September 24, 2025 • 13 mins
Dive into the thrilling adventures of Astounding Stories 19, featuring an array of captivating tales that will ignite your imagination! In The Doom from Planet 4 by Jack Williamson, a mysterious ray of fire guides Dan on his ship to an island fraught with otherworldly danger. H.G. Winters The Hands of Aten takes you on a journey as Craig unearths three long-frozen Egyptians from solid ice, leading him into an astonishing escapade. Experience the gripping fate of young Stoddard in H. Thompson Richs The Diamond Thunderbolt, where being locked in a rocket propels him into the vastness of space. A.R. Holmess The Slave Ship from Space explores the chilling reality of three kidnapped Earthlings who reveal to Xantra of the Tillas just how docile Earth slaves can be. In The Revolt of the Machines, Nat Schachner and Arthur L. Zagat delve into the sinister motivations of a master machine as it rebels against its human creators. Finally, in Ray Cummingss The Exile of Time, follow Tugh, the cripple who evades fate until the world teeters on the brink of destruction. Plus, dont miss The Readers Corner, a gathering space for fans of Astounding Stories!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section twenty of Astounding Stories nineteen July nineteen thirty one.
This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
visit librivotx dot org. Reading by Mark Thornton Miranda, New Zealand,
Astounding Stories, nineteen July nineteen thirty one, Chapter twenty three,
(00:26):
diabolical exile of time. You saw us as we stood
in our cage doorway. His thick, barrel like figure rose erect,
and from his parted cloak, his arms waved with a
wild gesture of defiance and triumph. He was clearly outlined
in the red sunlight against the surface of the sea behind.
(00:47):
We saw in one of his hands a raised cylinder,
and then his arm came down and he fired at us.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
It was the white disintegrating ray. We were stricken by
surprise and stood for that moment transfer fixed in our doorway.
Chew's narrow, intensely white beam leaped over the intervening rocks,
but it fell short of us. I saw that it
had a range of about a hundred feet over the muffled,
heavy silence of the blood of a red day. The
(01:14):
Cripple's curse floated clear. He lowered his weapon and heedless
that we also might be armed, he leaped nimbly past
Mary's prostrate form and came shambling over the rocks directly
from me. It stung me into action, and for all
the chaotic rush of these desperate moments, my heart surged
with relief. Mary was not dead. Beyond Tew's oncoming figure,
(01:39):
as he shambled like an infuriated charging bear over the rough,
rocky ground, I saw the white form of Mary moves.
She was striving to sit up. I held my ray cylinder,
the one I had rescued from Magare, but its range
was no more than twenty feet. I tested it, and
twos beam had flashed a fall hundred I whirled on, Larry,
(02:00):
get away from here. You and Tina. You can't help me. George, listen,
he's coming. Larry, you damn fall. Get away from here.
It goes a hundred feet that way of his, it'll
be raking us in a minute. Run. I tell you,
get to that line of rocks. Close behind our cage
was a small broken ridge of rocks, strewn boulders in
(02:23):
a tumbled line, some ten or fifteen feet in height.
It would afford shelter. There were broken places to give
passage through it. The ridge curved crescent shaped behind our cage,
and ran down towards the shore. Larry and Tina stood
white and confused, and Harry pented. But George, I can
help you fighting. Hide here in the cage.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Get away.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
I tell you it's his death or mine.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
This time.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I'll get him if I can. I shoved Larry violently
away and ducked back into our doorway. Only a few
breathless seconds had passed. Jew was still so one hundred
feet away from us. Larry and Tina ran behind the cage,
darted between the boulders of the ridge, and vanished. I
crouched in the cage, qu was not visible from here.
(03:12):
A moment passed, Dad, I remain if I could get
you within twenty feet of me, my shot was as
good as his. The silence was horrible. Was he coming forward?
Did he know where I was in here? I thought?
Surely he must have seen Larry and Tina run away
(03:33):
and me dart in here. We had all been in
plain sight of him. That's horrible silence. Was he creeping
up on me? Would he fire through the doorway or
appear abruptly at the window. I could not tell where
to place myself in the room, and it could mean
my life or death. The silence was split by Tina
(03:56):
calling Chu, we've caught you. Her voice was to one
side and behind our cage, calling defiance at Tue to
distract his attention from me. Through the window, I saw
the flash of his beam, slanting sideways at Tina. I
gaged the source of his ray to be still some
distance off, and crept to the door, cautiously peering. Chu
(04:19):
stood on the open rock surface. He had swung to
my right and was near the little ridge of rocks,
where it turned and bent down to the shore. Behind me,
came Tina's voice again, at last, we have you, chew.
