This is Walter O'Keefe inviting you to listen in on the Nightline. Tonight, live the incredible life of ages yet to come in a time that might be a million years from now on X minus one. Now an incredible story of the world beyond. Countdown for blast off. X minus five, four, three, two, X minus one, fire. From the far horizons of the unknown come 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, Inside Story by Richard Wilson. But first, hear this. I know a couple old friends that argue about everything, politics, world affairs, even the time of day. One thing they agree on though is Pabst blue ribbon draft beer. They say it's the best. And for a change they're both right. Pabst blue ribbon draft is a bright modern tasting beer that still has plenty of that old fashioned beer flavor. Next time you see that sign that says Pabst blue ribbon beer on draft, stop in, order a glass. You'll soon know why so many folks agree on the bright modern taste of Pabst blue ribbon beer of Milwaukee. Now X minus one and Inside Story. Every wire service man knows that when the legislature shuts down for the hot weather, when it gets too warm for crimes of passion, that's the start of the silly season. It's the time when the teletype chatters about the largest pumpkin grown in Saw County and the dog that found its way home from Luna Base to the Coco Island rocket port. Well it was the silly season when I reported to headquarters Martian sector of the Galactic News Service at IOPA. I found the bureau chief, Scott Warren, looking sourly at a strip of coffee. GNS Senalla ad lizards. Lizards? Lizards. New light on the longevity span of the Martian sand lizard was shed today by the Senalla Zoological Society. Now that is what I call hot news. Flash copy. Dull day? Following a dull night. Was it like this in New York when you left? They had me covering a kitten in a tree in Gramercy Park. I would sell my soul for a nice juicy cabinet crisis or else a little honest graft on a spaceport contract. Well have you got any leads? No. The Garrison administration of Martian Colonial Affairs is depressingly honest. When nothing's doing you can stir it up a little. You know, rattle the local skeleton in the closet. Fan the fires a little. Have you read the Publications Responsibility Act of 1997? You can get 20 years for what you were thinking. Look what's the local canker saw? What would you like most to get an inside story on? Something everybody covers up. Well, there's Druro. Or by that Simon Pure. What's Druro? Nully Sanctuary. Oh, a religious institution? No. It's a quarantine set up for null gravity neurocatenosis. Nully fever. It's completely segregated. Nobody's ever gotten a report out of there. It sounds like a natural. Look George, you're new. You don't fool around with Nully fever here on Mars. It'd be like lighting a cigarette in a powder magazine. Chief, how would you like an inside story out of Druro? You can't get in. I will give eight to five. Now look, who's in charge? The Ministry of Health, but you can't... Okay, okay. Don't let the sand lizard take up all the space. I will get in. It wasn't so easy. I did fine over at the health ministry until I mentioned Druro. And then I might just as well have had a galloping case of Nully fever myself. I was referred to the press officer, to the assistant administrator, to the legal department, the protocol division, and then back to the press officer. Finally I got in to see the commissioner, Dr. Marks. But just what caused you to raise the question of Druro, Mr. Gordon? Look Dr. Marks, what I want is your permission to visit Druro and get the inside story. Visit Druro? You mean inside the camp? Yes, that's right. Mr. Gordon, I am quoting administrative code section 65. Any person found within the perimeter at Druro is considered to be a Nully fever victim. Nully is something like 99% certain at a range of 100 yards. What's the treatment? Druro. You mean they're just shoved there to rot? A Nully, Mr. Gordon, will rot wherever he is. He deteriorates to the point of total sterility. Take my advice. Forget it. Naturally, I didn't forget it. I did more research. I found out that Nully fever seemed to be a mutated virus that got that way in the early Earth Mars rockets that had inadequate radiological shielding. The symptoms masqueraded as half a dozen diseases, but the end product was the same. The physical deterioration that I don't care to go into, and a psychological lowering to an animal state. You're listening to Inside Story, tonight's attraction on X minus one. Now, back to X minus one, and Inside Story. I may be a little reckless following a story, but believe me, there isn't a bonus big enough to make a hero out of me. I had no intention of contracting Nully fever just to provide a byline story for old GNS. I had stumbled onto something and I was wearing it when I dropped into the bureau and asked Scott if he noticed anything different about me. You're putting on a little weight? No, no, guess again. Your pants aren't hanging right, your shirt's all bunched up. That's because I am wearing the latest fashion, an invisible suit. Oh, goodbye, try another one. Look, I'm not kidding. It's heat proof and air tight. They developed it over at Mars Electronics for space suit use. You mean you're all buttoned up? Well, how do I hear you? Short wave from a miniaturized dental mic. It's hanging on a front