November 4, 2025 • 26 mins
A surreal sci-fi series exploring speculative concepts, dreams, and philosophical what-ifs. Each episode is a cerebral journey into the mind’s deepest questions. Explore a world of immersive, ad-free audio experiences from nature sounds to timeless stories at https://www.adfreesounds.com
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
Mine, Welcome to a.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Half hour of mind wag short stories from the world
of spec into sections.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
The story this time is.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Called roller Ball Murder by William Harrison. At first appeared
in Esquire magazine in nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
It was reprinted in the book.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
The seventh Annual Best Science Fiction seventy three, edited by
Harry Harrison and Brian Aldis. Roller Ball Murder by William Harrison.
The game the game, Here we go again, all glory
to it. All things I am and own are because
(01:39):
of roller Ball Murder. Our team stands in a row,
twenty of us in salute. As the Corporation hymn is.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Played by the band.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
We view the hardwood.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Oval track that offers us the rewards of mayhem, fifty
yards long, thirty yards across the ends, high banked, and
at the top of the walls the cannons which fire
those frenzied twenty pounds barall similar to bowling balls made
of ebonite. At velocities over three hundred miles an hour.
Those balls careen around the track, eventually slowing and falling
(02:10):
with diminishing centrifugal force, and as they go to ground
or strike a player, another volley fires. Here we are
our team, ten roller skaters, five motorbike riders, five runners
or clubbs. As the hymn plays, we stand erect and tough.
Eighty thousands sit watching in the stands, and another two
(02:31):
billion viewers around the world inspect the set of our
jaws on multivision. The runners, those bastards, slip into their
heavy leather gloves and shoulder their lacrosse like paddles which.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Are too hot to handle, and they try to.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Keep the runners from passing us in scoring points and
become the fodder in the brawl.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
So two teams of us, forty in all go skating.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
And running and biking around the track while the big
balls are fired in the same direction as we move,
always coming in from behind, a scatter and manless. And
the object of the game, as if you didn't know,
is for the runners to pass all the skaters on
the opposing team field a ball and pass it to a.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Biker for one point.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Bikers by the way, and they give the runners a lift,
in which case those of us on skates have our
hands full over turning one hundred seventy five.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Cc motor bikes.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
There are no rest periods no substitute players, and if
you lose a man, your team plays short. Today, I
turn my best side to the cameras. I am Jonathan
E none other, and nobody passes me on the track.
I'm the core of the Houston team, and for the
two hours of play, no rules, no penalties. Once that
(03:39):
first cannon fires, I'll level any bastard runner who raises
a paddle at me. We move immediately. There are pilops, bikes, skaters, referees, runners,
all tangled and punching and scrambling. When one of the
ball zooms around the corner and belts us, I pick
up momentum and heave an opposing skater into the infield
at center ring. Today, I'm brute speed driving, pushing up
(04:02):
the track, dodging the ball hurtling downward. Beyond those runners,
two runners do hand to hand combat, and one gets
his helmet knocked off in a blow that tears away
half his face. The victor stands there too long, admiring
his work.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
And gets wiped out by a biker who swoops.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Down and flattens him. The crowd screams, and I know
the cameramen have it on. Isolated shots and the viewers
in Melbourne, Berlin, Rio and La are all heaving with
excitement in their easy chairs. When an hour's gone, I'm
still wheeling along, although we have four team members out
with broken parts. One rookie may be dead, two bikes demolished,
(04:39):
but the other team, Good Old London, is worse off.
One of their motorbikes roars out of control, takes a
hit from one of the balls and bursts into flames,
wild cheering and cruising up next to their famous Jackie McGee.
I time my punch just right. He turns in my direction,
exposes the ugly snarl inside his helmet.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Knight, take him out of it.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
In that tiniest instant, I feel his teeth and balone
give way. In the crowds greens approval.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
We have him now, we really do.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
And the score ends seven to two years pass rules
alter and I hear of games in Manila now or
in Barcelona with no time limits, men bashing each other
until there are no runners left, no way of scoring points.
That's the coming thing. I hear of roller ball murder
played with mixed teams, men and women wearing tear away jerseys.
(05:33):
Everything will happen, They'll change the rules till we skate
on a slick of blood. We all know that. You see,
before the century began, before the Great Asian War of
the nineteen nineties, before the corporations were placed nationalism and
the corporate police forces supplanted the world's armies.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
In the last days of American.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Football in the World Cup in Europe.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
I was a tough young rookie who knew all the
rewards of this game.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
Women. I had them all, even vide a good marriage once.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
I have so much money after my first trophies that
I could buy houses and land and lakes beyond the
huge cities where only the executive class was allowed. My photo,
then as now was on the covers of magazine, so
that my name and the name of the sport were one,
and I was Jonathan E. No other, a survivor and
much more in the bloodiest sport. At the beginning, I
(06:26):
played for oil conglomerates, and then those corporations became known
as Energy. I've always played for the team here in Houston.
They've given me everything. How are you feeling, mister Bartholomew
asks me. He's the head of Energy, one of the
most powerful men in the world, and he talks to
me like I'm his son. I answer feeling mean. He
(06:47):
tells me they want to do a special on Multivision
about my career. Lots of shots and the side screens
showing my greatest plays and the story of my life.
How energy takes in orphans, gives them work and protection
makes careers possible, and all that really feel me. Huh,
mister Barcolum, you asks again, and I answer the same,
not telling him all that's inside me, because well he
(07:08):
probably misunderstand not telling him that I'm tired of the
long season, that I'm lonely and missed my wife, that
I yearn for high lost important thoughts, and that maybe,
just maybe I've got a deep rupture in the soul.
