've assigned Mack to see that he doesn't hurt himself. Doc. Yes? Have you got any ideas on what's happening to us? Well, man experiences incidents, gathers knowledge, knows emotions. Then, as he grows older, he begins to forget those experiences, forget that knowledge. That's what life is, a long series of forgettings. Here, online, in some impossible way, the forgetting is speeded up. It happens overnight. Ah, there's more to it than that. Well, I'm going back to my cabin to try to get some rest. Is that you, Ira? That's me, Badu. What gives? We're in a jam. There's been planets I wouldn't mind being marooned on, you know, but this ain't one of them. There's something here, Ira. I can feel it. Yes, I can feel it myself. Maybe we should have looked around more. Klein looked around. Klein was the one who found that tower. Brady, that's right, he did. He said he didn't like it. He said it scared him. In the morning, bad ears, we'll go and see that tower. In the morning, I took Doc and MacIver and Brady with me, and we walked across the valley to the stone tower. It wasn't much of a tower, maybe eight or nine feet high, made of rocks piled one on top of the other. Pretty solid, well built and odd. Type F culture, I'd say. Did anybody bother to look inside this thing? MacIver, you were here with Klein yesterday. Yes, sir. We couldn't find a way in, Captain. Klein poked around but gave up. We'll make a way in. Stand back. I think I can shoot the top off it. Well, now that should be big enough for a man to lower himself into. Okay, pass the rope around my shoulder. Captain. Yes? In case there's anything, well, dangerous, maybe I ought to go. After all, I'm Survey Engineer. MacIver's right, Ira. Okay, Mac, your responsibility. Yes, sir. Just fasten the rope under my arms. That's it. Now, I'll climb up and lower myself in. If I pull twice, haul me out. One pull means okay. Give me a hand, Brady. How about a quick shot of whiskey first? Never touch it. Ready? Yep. Can you see inside? Black as a tomb. I'm going to lower myself. Pay out a little rope. Well, it's been lovely. Here we go. One tug. He's on the ground inside. I wonder what he's found. I still don't like it. Oh, Brady, there's probably another thing in there except a few... There's two tugs. Three. Come on, haul them out. Brady, help me pull the top. Right. Easy now, Mac. What the heck is in there anyway? Mac? Mac? Dada? Dada? Holy jumping asteroids. Doc, he's flipped. No, he hasn't lost his mind. He's just reverted to babyhood. We stood there at the foot of the tower stunned. Mac Ivers sat on the ground happy as a clam, playing with his fingers and talking happy little nonsense syllables. Doc, take a look at him. Make sure that he's okay physically. Jack, if it's fright, his pulse will be way up. Mac, let me have your hand. That's a good fellow. Now. Good heavens. What is it? I...I've forgotten what the normal pulse rate is. Pulse. Pulse? Doc, let's get out of here. Brady, pick up MacIver and bring him back to the ship. Come on. Let's get away from this tower. A few minutes later, Brady and I sat in the captain's quarters. He didn't do much talking, just sat and tipped his bottle to his lips ever so often. Well, at least we know in a general way what we're up against. Do we? We know there's been knowledge lost, important information forgotten. We know that we're not going to be able to get back to the ship. We know that we're not going to be able to get back to the ship. We know that we're not going to be able to get back to the ship. We know there's been knowledge lost, important information forgotten. Check. Now, that memory, that lost skill, that knowledge went somewhere. Maybe there's something in that tower that takes it away. And I have a silly feeling we might even get it back. Have a drink. That is, get a couple of men volunteers. Now? Now. What for? We're going to find out what's inside that tower. We lowered a rotating infrared movie camera into the tower, took some pictures, and went back to the ship for a look. There was something in there, all right. Now, as far as we can determine, this thing we photographed is shaped like a watermelon standing on end. The movement of the hairs all over it suggests vibrations, such as an antenna of an insect. Underneath are wires leading to terminals that seemed plugged right into the thing. You think it's a form of life? My guess is a combination of living organism and machine. After all, man and machines work together. The difference is that man retains his individual identity. Well, since it doesn't locomote, somebody or something must have put it there. Exactly. It looks like some kind of communication organism. If it is, it's a communication machine that is built to take in information rather than pass it along. Doc, do you really think that egg in there has been stealing our memory? Why not? Because it's too... too wild, that's why not. It's no wilder than a lot of other things we found. Say that that egg is a device for gathering knowledge. But there's no knowledge here to gather. I mean, how often does a ship land on and out of the way melon like this? Wait a minute, Brady. Who says that knowledge has to be collected here? What? I said, why do we assume that knowledge has to be collected right here on Planet Nine? We forget things back on Earth, don't we? Good Lord. Suppose you were some race setting out fish traps for knowledge, and you had plenty of time to gather it. Where would you put your traps? On