As Sutina poised on the top of the ridge, partially
behind me, at the elbow of the ridge curve, she
screamed her defiance, and again Jewe fired at her, being
(04:42):
slanted over me, but still was short. Larry had vanished.
Then I saw him, though Tube did not. He had
run along behind the ridge and appeared now well down
towards the shore. He was barely a hundred feet from
the cripple. I saw him stoop, seize chunk of rock
and throw it. The missile bounded and passed close to June.
(05:05):
Larry instantly damped back out of sight. A bounding stone
startled Chewe. He whirled toward it and fired over the ridge.
Tina again had changed her position and was shouting at him.
They were trying to exhaust his cylinder charges, and if
they could do that, he would be helpless before me.
For a moment, he stood as though confused as he
(05:25):
turned to gaze after Tina. Larry flung another rock, but
this time Jude did not fire. He started back towards
where by the wreckage of his cage. Mary was now
sitting up in the daze. Then he changed his mind,
whirled and fired directly at my doorway. I was just
beyond the effective range of his being, but it was
truly aimed. I felt the horrible, nauseous impact of it,
(05:47):
a shuddering indescribement was sickening of all my being. I
staggered back into the room and recovered my strength. A
side window port was opened. I leapt through it and
landed upon the rocks, with the cage between Tue and me.
He fired again at the doorway. Tina had disappeared. Larry
was now out of rage, standing on the ridge, shouting
(06:10):
and hurling rocks, but Tu did not heed him. He
was shambling from my doorway. He would pass within twenty
feet of me. As I crouched outside the cage at
his opposite corner, I could take him by surprise. And
then he saw me. He was less than one hundred
feet away. He changed his direction and fired again, fall
(06:32):
at me. But I had heard enough warning, and as
the beam struck the cage corner, I ran back along
the outer wall of the cage and appeared at the
other corner. Tue came still closer, his weapon pointed downward
as he ran fifty feet away.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Not close enough.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I think there at the last that Tue was wholly confused.
Larry had come much closer. He was shouting, and from
a ridge behind me, Tina was shouting. She ran not
for where I was lurking now, but for the corner
where a moment before he had seen me. Now he
was thirty feet from me, twenty then nearer than that.
(07:11):
Wholly without caution, he came forward and leaned around the
edge of the cage and fired one breathless instant, the
voices of Tina and Larry abruptly hushed. My beam was
struck chewe in the chest. He caught him and clung
to him, bathing him in its spreading intense white glare.
(07:33):
He stopped in his tracks, stood transfixed for one breathless,
horrible instant. He was so close that I could see
a stupid surprise on his hideous features. His wide slit
of mouth gaped with astonishment. My beam clung to him,
and he did not fall. He stood astonished, then turned
and came up me. For just a moment, I was stricken,
(07:54):
helpless there before him. What manner of man was this?
He did not fall. My ray, which had decomposed the
body of Alley the Guard had left his skeletons strip
and bleached in an instant, did not harmed you. He
had walked into it, taken it full, and he did
not fall. He was still alive. Had came to my
(08:16):
senses and saw that Larry, seeing my danger, had run
into the open dangerously close, and hurled the rock. It
struck to you upon the shoulder and deflected his aim,
so his flash went over me. I saw a chew
whirled toward Larry, and I rushed forward, ripping loose the
cylinder of the ray projector from its restraining battery cord.
(08:37):
In the instant the cripples turned half way from me.
I landed upon him, and that all my strength brought
the point of the small, heavy cylinder down on his skull.
There was a strange splintering crack and a wild, eerie
scream from his voice. He fell, with me on top
of him, crowning horror. Hulaow motionless, twisted half on his back,
(09:01):
his thick arms outstretched on the rocks, and his weapon
still clutched in his hand, culminating gruesome horror. I rose
from his body and stood, shuddering amazing realization. The bulging,
misshapen head was splintered open, and from it strewn over
the rocks with tiny, intricate cogs and wheels, coils and
(09:22):
broken wires. It was not a man but a robot,
a super robot from some unknown era, running a muck,
a mechanism so cleverly fashioned by the genius of man
that it stood diabolically upon the threshold of humanity, a
super mechanical exile of time. But it's while the rational
(09:43):
career of destruction through the ages now was over a
leoneor smashed and broken at my feet. End of chapter
twenty three, Chapter twenty four, the return. I think there
is little I should add. Jue's last purpose had been
(10:04):
to hurl himself and Mary past the lifetime of our world,
wrecking the cage and flinging them into eternity together, and
Chu was luring our cave and us to the same fate.