And old buddy Jim Cleatis comes by the ranch for
the weekend. Mackie, my present girl, takes our dinners out
(07:30):
of the freezer and turns.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
The rays on them. Cleatis works as a judge.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Now at every game there are two referees, clowns whose
job it is to see nothing's amiss, and.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
The judge who records the points scored.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Cleatus is also on the International Rules Committee, and he
tells me they are considering some changes. A penalty for
being lapped by your own team for one thing. He said,
damn simple penalty too, John, We'll take off your helmet.
Cleatis wants a runner for Toronto, fills up my oversized
furniture and rests his hands on his bad knees, and
I ask him, what else can you tell me, Clayton, Oh,
(08:03):
just financial things. More bonuses for superior attacks, you know,
bigger bonuses for being named World All Star.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
And that'll be good news for you again.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
And there's some talk of reducing the two month off
season if you always want more. After dinner, Cleatus walks
around the ranch with me and he asks if there's
anything I want? Yeah, something, but I don't know what.
Something's on your mind, John, We trudge up the path
of the hillside, and the Texas countryside stretches before us
pavilions of clouds.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Did you ever think about death in your playing days? Never?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
In the game itself, off the track, I never thought
about anything else.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
We pause and take a good long look at the horizon.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Jonathan, there's another thing.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
In the rules committee. They're considering dropping the time limit.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
At least, God help us, John.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
The suggestions come up officially naturally, I'm holding out for
the time limit I've played. You know, I know a
man's limits. Sometimes in that how maybe Johnny, I feel
pretty clumsy sitting there and insisting there should still be
a few rules. The statistical nuances of roller ball murder
(09:11):
entertain the multitudes as much as any other aspect of
the game. The highest number of points scored in a
single contest eighty one. The highest velocity of a ball
when actually caught by a runner one hundred seventy six.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
Miles per hour.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Highest number of players put out of action in a
single game by single skater thirteen.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
World's record by years.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Truly, most deaths in a single contest nine Rome against Chicago,
December fourth, twenty twelve. The giant lighted boards that circle
above the track monitor our pace, record each fact of
this slaughter, and we have millions of fans. It's always
seems strange to me who never look directly at the action,
but just study those statistics. A multivision survey established this.
(09:57):
The most powerful men in the world are the executives.
They run the major corporations that fix prices, wages, and
the general economy. We all know they're crooked, but they
have almost unlimited power and money. But I have considerable
power and money myself, and I'm still anxious. What can
I possibly want, I asked myself, except possibly more knowledge.
(10:20):
I consider recent history, which is virtually all anyone remembers,
and how the corporate war has ended, so that we
settled into the six majors, energy, transport, food, housing, services,
and luxury. Sometimes I forget who runs what. For example,
now that the universities are operated by the majors and
provide the farm system for rollerball murder, which major runs
the universities?
Speaker 4 (10:41):
Services?
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Or luxury and music is one of our biggest industries,
but I can't remember who administers it. Narcotic research is
now under food, and I remember it used to be
under luxury. Anyway, I think I'll ask mister Bartholomew about knowledge.
So he's a man with a big view of the world,
with values, with memory. My team flings itself into the
(11:02):
void while his team harnesses the sun, taps the sea,
finds new alloys, and is clearly just a hell of
a lot more serious. The Mexico City game has a
new wrinkle. They've changed the shape of the ball on us.
The Kleatis didn't even warn me. Maybe he couldn't. But
here we are playing with a ball not quite round.
(11:24):
Its center of gravity is altered, so it rumbles around
the track in irregular patterns.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
This particular game's bad.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Enough because the bikers down here are are getting wise
to me. For years, since my reputation was established, bikers
have always tried to get me out of a game early,
but early in the game. I'm wary and strong, and.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
I'll always gladly take on.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
A biker, even since they put shields on the bike
so we can't grab the handle buyers now though those
guys know I'm getting older, still mean, but slowing down,
as the sports pages put it, so they let me
bash it out with the skaters and runners for as
long as possible before sending the bikers after me. Knock
out Jonathany. They saying, you've beaten Houston. That's right enough,
(12:06):
but they haven't done it yet. Mackie is gone and
in her place now is the new one.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Daphney.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
My Daphne's tall and English likes photos. Always wants to
pose for me, and sometimes we get out of our
boxes of old pictures. Mine is a player, mostly in
hers as a model, and we look at ourselves of
her long soft hair season. When I see mister Bartholomew again,
he has been disposed as the chief executive at Energy.
He's still very important, but lacks some of the old certainty.
(12:38):
His mood is sort of reflective, and I decide to
take this opportunity to talk about what's bothering me. We
lunch in Houston Tower. There's a nice beef Wellington, the
good Burgundine. Daphne sits there like a stone, probably imagining.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
She's in a movie. Your knowledge, I see.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Says mister Bartholomew in reply to my topic that I've
brought up. We're interested in Johnny, the history, the arts.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Can I be personal with you?
Speaker 4 (13:07):
Well?
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Sure, naturally he's a little uneasy you. Although mister Bartholomew
isn't the specially one to inspire confession, I decided to
blunder along. I began in the university. You know, that
was about seventeen years ago. In those days we still
had books, and I read some quite a few because
I thought I might make an executive. Jonathan believed me.
(13:29):
I can guess what you're going to say, mister Bartholomew
side and sip some burgundy and glanced at Daphne. I'm
one of the few with some real regrets about what
happened to the books. Everything's still on tape, but it
just isn't the same, is it?