tooth, eh? You're not kidding. Well, how come it's invisible? It beats me, something to do with a non-refractive coating. You need that for dark side work on airless satellites. I got an experimental model from a PRO at ME. What's it good for? Outside of spaceship work, not much, except it is my ticket to Druro. Now wait a minute. Don't you get it, Chief? I can't be infected, not with this suit on. It's absolutely air tight. Don't worry, I'll be safe. Wrapped in plastic film like chewing gum. Yeah, but that won't get you past the perimeter into the Nully camp. Just leave that to me. I've got that figured out too. I picked up a sandcat out to the town of Druro and waited for two days. There was a shipment of Nullies, the last of the senal around of due at the camp. Out of respect to public opinion, they dumped Nullies at night, which suited me fine. About a hundred Nullies were going over the newcomers like kangaroo caught in the frontier jail. I don't think anybody actually got killed, but they almost tore the new bunch to pieces, grabbing cigarettes, jackknives, buttons, shoes, anything. And then like it's not the old time, as we'd fight each other for it. The whole thing was over at dawn and I could get a look around the camp. There were pre-fab huts and some trees. I started over to one of the huts. My hut. Take it easy friend. I'm not going to hurt you. Look, I'm your friend. Sure. You think you're going to steal my ration, huh? I'll kill you first. How long have you been here? Two years. Got a cigarette? Here. No, no, don't grab. I'll toss you one. Don't you make a move towards me. Sure, sure, sure. What were you before you got in here? A teacher, an IOPA technical. I fixed them before they got me. I cut down ten medics with a power drill. When is breakfast, friend? You go plenty hungry. Ration isn't until tomorrow. You think there was some fight last night? Why don't you see ration drop? Last time somebody tried to beat me to a ration case, I fixed her. Never mind, never mind. Don't tell me about it. Hey, what's that over there? Up the hill. Looks like a regular fortress. What are you trying to do? Hurt me? No, no, I just asked you what goes on up there, those other huts inside that barricade. You spying for them? Yeah, sure. You're spying for them, you dirty... It isn't easy to get used to dodging nasty backhand punches that came out of the blue and were meant to kill, if possible. I got my arm up in time to catch about half the force and the man ran off with my pack of cigarettes. But there was something up that hill worth looking into. A barricaded section set apart from the rest. So I started up. When I hit the woods, I stopped just three feet short of a ten foot spear. All right, you. Get back down the hill. Now, take it easy, will you? What's going on up here? Come on, get moving. I've got orders to kill if I have to. You don't understand, I just want to find out... Yeah, sure you do. They always do. Every time there's a new batch, there's a few still smart enough to plan together and they come up here spying. Spying on what? Look, I'm a newspaper... On a cow tree and then you get it in the belly. No hero I, I got before he reached one and a half. That night I managed to talk to the ex-teacher without either of us slugging the other. I asked him about the guard on the hill. They get all the best rations. They make us give up our food or they come kill us. They've got spears and knives. You mean there's a gang up there living off the rest of you? Yeah, yeah. I killed one of them once, caught him from behind with a rock. They came down and killed ten of us. Didn't get me though. Funny, huh? I got the picture. It's been the same every time men are herded together like animals. Andersonville, Buchenwald and Dachau, the Alaskan camps in the 70s are now Druro. The strong live off the others, a kind of racketeering and spades. Grab the best of everything, live as rich as you can and don't worry how many you leave to starve to death. We're going to get them though. Tonight, got rocks together and clubs. Go up there and we'll get them. You come. I didn't have much choice. They would have torn me apart. About ten o'clock at night the mob gathered at the foot of the hill. Every once in a while they'd swipe at each other with a club or a rock but mostly they shouted up at the hill. And then suddenly without any signal they charged. It was kind of sick. Men and women, heaven knows what they were before. Teachers, mothers, anything, screaming and running up that hill. And then the defenders cut loose. There were torches so I could see, rocks rolled down, boiling water, spears, arrows, enough to cut down that unarmed mob. I was hiding behind a tree now. Sick, good and sick. And then it happened. Hold on bud. I'm going to pull this arrow out. Here it goes now. Where am I? Up the hill. That's where you wanted to go, isn't it? But how did... We dragged you up here. Herb, get some bandages up here. You're one of them, aren't you? One of who? The big shots, the kingpins, gangsters. You didn't get hit in the head, did you? It's too bad they didn't wipe you out up here. It's tough enough living in a place like this but to prey on the weak ones. Look, fella, I think maybe you got the wrong idea. Oh, thank heaven I'm safe from this kind of... Yeah, I wondered when you'd notice. That fancy suit of yours got torn when the arrow hit. Oh no. No. Nelly fever. That's