a planet swarming with intelligent beings where the traps would be found and destroyed or their secrets snatched away? Or would you put them out on some second-rate world where nobody would ever bother them? Good heavens, I'd pick a spot just like this. Let me fill in this picture, Doc. I think that some unknown race is bent on trapping knowledge throughout the galaxy. Ira, if what you say is true, if it is, then every time someone on Earth forgets something, it's because one of these eggs has drained it out of him. Well? It's too fantastic. Have you got a better guess? No. The question is, what do we do next? If anybody gets near that egg, he winds up like some pewing little baby. You were pretty near it that first day. Did you forget anything? How should I know? I was too pleasantly lit up on grain spirits to know the difference. Well, the question is still, what now? I'm going outside to think. Ira. Yes? There is one thing to keep in mind. What is that, Doc? If those are memory traps, then there must be a way for somebody to empty them. And if we are ever going to get away from here, what's gone in has got to come out. MUSIC I stood out on the platform of the ship and tried to make some sort of pattern of it. Forgetfulness. That was the key word. All through the galaxy, in every culture, there was forgetfulness. There were lots of learned theories, of course. Kinks in the brain, neuroses, data processing. But suppose they were wrong. Might it not be that forgetfulness was caused by thousands upon thousands of these memory traps planted throughout the galaxy, nibbling away at the conscious memory of all the sentient beings that lived among the stars? On Earth, a man forgets slowly because the traps are far away. But here, in their very shadow, a man forgets suddenly. And then another thought entered my mind. What kind of race had set these traps? How did they empty them? How? How? Brady. What do you keep your liquor? Not cheap. Come on, where? It's in my locker. Get it out of there, all of it. Ira. That's a direct order. Okay. All of it. That it? Yeah. I never thought I'd see the day when you pulled rank on me, Ira. If you confiscate this stuff, so help me, I'll never forgive you. Who said anything about confiscating? That is, have you ever really hung one on? I mean, just got pie-eyed drunk. Well, let's see. Yeah, there was once on Mars. Was that the worst? It was beautiful. Took me three days to sober up. They say I fought off the whole Galactic Patrol for hours. Well, do you think you got enough here to get that polluted again? I got a pretty good supply, Ira. Well, that's good, because in one minute, I'm going to give you a direct order to hang on the biggest, most monstrous drunk in the entire history of the universe. But first, you have to volunteer. I volunteer? No, no, not until I explain why I'm doing this. Ira, this sort of project don't need reasons. It's a pleasure. Let me finish. You know that egg up in the tower? Yeah. The minute you get near it, it grabs your mind, wipes it clean, right? Yeah. And a lead space helmet doesn't shield you, as we saw with MacIver. Right. Now, Doc thinks this egg is a kind of communications thing. It must be. Okay, you're a communications man. What do you do when you can't shield a communication? Well, that's easy. You scramble it. Any fool knows. Holy mackerel. Exactly. Are you still game? You think it'll work? I don't know. I think it might. Well, suppose it doesn't. Maybe you're babbling infant like Klein and MacIver. If we don't stop that thing, it'll happen anyway. Unless we can remember how to start the engines. Okay, Ira, I'll do it. When do I start? Right now. Well, Ira, here's mud in your ever-loving intergalactic eyeballs. You know something? I'm beginning to like this mission already. Well, that kills the last part of the mission. Well, that kills the last bottle. How am I doing, Ira, old buddy? You're not drunk enough. I should have picked somebody like Doc, except he'd probably pass out. I'm not drunk enough, huh, old buddy pal? Not yet. Well, then in which case, old buddy, I'm gonna have to do something I never like to have to do. What's that? I'm gonna have to go into my extra special emergency reserve supply. It's a little supply I keep in case of getting marooned on a planet, you know? I don't like to go into it, but in this case, it's my duty. I'm a rambling wreck from Georgia Tech and a heck of an engineer. A rambling wreck from Georgia Tech and a heck of an engineer. Whoo! Blast off! Okay, I guess you're ready. What do you think, Doc? Most amazing thing I've ever seen. Is he drunk enough? What I want to know is what's keeping him conscious. Okay, Bat-Ears on your feet. Help him up, Doc. Rambling wreck from Georgia Tech. Let's go, Bat-Ears. Right. Rambling wreck from Georgia Tech. Georgia Tech! Somehow we pushed, hauled, and stumbled Bat-Ears Brady out of the ship and up the rocks to the egg tower. We erected a tripod over the hole with a block and tackle, passed a rope around Brady's chest and hauled him over the entrance to the tower. There he swung like some overstuffed pig, singing raucously under the eerie moonlight. Rambling wreck from Georgia Tech. Well, what do you say, Ira? I got the earphones on him so they can't slip off. They're on. I guess we're ready to lower him. Ira. You sure it's a man's life? I'm not sure, Doc, but as commander of this expedition, I sometimes have to risk the lives of my men. Okay, Ira. Lower away before I start to