Speaker 4 (13:45):
Nowadays?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Only the computer specialist read the tapes, and we're right
back in the Middle Ages, when only the monks could
read the Latin script. Would you like me to assign
you a specialist, Johnny, No, that's not exactly it.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Oh, we have some.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Great film libraries. You could get a permit to see
anything you want. The Renaissance Greek philosophers, you know. I
saw a nice summary film on the life and thought
of Plato once.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
All I know is.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Roller ball murder.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
You you don't want out.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Of the game, john No, No, not at all.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
It's just that I want God, mister Bartholomew, I don't
know how to say it.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
I want more.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
He offered a blank look, But not things in the
world more for me, mister Bartholomew. He heaved a great sigh,
leaned back, allowed the steward to refill his class. I
know that he understands. He's a man of about sixty
enormously wealthy, powerful in our most powerful executive class, and
(14:47):
behind his eyes is the deep, weary, undeniable comprehension of
the life that he's lived. Knowledge, John either converts to
power or it converts to melancholy. Which could you possibly want?
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Jonathan?
Speaker 2 (15:00):
You have power, you have status and skill, You have
the whole masculine dream that many of us would like
to have and enroller Paul murder. There's no room for melancholy,
is there?
Speaker 4 (15:12):
In the game.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
The mind exists for the body to make a harmony
of havoc?
Speaker 4 (15:17):
Right? Do you want to change that?
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Do you want the mind to exist for itself alone?
I don't think you actually want that, to hear, John,
I don't really know. Well, I'll get you some permits, Jonathan.
You can see video films, learn something about reading tapes
if you want. I don't think I really have any power. Oh,
(15:39):
come on, John. Somehow the conversation drifts away from me.
Daphneon Q, like a good spy for the corporation she
probably is, starts feeding mister Bartholomew lines, and soon, oddly enough,
we're discussing the upcoming game with Stockholm. A hollow space
begins to grow inside me, as though fire receding out
(16:00):
a hole. The conversation concerns the end of the season,
the All Star Game records being set this year, but
my disappointment in what exactly I don't even know begins
to sicken me. Late season in the locker room of
Paul takes as. We hardly speak among ourselves now, and
(16:21):
like soldiers or gladiators, sensing what lizahead, we move around
on the surgical odors, assuring ourselves will survive our last
training and instruction. This year concerns the delivery of death
blows to opposing players. There's no time now for the
tolerant shoving and bumping of yesteryear. I consider that I
possess two good weapons. Because of my unusually good balance
(16:42):
on skates, I can often shatter my opponent's knee with
a kick, and also I have a fine backhand.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Blow to the ribs and heart.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
So when I'm wheeling.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Side by side with an opponent who raises an arm
against me, that's it. If the new rules change removes
a player's helmet, of course, that's death. As it is
right now, and there are rumors, rumors every day about
what new version we'll.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Have next of roller ball murder. All right, Now you
go for the windpipe.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
The ribs, or the heart, the diaphragm, any place you
don't break your hand. Now Daphne is gone too. And
in this interim before another companion arrives, courtesy of all
my friends and employers at Energy, Ella floats back into
my dreams and daylight fantasies. I was a corporation child,
(17:29):
some executive son. I always preferred to think, brought up
in the Galveston section of the city as a big kid,
naturally athletic and strong, and this, according to my theory,
gave me healthy mental genes too, because well, I figure
that strong in body is strong in mind. A man
with brute speed surely also has the capacity tom all
over his life. Anyway, I married at the age of
(17:52):
fifteen while I worked on the docks or oil conglomerates.
Ella was a secretary, slim with long brown hair, and
we managed to get permits both to marry and enter
the university together. She was in general electronics and I
was in some pre executive courses and rollerball murder. She
fed me well that first year. I put on thirty
hard pounds and at night she soothed my bruises.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
Was she a spy too?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
I have sometimes wondered whose job it was to groom
the killer? And perhaps it was because she was my
first woman ever, eighteen years old, lovely that I've never
properly forgotten. She left me for an executive, just packed
up and went to Europe with him. Ella, love one
does consider did you beef me up and break my
(18:36):
heart in some.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Great design of corporate society? And oh there I was
whatever angry, hurt beyond repair, I thought at the time.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
But the hand that stroked Ellie soon dropped all the
foes of Houston. I take sad stock of myself from
this quiet period before another woman arrives. I'm smart enough,
I know that I had to be to survive. Yet
I seem to know nothing and can feel the hollow
spaces in my own heart Like one of those computer specialists.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
I have my know how.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
I know what to day means, what tomorrow likely holds.