why we hauled you up here. We spotted something funny about you. A kettle of boiling water splashed on you and you didn't even notice. Who are you? George Gordon, Galactic News Service. A newsman? Listen, does anybody know you're in here? Yeah. Maybe there's a chance. Can you tell them they got to let us out? Tell them what it's like up here. Make them understand. We write messages for the ration planes and they ignore them. You can't get close enough to the guards to shout. They shoot you down. They got to let us out. Oh, sure, sure. After what I've seen, that's the last thing I do. Try to con somebody into letting this loose on the population. I've seen enough nullies. Even if I have to spend the rest of my life in this camp, I don't want to be responsible for making more. Wait a minute. You don't get it. We're not nullies up here. What? Nobody gets in the camp who isn't a Nelly. That's right. We all had it when we came in, but not anymore. Up here we're cured. You're lying. You've got to believe me. We've been living up here for four years, keeping guard, trying to live like human beings in the middle of those animals down there, losing maybe three or four a week, fighting them off. You know, you're more dangerous than they are down there because somehow you've kept some intelligence, enough to want revenge on the rest of the world by infecting. No, no. You've got to believe me. We're cured. Nelly fever can be cured somehow because we've done it. About a hundred of us. More now with the babies. The what? Babies. Normal healthy babies. He pointed across the clearing to another hut, and I saw it. A woman about thirty, sitting on the doorsteps, nursing a baby, an infant. And I heard the words of the commissioner echoing in my ear. And of course, total sterility. These weren't nullies. Not anymore. If they could have babies, they must be cured. Living as a desperate island in a mad world of violence. Well you know the rest of it. You ought to. It was carried under my byline and every fact sheet on three planets. They had a micro technician up the hill who gimmicked my miniature microphone with a hair pin and a piece of quartz crystal so I cut in on the main traffic beam between Sinala and Iopa. I had Scott Warren at government house in fifteen minutes threatening to blow the lid off the whole colonial government. The babies did it. Aerial photographs with micro enlargements. They had pictures of those babies on the wire the next day. Red tape held it up a week. But finally a hundred cured ex-nullies and one reporter were out of Druro at Iopa General Hospital for checks. They found it. Nully fever is psychosomatic. You take somebody strong enough to fight for survival, give him incentive and he'll lick it by himself. No miracle drugs needed. It starts with a virus all right. But it ends with psychotherapy. A good dose of willpower. I get back to work in a month. Welcome back George. The teletype's dead as ever. Back to the longevity of the Martian sand wizard. Druro Nully story played out. Dead as last week's herring. Now what else is new? Maybe we can find another skeleton in the closet. How about life on the Martian moons? Now that ought to be good for a headline. Fred Collins again. And I'll have a word for you about next week's X minus one in a moment. Hey Molly. It's me. Where are you? Right here McGee. What's the matter? Are you doing anything? Am I doing anything? I've got a towel wrapped around my head, a broom in one hand, a bucket of soap and water in the other and the kitchen curtains under my arm and you ask me if I'm doing anything. Sure I'm vacationing in Florida. Oh here here Molly. Let me take that stuff. What are you doing? Now just sit down. Sit down right here. Well you're sweet McGee but I've got... You can go back to work in a minute. I've got something big to tell you. You know something really big. What have you gone and done? We're going to be on monitor. Monitor? NBC's fascinating, motivating, merry making, skindling, never-vessering weekend radio service. Oh that monitor. Of course. And we're gonna McGee when? This weekend and every weekend. What do you say to that? Oh that's wonderful McGee. So don't make any plans folks. We'll be seeing you this weekend. All week. All week. All week. All week. All week. All week. All week. All week. All week. All week. All week. All week. On monitoring. And now a word about next week's story. The category inventors by Arthur Sellings on X minus one. You have just heard X minus one presented by the National Broadcasting Company in cooperation with Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine which this month features Time waits for Winthrop by William Ten. Winthrop was literally the most stubborn and selfish man in 500 years. How could they convince him not to strand them in this society of shriek fields and panic stadiums? Galaxy Magazine on your newsstand today. Tonight X minus one has brought you Inside Story, a story from the pages of Galaxy written by Richard Wilson and adapted for radio by Ernest Ganoi. Featured in our cast were Bob Hastings, Leon Janney, Ralph Bell, Richard Hamilton, Edwin Cooper and Pat Hosley. This is Fred Collins. X minus one was directed by Daniel Sutter and is an NBC radio network production. There's excitement in the air at night and Nightline brings it to you. Here Nightline with Walter O'Keefe, next on most of these NBC stations.