get sober. Lower away. Flask off. Fire one. Fire two. Bomb away, Ira. Good luck, Brady. Good luck. He's at the bottom, Ira. Yeah. Bat-Ears, can you hear me? Get your hands out of my hair. Something's got his hands in my hair, Ira. The thing must be picking at his brain. Brady, Brady, listen to me. Do you see the egg? See? That's my buddy, Ira. My little old egghead buddy. You and me buddies, egghead, right? Have a drink. Oh, good Lord, he's got a bottle with him. He's pouring it on the egg. Brady, Brady, listen to me. The wires. Wires? The lead wires you took in with you. Yeah. Pull out the studs on the egg and hook your wires to it. You got that? Ah, yes, sir, ma'am. Me and egg here's got to have a drink. Oh, good heavens. It's no use, Ira. He's too drunk to know what he's doing. I'll try again. Brady, listen. Your friend, the egg, can't hear you, see? He can't have a drink until you hook your wires into him. You got that? Sure. That's an awful thing. That's dreadful. Okay, okay. What's he doing? Doc, you getting any impulses? Not a thing. We better haul him out. If he starts to sober up... Maybe we'd better. Okay, one, two... Wait a minute, wait. What? I'm getting something, Ira. What? This is fantastic. Oh, I'm getting something. All right, haul him out, quick. All right, come on. Rambling wreck from Georgia Tech. Rambling wreck. Brady, Brady, are you all right? Doc, help me, take a look at him. Is he okay? Yes, he's okay. Just passed out. Let's get him back to the ship. Right. You know what, Ira? What? Tomorrow about 9 a.m. We're going to be in on the most colossal hangover in the history of mornings after. We were in on more than Doc Spencer had bargained for. More than any human being had any business being in on. Oh. Well, Brady, how do you feel? Shoot me. You turned the trick, trick, the tower. You hooked into the egg. The stuff is rolling out now. Doc and the boys have got a recording hooked up. The stuff they're listening in on is enough to set your teeth on edge. What stuff? The information that mine trap has been collecting for hundreds of years. It'll take us years to sort it out, but we're getting some of it straight already. Any of our own stuff? Plenty. Anything on engines? Well, not on our engines. So? We got the dope on the junkyard engine. Mack and the boys are helping to get it assembled. We're ripping out our own engines and just keeping some of the parts. Another junkyard, huh? Another junkyard. The engine we're building now is superior to anything ever built. Pretty handy little gadget, that egg. Only one thing. What's that? Tell Doc if he comes across a good hangover remedy to let me know, huh? Oh. It took us about six days to assemble new engines using some of our parts and some of the advanced designs from the junkyard. During most of that time, Doc Spencer sat down at the tower with a set of headphones monitoring the information from the egg. It was like a man possessed. I didn't think anything unnatural was happening until the night of the sixth day. Well, that does it. The boys have got the engines ready for blast off. There's a full moon, too. We should be able to lift her by tomorrow morning, huh? We're blasting off in exactly one minute, that is. What? In exactly one minute. But Ira, Doc and some of the techno boys are down monitoring that egg. I know it. Well, it'll take them 20 minutes to get back into the ship with all that equipment. They're not getting back. Huh? I said they're not getting back. Ira, are you nuts? Come here, that is. I want you to take a look through this field scope. You can get a good close-up of Doc and the boys who have been monitoring that egg. Now, where do I get it focused? You got them? Yeah. Take a close-up. Mother in heaven. You see why we have to leave them here? Those faces, they're like... like some kind of beast. What is it, Ira? What's happened to them? The same thing that must have happened to the crew of the last ship that touched here. The same thing that made them blast out of here in such a tearing hurry. What? That is, there isn't only knowledge in that thing. Those boys are monitoring something else. Something else? Personality, that is. They're not human anymore. They're turning alien. They were still there when the ship roared up away from Planet Nine and pointed her silver nose toward Earth. We could see them in the scopes. A group of tiny figures crouched over the recording equipment. Their earphones plugged into the egg. They didn't even look up when we blasted off. They were no longer human now. They were something else. Something a million light years old. And of another world. You have just heard X minus one presented by the National Broadcasting Company in cooperation with Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine, which this month features the R. DeWitt Miller story, Swenson Dispatcher. The story of a shrewd but unscrupulous spaceship dispatcher who tries to best the rival airlines by unethical means. And with most surprising results. Galaxy Magazine on your newsstand today. Tonight by transcription, X minus one has brought you Junkyard, a story from the pages of Galaxy written by Clifford D. Simak and adapted for radio by George Lefferts. Featured in the cast were John Larkin, Bob Hastings, Mercer McCloud, Stan Early and Jack Orison. Your announcer, Fred Collins. X minus one was directed by Daniel Sutter and is an NBC Radio Network production. Let's visit Fibber McGee and Molly tonight on the NBC Radio Network.