And maybe it's because the books are gone. Mister Bartholomew
is right, it's a shame they're transformed. Maybe it's because
the books are gone and I feel so vacant if
I didn't remember, Maella. This I realized I wouldn't even
want to remember, because it's.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
Love and recollecting, recollect Sure.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
I read quite a few books that year with Ella
and afterward too, before turning professional in the game. Apart
from all the volumes about how to get along in business,
I read the history of the Tokyo game. We discover
there will be three oblong balls in play.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
At all times.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Some of our most experienced players are afraid to go
out on the track now and then after they're coaxed
and threatened, and finally consent to join the fake injury
whenever they can and sprawl in the infield. As for me,
I play with greater abandon than ever and give the
crowd its money's worth. But Tokyo's caters are either bearing
over their shoulders looking for approaching balls when I smash him,
(20:04):
or the poor devils they're looking for me when a
ball takes him out of action. One fellow with a
broken back flaps around for a moment like a fish,
and then shutters and dies. The balls jump at us
as though they have brains, But fate carries me as
I know somehow it will. I'm a force field a destroyer,
and I kick a biker into the path of a
ball going at least two hundred miles an hour. I
(20:25):
swerve around a pile up of bikes and skaters, ride
high on the track, zoom down. Find a runner clubber
who panics and misses with a roundhouse swing of.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
His paddle without much ado. I've belt him out of.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Play with a certain knowledge I've felt it before that
he's dead before he hits the infield.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
A ball flips out of place.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
And after being fired from the canon that jumps the railing,
sails high and plows into the spectators. I take a
hit from a ball. It's one of the three or
four times I've ever been belted. The ball is riding
low on the track when it catches me and strikes
my calf from skateboots, so it's not too tough, although
I tumble like a baby. While I'm down and hurting,
I see one of our skaters, Moonpie killed.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
They take off his helmet.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Working slowly, it's like slow motion, and I'm writhing and cursing,
and I'm able to help. They open his mouth on
the toe of a bastard's boot, and then they kick.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
The back of his head and knock on his teeth.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
And raddle down the hill.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
On the track.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
They kick again and stop his brains. This time he
drawls at last, groaning goodbye, while the cameras record it all. Later,
I'm up pushing along once again, feeling bad, but knowing
everyone else feels the same.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
I have that last surge of energy.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
The one I always get when I'm going good.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
And near the closing gun, I manage a nice move,
grabbing one of their runners with a headlock. I skate
him off to limbo, bashing his face with my free fist,
picking up speed until he drags behind like a dropped flag,
and disposing of him in front of a ball which
carries him off in the comic.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
Flop, Oh God, God.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Before the All Star Game, Kletus comes to me with
the news I expect this one will be a no
time limit extravagance in New York. Every multivision set in
the world doomed in. The bikes will be more high powered,
four oblong balls will be in place simultaneously, and the
referees will blow the whistle on any sluggish player and
remove his helmet as a penalty.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
Those rules no worry. I tell him it'll.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Go no more than in one hour and will all
be dead. We're at the Houston Ranch on a Saturday afternoon,
riding around in my electro cart, viewing my stock. This
is probably the ultimate spectacle of my wealth, my own
beef cattle, in the day when only a few special
members of the executive class have any meat at all
to eat, with the exception of mass produced fish. I
(22:39):
tell Cleat that he owes me a favor. Anything he answers,
not looking me in the eyes. I turn the cart
up a lane behind the rustic fence.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
An archway of oak trees overhead.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
I tell him, I want you to bring Ella to
me after all these years.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Yan, it's what I want.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
Cleat, you arrange it and don't give me any excuses. Okay.
We meet at the villa.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Near lyone in early June, only a week before the
New York All Star Game, and I think she immediately
reads something in my eyes which helps her to love
me again.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Of course I love her.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
I realize seeing her that I have only a vague
recollection of being alive at all. And that was a
long time ago, and another century of the heart, when
I had no identity except my name, when I was
a simple.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
Dock worker, before I ever saw all.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
The world's places are moved in the rumbling nightmares of
roller ball murder. She kisses my fingers. Oh, she says softly,
and her face is filled with true wonder. What's happened
to you, Johnny. A few soft days, when our bodies
aren't entwined, we try to remember and tell each other everything,
that the way we used to hold hands, how we
(23:48):
fretted about receiving the marriage permit, how the books looked
on our shelves in the old apartment in River Oaks.
We strain the times, trying to recall the impossible. It's
true that history is real, gone, that we have no
families or touchstones, that our short personal lives alone. Judges
and I want to hear about her husband, the places
they've lived, the furniture in her house, anything I tell
(24:11):
her in turn, about all the women, about mister Bartholomew,
about Jim Cleats, about the ranch and the hills outside Houston.
It would be nice, I think, once, to imagine that
she was taken away from me by some malevolent force
in this awful age.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
But I know the truth of that.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
She went away simply because I wasn't enough back then,
because those were the days before.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
I yearned for anything, when I was beginning to live,
to play the game.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
But no matter.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
For a few days, she sits in my bed and
I touch her skin like a blind man. Our last
morning together. She comes out in her traveling suit with
her hair pulled up underneath the fur cap. The softness
has left her voice, and she smiles with efficiency. She
plays like a biker, I decide. She rides up there,
high above the turmoils, decides when to swoop down, and
(25:02):
makes a clean kill. Goodbye, aller, I say. She turns
her head slightly away from my kiss, so that I
touch her for a cap with my lips. I'm glad
I can't, she says, politely. Good luck Johnny. New York
is frenzied with what is about to happen. The crowds
throng into energy plazas, warm the ticket offices, at the stadium,
(25:25):
and wherever I go. People are reaching for my hands,
pushing my bodyguards away, trying to touch my sleeve as
though I'm some ancient religious figure, seer or prophet. Before
the game begins, I stand with my team. As the
Corporation hymns are played. I'm brute speed today, I tell myself,
trying to wrap myself up. Yet a dream in my thoughts,
(25:48):
I'm a bit unconvinced. A chorus of voices joins the band.
Speaker 4 (25:53):
Now as the music swells, the game, the game, all
glory to it.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
The music rings, and I can feel my lips move
with the words, singing tonight, We've done roller Ball Murder
by William Harrison a story that first appeared in nineteen
(26:21):
seventy three in Esquire magazine. It's reprinted in the book
The seventh Annual Best Science Fiction seventy three, edited by
Harry Harrison and Brian Aldist. This is Michael Hanson speaking.
Production engineering for mindwebs by Steve Gordon. Mindwebs is a
production of WYA Radio and Madison, a service of the
(26:44):
University of Wisconsin Extension
Mine, Welcome to a.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Half hour of mind wag short stories from the world
of spec into sections.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
The story this time is.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Called roller Ball Murder by William Harrison. At first appeared
in Esquire magazine in nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
It was reprinted in the book.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
The seventh Annual Best Science Fiction seventy three, edited by
Harry Harrison and Brian Aldis. Roller Ball Murder by William Harrison.
The game the game, Here we go again, all glory
to it. All things I am and own are because
(01:39):
of roller Ball Murder. Our team stands in a row,
twenty of us in salute. As the Corporation hymn is.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Played by the band.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
We view the hardwood.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Oval track that offers us the rewards of mayhem, fifty
yards long, thirty yards across the ends, high banked, and
at the top of the walls the cannons which fire
those frenzied twenty pounds barall similar to bowling balls made
of ebonite. At velocities over three hundred miles an hour.
Those balls careen around the track, eventually slowing and falling
(02:10):
with diminishing centrifugal force, and as they go to ground
or strike a player, another volley fires. Here we are
our team, ten roller skaters, five motorbike riders, five runners
or clubbs. As the hymn plays, we stand erect and tough.
Eighty thousands sit watching in the stands, and another two
(02:31):
billion viewers around the world inspect the set of our
jaws on multivision. The runners, those bastards, slip into their
heavy leather gloves and shoulder their lacrosse like paddles which.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Are too hot to handle, and they try to.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Keep the runners from passing us in scoring points and
become the fodder in the brawl.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
So two teams of us, forty in all go skating.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
And running and biking around the track while the big
balls are fired in the same direction as we move,
always coming in from behind, a scatter and manless. And
the object of the game, as if you didn't know,
is for the runners to pass all the skaters on
the opposing team field a ball and pass it to a.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Biker for one point.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Bikers by the way, and they give the runners a lift,
in which case those of us on skates have our
hands full over turning one hundred seventy five.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Cc motor bikes.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
There are no rest periods no substitute players, and if
you lose a man, your team plays short. Today, I
turn my best side to the cameras. I am Jonathan
E none other, and nobody passes me on the track.
I'm the core of the Houston team, and for the
two hours of play, no rules, no penalties. Once that
(03:39):
first cannon fires, I'll level any bastard runner who raises
a paddle at me. We move immediately. There are pilops, bikes, skaters, referees, runners,
all tangled and punching and scrambling. When one of the
ball zooms around the corner and belts us, I pick
up momentum and heave an opposing skater into the infield
at center ring. Today, I'm brute speed driving, pushing up
(04:02):
the track, dodging the ball hurtling downward. Beyond those runners,
two runners do hand to hand combat, and one gets
his helmet knocked off in a blow that tears away
half his face. The victor stands there too long, admiring
his work.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
And gets wiped out by a biker who swoops.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Down and flattens him. The crowd screams, and I know
the cameramen have it on. Isolated shots and the viewers
in Melbourne, Berlin, Rio and La are all heaving with
excitement in their easy chairs. When an hour's gone, I'm
still wheeling along, although we have four team members out
with broken parts. One rookie may be dead, two bikes demolished,
(04:39):
but the other team, Good Old London, is worse off.
One of their motorbikes roars out of control, takes a
hit from one of the balls and bursts into flames,
wild cheering and cruising up next to their famous Jackie McGee.
I time my punch just right. He turns in my direction,
exposes the ugly snarl inside his helmet.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Knight, take him out of it.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
In that tiniest instant, I feel his teeth and balone
give way. In the crowds greens approval.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
We have him now, we really do.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
And the score ends seven to two years pass rules
alter and I hear of games in Manila now or
in Barcelona with no time limits, men bashing each other
until there are no runners left, no way of scoring points.
That's the coming thing. I hear of roller ball murder
played with mixed teams, men and women wearing tear away jerseys.
(05:33):
Everything will happen, They'll change the rules till we skate
on a slick of blood. We all know that. You see,
before the century began, before the Great Asian War of
the nineteen nineties, before the corporations were placed nationalism and
the corporate police forces supplanted the world's armies.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
In the last days of American.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Football in the World Cup in Europe.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
I was a tough young rookie who knew all the
rewards of this game.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
Women. I had them all, even vide a good marriage once.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
I have so much money after my first trophies that
I could buy houses and land and lakes beyond the
huge cities where only the executive class was allowed. My photo,
then as now was on the covers of magazine, so
that my name and the name of the sport were one,
and I was Jonathan E. No other, a survivor and
much more in the bloodiest sport. At the beginning, I
(06:26):
played for oil conglomerates, and then those corporations became known
as Energy. I've always played for the team here in Houston.
They've given me everything. How are you feeling, mister Bartholomew
asks me. He's the head of Energy, one of the
most powerful men in the world, and he talks to
me like I'm his son. I answer feeling mean. He
(06:47):
tells me they want to do a special on Multivision
about my career. Lots of shots and the side screens
showing my greatest plays and the story of my life.
How energy takes in orphans, gives them work and protection
makes careers possible, and all that really feel me. Huh,
mister Barcolum, you asks again, and I answer the same,
not telling him all that's inside me, because well he
(07:08):
probably misunderstand not telling him that I'm tired of the
long season, that I'm lonely and missed my wife, that
I yearn for high lost important thoughts, and that maybe,
just maybe I've got a deep rupture in the soul.
And old buddy Jim Cleatis comes by the ranch for
the weekend. Mackie, my present girl, takes our dinners out
(07:30):
of the freezer and turns.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
The rays on them. Cleatis works as a judge.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Now at every game there are two referees, clowns whose
job it is to see nothing's amiss, and.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
The judge who records the points scored.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Cleatus is also on the International Rules Committee, and he
tells me they are considering some changes. A penalty for
being lapped by your own team for one thing. He said,
damn simple penalty too, John, We'll take off your helmet.
Cleatis wants a runner for Toronto, fills up my oversized
furniture and rests his hands on his bad knees, and
I ask him, what else can you tell me, Clayton, Oh,
(08:03):
just financial things. More bonuses for superior attacks, you know,
bigger bonuses for being named World All Star.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
And that'll be good news for you again.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
And there's some talk of reducing the two month off
season if you always want more. After dinner, Cleatus walks
around the ranch with me and he asks if there's
anything I want? Yeah, something, but I don't know what.
Something's on your mind, John, We trudge up the path
of the hillside, and the Texas countryside stretches before us
pavilions of clouds.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Did you ever think about death in your playing days? Never?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
In the game itself, off the track, I never thought
about anything else.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
We pause and take a good long look at the horizon.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Jonathan, there's another thing.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
In the rules committee. They're considering dropping the time limit.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
At least, God help us, John.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
The suggestions come up officially naturally, I'm holding out for
the time limit I've played. You know, I know a
man's limits. Sometimes in that how maybe Johnny, I feel
pretty clumsy sitting there and insisting there should still be
a few rules. The statistical nuances of roller ball murder
(09:11):
entertain the multitudes as much as any other aspect of
the game. The highest number of points scored in a
single contest eighty one. The highest velocity of a ball
when actually caught by a runner one hundred seventy six.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
Miles per hour.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Highest number of players put out of action in a
single game by single skater thirteen.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
World's record by years.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Truly, most deaths in a single contest nine Rome against Chicago,
December fourth, twenty twelve. The giant lighted boards that circle
above the track monitor our pace, record each fact of
this slaughter, and we have millions of fans. It's always
seems strange to me who never look directly at the action,
but just study those statistics. A multivision survey established this.
(09:57):
The most powerful men in the world are the executives.
They run the major corporations that fix prices, wages, and
the general economy. We all know they're crooked, but they
have almost unlimited power and money. But I have considerable
power and money myself, and I'm still anxious. What can
I possibly want, I asked myself, except possibly more knowledge.
(10:20):
I consider recent history, which is virtually all anyone remembers,
and how the corporate war has ended, so that we
settled into the six majors, energy, transport, food, housing, services,
and luxury. Sometimes I forget who runs what. For example,
now that the universities are operated by the majors and
provide the farm system for rollerball murder, which major runs
the universities?
Speaker 4 (10:41):
Services?
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Or luxury and music is one of our biggest industries,
but I can't remember who administers it. Narcotic research is
now under food, and I remember it used to be
under luxury. Anyway, I think I'll ask mister Bartholomew about knowledge.
So he's a man with a big view of the world,
with values, with memory. My team flings itself into the
(11:02):
void while his team harnesses the sun, taps the sea,
finds new alloys, and is clearly just a hell of
a lot more serious. The Mexico City game has a
new wrinkle. They've changed the shape of the ball on us.
The Kleatis didn't even warn me. Maybe he couldn't. But
here we are playing with a ball not quite round.
(11:24):
Its center of gravity is altered, so it rumbles around
the track in irregular patterns.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
This particular game's bad.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Enough because the bikers down here are are getting wise
to me. For years, since my reputation was established, bikers
have always tried to get me out of a game early,
but early in the game. I'm wary and strong, and.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
I'll always gladly take on.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
A biker, even since they put shields on the bike
so we can't grab the handle buyers now though those
guys know I'm getting older, still mean, but slowing down,
as the sports pages put it, so they let me
bash it out with the skaters and runners for as
long as possible before sending the bikers after me. Knock
out Jonathany. They saying, you've beaten Houston. That's right enough,
(12:06):
but they haven't done it yet. Mackie is gone and
in her place now is the new one.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Daphney.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
My Daphne's tall and English likes photos. Always wants to
pose for me, and sometimes we get out of our
boxes of old pictures. Mine is a player, mostly in
hers as a model, and we look at ourselves of
her long soft hair season. When I see mister Bartholomew again,
he has been disposed as the chief executive at Energy.
He's still very important, but lacks some of the old certainty.
(12:38):
His mood is sort of reflective, and I decide to
take this opportunity to talk about what's bothering me. We
lunch in Houston Tower. There's a nice beef Wellington, the
good Burgundine. Daphne sits there like a stone, probably imagining.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
She's in a movie. Your knowledge, I see.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Says mister Bartholomew in reply to my topic that I've
brought up. We're interested in Johnny, the history, the arts.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Can I be personal with you?
Speaker 4 (13:07):
Well?
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Sure, naturally he's a little uneasy you. Although mister Bartholomew
isn't the specially one to inspire confession, I decided to
blunder along. I began in the university. You know, that
was about seventeen years ago. In those days we still
had books, and I read some quite a few because
I thought I might make an executive. Jonathan believed me.
(13:29):
I can guess what you're going to say, mister Bartholomew
side and sip some burgundy and glanced at Daphne. I'm
one of the few with some real regrets about what
happened to the books. Everything's still on tape, but it
just isn't the same, is it?
Speaker 4 (13:45):
Nowadays?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Only the computer specialist read the tapes, and we're right
back in the Middle Ages, when only the monks could
read the Latin script. Would you like me to assign
you a specialist, Johnny, No, that's not exactly it.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Oh, we have some.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Great film libraries. You could get a permit to see
anything you want. The Renaissance Greek philosophers, you know. I
saw a nice summary film on the life and thought
of Plato once.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
All I know is.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Roller ball murder.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
You you don't want out.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Of the game, john No, No, not at all.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
It's just that I want God, mister Bartholomew, I don't
know how to say it.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
I want more.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
He offered a blank look, But not things in the
world more for me, mister Bartholomew. He heaved a great sigh,
leaned back, allowed the steward to refill his class. I
know that he understands. He's a man of about sixty
enormously wealthy, powerful in our most powerful executive class, and
(14:47):
behind his eyes is the deep, weary, undeniable comprehension of
the life that he's lived. Knowledge, John either converts to
power or it converts to melancholy. Which could you possibly want?
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Jonathan?
Speaker 2 (15:00):
You have power, you have status and skill, You have
the whole masculine dream that many of us would like
to have and enroller Paul murder. There's no room for melancholy,
is there?
Speaker 4 (15:12):
In the game.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
The mind exists for the body to make a harmony
of havoc?
Speaker 4 (15:17):
Right? Do you want to change that?
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Do you want the mind to exist for itself alone?
I don't think you actually want that, to hear, John,
I don't really know. Well, I'll get you some permits, Jonathan.
You can see video films, learn something about reading tapes
if you want. I don't think I really have any power. Oh,
(15:39):
come on, John. Somehow the conversation drifts away from me.
Daphneon Q, like a good spy for the corporation she
probably is, starts feeding mister Bartholomew lines, and soon, oddly enough,
we're discussing the upcoming game with Stockholm. A hollow space
begins to grow inside me, as though fire receding out
(16:00):
a hole. The conversation concerns the end of the season,
the All Star Game records being set this year, but
my disappointment in what exactly I don't even know begins
to sicken me. Late season in the locker room of
Paul takes as. We hardly speak among ourselves now, and
(16:21):
like soldiers or gladiators, sensing what lizahead, we move around
on the surgical odors, assuring ourselves will survive our last
training and instruction. This year concerns the delivery of death
blows to opposing players. There's no time now for the
tolerant shoving and bumping of yesteryear. I consider that I
possess two good weapons. Because of my unusually good balance
(16:42):
on skates, I can often shatter my opponent's knee with
a kick, and also I have a fine backhand.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Blow to the ribs and heart.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
So when I'm wheeling.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Side by side with an opponent who raises an arm
against me, that's it. If the new rules change removes
a player's helmet, of course, that's death. As it is
right now, and there are rumors, rumors every day about
what new version we'll.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Have next of roller ball murder. All right, Now you
go for the windpipe.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
The ribs, or the heart, the diaphragm, any place you
don't break your hand. Now Daphne is gone too. And
in this interim before another companion arrives, courtesy of all
my friends and employers at Energy, Ella floats back into
my dreams and daylight fantasies. I was a corporation child,
(17:29):
some executive son. I always preferred to think, brought up
in the Galveston section of the city as a big kid,
naturally athletic and strong, and this, according to my theory,
gave me healthy mental genes too, because well, I figure
that strong in body is strong in mind. A man
with brute speed surely also has the capacity tom all
over his life. Anyway, I married at the age of
(17:52):
fifteen while I worked on the docks or oil conglomerates.
Ella was a secretary, slim with long brown hair, and
we managed to get permits both to marry and enter
the university together. She was in general electronics and I
was in some pre executive courses and rollerball murder. She
fed me well that first year. I put on thirty
hard pounds and at night she soothed my bruises.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
Was she a spy too?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
I have sometimes wondered whose job it was to groom
the killer? And perhaps it was because she was my
first woman ever, eighteen years old, lovely that I've never
properly forgotten. She left me for an executive, just packed
up and went to Europe with him. Ella, love one
does consider did you beef me up and break my
(18:36):
heart in some.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Great design of corporate society? And oh there I was
whatever angry, hurt beyond repair, I thought at the time.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
But the hand that stroked Ellie soon dropped all the
foes of Houston. I take sad stock of myself from
this quiet period before another woman arrives. I'm smart enough,
I know that I had to be to survive. Yet
I seem to know nothing and can feel the hollow
spaces in my own heart Like one of those computer specialists.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
I have my know how.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
I know what to day means, what tomorrow likely holds.
And maybe it's because the books are gone. Mister Bartholomew
is right, it's a shame they're transformed. Maybe it's because
the books are gone and I feel so vacant if
I didn't remember, Maella. This I realized I wouldn't even
want to remember, because it's.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
Love and recollecting, recollect Sure.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
I read quite a few books that year with Ella
and afterward too, before turning professional in the game. Apart
from all the volumes about how to get along in business,
I read the history of the Tokyo game. We discover
there will be three oblong balls in play.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
At all times.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Some of our most experienced players are afraid to go
out on the track now and then after they're coaxed
and threatened, and finally consent to join the fake injury
whenever they can and sprawl in the infield. As for me,
I play with greater abandon than ever and give the
crowd its money's worth. But Tokyo's caters are either bearing
over their shoulders looking for approaching balls when I smash him,
(20:04):
or the poor devils they're looking for me when a
ball takes him out of action. One fellow with a
broken back flaps around for a moment like a fish,
and then shutters and dies. The balls jump at us
as though they have brains, But fate carries me as
I know somehow it will. I'm a force field a destroyer,
and I kick a biker into the path of a
ball going at least two hundred miles an hour. I
(20:25):
swerve around a pile up of bikes and skaters, ride
high on the track, zoom down. Find a runner clubber
who panics and misses with a roundhouse swing of.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
His paddle without much ado. I've belt him out of.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Play with a certain knowledge I've felt it before that
he's dead before he hits the infield.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
A ball flips out of place.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
And after being fired from the canon that jumps the railing,
sails high and plows into the spectators. I take a
hit from a ball. It's one of the three or
four times I've ever been belted. The ball is riding
low on the track when it catches me and strikes
my calf from skateboots, so it's not too tough, although
I tumble like a baby. While I'm down and hurting,
I see one of our skaters, Moonpie killed.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
They take off his helmet.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Working slowly, it's like slow motion, and I'm writhing and cursing,
and I'm able to help. They open his mouth on
the toe of a bastard's boot, and then they kick.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
The back of his head and knock on his teeth.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
And raddle down the hill.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
On the track.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
They kick again and stop his brains. This time he
drawls at last, groaning goodbye, while the cameras record it all. Later,
I'm up pushing along once again, feeling bad, but knowing
everyone else feels the same.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
I have that last surge of energy.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
The one I always get when I'm going good.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
And near the closing gun, I manage a nice move,
grabbing one of their runners with a headlock. I skate
him off to limbo, bashing his face with my free fist,
picking up speed until he drags behind like a dropped flag,
and disposing of him in front of a ball which
carries him off in the comic.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
Flop, Oh God, God.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Before the All Star Game, Kletus comes to me with
the news I expect this one will be a no
time limit extravagance in New York. Every multivision set in
the world doomed in. The bikes will be more high powered,
four oblong balls will be in place simultaneously, and the
referees will blow the whistle on any sluggish player and
remove his helmet as a penalty.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
Those rules no worry. I tell him it'll.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Go no more than in one hour and will all
be dead. We're at the Houston Ranch on a Saturday afternoon,
riding around in my electro cart, viewing my stock. This
is probably the ultimate spectacle of my wealth, my own
beef cattle, in the day when only a few special
members of the executive class have any meat at all
to eat, with the exception of mass produced fish. I
(22:39):
tell Cleat that he owes me a favor. Anything he answers,
not looking me in the eyes. I turn the cart
up a lane behind the rustic fence.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
An archway of oak trees overhead.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
I tell him, I want you to bring Ella to
me after all these years.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Yan, it's what I want.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
Cleat, you arrange it and don't give me any excuses. Okay.
We meet at the villa.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Near lyone in early June, only a week before the
New York All Star Game, and I think she immediately
reads something in my eyes which helps her to love
me again.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Of course I love her.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
I realize seeing her that I have only a vague
recollection of being alive at all. And that was a
long time ago, and another century of the heart, when
I had no identity except my name, when I was
a simple.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
Dock worker, before I ever saw all.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
The world's places are moved in the rumbling nightmares of
roller ball murder. She kisses my fingers. Oh, she says softly,
and her face is filled with true wonder. What's happened
to you, Johnny. A few soft days, when our bodies
aren't entwined, we try to remember and tell each other everything,
that the way we used to hold hands, how we
(23:48):
fretted about receiving the marriage permit, how the books looked
on our shelves in the old apartment in River Oaks.
We strain the times, trying to recall the impossible. It's
true that history is real, gone, that we have no
families or touchstones, that our short personal lives alone. Judges
and I want to hear about her husband, the places
they've lived, the furniture in her house, anything I tell
(24:11):
her in turn, about all the women, about mister Bartholomew,
about Jim Cleats, about the ranch and the hills outside Houston.
It would be nice, I think, once, to imagine that
she was taken away from me by some malevolent force
in this awful age.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
But I know the truth of that.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
She went away simply because I wasn't enough back then,
because those were the days before.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
I yearned for anything, when I was beginning to live,
to play the game.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
But no matter.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
For a few days, she sits in my bed and
I touch her skin like a blind man. Our last
morning together. She comes out in her traveling suit with
her hair pulled up underneath the fur cap. The softness
has left her voice, and she smiles with efficiency. She
plays like a biker, I decide. She rides up there,
high above the turmoils, decides when to swoop down, and
(25:02):
makes a clean kill. Goodbye, aller, I say. She turns
her head slightly away from my kiss, so that I
touch her for a cap with my lips. I'm glad
I can't, she says, politely. Good luck Johnny. New York
is frenzied with what is about to happen. The crowds
throng into energy plazas, warm the ticket offices, at the stadium,
(25:25):
and wherever I go. People are reaching for my hands,
pushing my bodyguards away, trying to touch my sleeve as
though I'm some ancient religious figure, seer or prophet. Before
the game begins, I stand with my team. As the
Corporation hymns are played. I'm brute speed today, I tell myself,
trying to wrap myself up. Yet a dream in my thoughts,
(25:48):
I'm a bit unconvinced. A chorus of voices joins the band.
Speaker 4 (25:53):
Now as the music swells, the game, the game, all
glory to it.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
The music rings, and I can feel my lips move
with the words, singing tonight, We've done roller Ball Murder
by William Harrison a story that first appeared in nineteen
(26:21):
seventy three in Esquire magazine. It's reprinted in the book
The seventh Annual Best Science Fiction seventy three, edited by
Harry Harrison and Brian Aldist. This is Michael Hanson speaking.
Production engineering for mindwebs by Steve Gordon. Mindwebs is a
production of WYA Radio and Madison, a service of the
(26:44):
University of Wisconsin Extension
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