For Mary to save us, who had watched her opportunities
seize the main control over and demolished the vehicle by
its instantaneous stopping. We left the shower of Tiw lying
(10:27):
there in the red sunlight of the empty, dying world,
and returned to Tina's palace. We found that the revolt
was over. The city, with help arrived, was striving to
emerge from the bloody chaos. Barry and Tina decided to
remain permanently in her time. They would take us back.
That the cage was too diabolical to keep in existence.
(10:51):
I shall send it forward unoccupied, said Tina, flash it
into eternity, where Chew tried to go. Accompanied by Larry.
She carried Mary and Meat. In nineteen thirty five, with
Mary's father, her only relative, dead. She yielded to my urging.
We arrived in October nineteen thirty five. My New York,
(11:12):
like Tina's, victim of the exile of time, was rapidly
being reconstructed. It was night when we stopped, and the
familiar outlines of patting place were around us. We stood
at the cage doorway. Goodbye, I said to Larry and Tina.
Good luck to both of you. The girls kissed each other.
(11:34):
Such strangely contrasting types. Over a thousand years was between them,
yet how alike they were fundamentally both just girls. Larry
with my hand. In times of emotion, one is sometimes inarticulate. Goodbye, George,
she said. We we've already said all there is to say,
(11:54):
haven't we. There were tears in both The girl's eyes
had been so close, We'd been through so much together,
and now we were parting forever. All four of us
were stricken with surprise at how it affected us. We
stood gazing at one another. No, I burst out, I
(12:15):
haven't said all there is to say. Don't you destroy
that cage. You come back, guard it as carefully as
you can, and come back land here next year in October,
say night of the fifteenth, will you We'll be waiting. Yes,
Tina abruptly agreed. We stood watching them as they slid
(12:37):
the door closed. The cage for a moment stood quiescent.
Then it began faintly humbling. He glowed, faded to a specter,
and was gone. Mary and I turned away in the
New York City of nineteen thirty five to begin our
life together. End of exile of time by commings Kam
Section twenty of Astounding Stories nineteen July nineteen thirty one.
This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
visit librivotx dot org. Reading by Mark Thornton Miranda, New Zealand,
Astounding Stories, nineteen July nineteen thirty one, Chapter twenty three,
(00:26):
diabolical exile of time. You saw us as we stood
in our cage doorway. His thick, barrel like figure rose erect,
and from his parted cloak, his arms waved with a
wild gesture of defiance and triumph. He was clearly outlined
in the red sunlight against the surface of the sea behind.
(00:47):
We saw in one of his hands a raised cylinder,
and then his arm came down and he fired at us.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
It was the white disintegrating ray. We were stricken by
surprise and stood for that moment transfer fixed in our doorway.
Chew's narrow, intensely white beam leaped over the intervening rocks,
but it fell short of us. I saw that it
had a range of about a hundred feet over the muffled,
heavy silence of the blood of a red day. The
(01:14):
Cripple's curse floated clear. He lowered his weapon and heedless
that we also might be armed, he leaped nimbly past
Mary's prostrate form and came shambling over the rocks directly
from me. It stung me into action, and for all
the chaotic rush of these desperate moments, my heart surged
with relief. Mary was not dead. Beyond Tew's oncoming figure,
(01:39):
as he shambled like an infuriated charging bear over the rough,
rocky ground, I saw the white form of Mary moves.
She was striving to sit up. I held my ray cylinder,
the one I had rescued from Magare, but its range
was no more than twenty feet. I tested it, and
twos beam had flashed a fall hundred I whirled on, Larry,
(02:00):
get away from here. You and Tina. You can't help me. George, listen,
he's coming. Larry, you damn fall. Get away from here.
It goes a hundred feet that way of his, it'll
be raking us in a minute. Run. I tell you,
get to that line of rocks. Close behind our cage
was a small broken ridge of rocks, strewn boulders in
(02:23):
a tumbled line, some ten or fifteen feet in height.
It would afford shelter. There were broken places to give
passage through it. The ridge curved crescent shaped behind our cage,
and ran down towards the shore. Larry and Tina stood
white and confused, and Harry pented. But George, I can
help you fighting. Hide here in the cage.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Get away.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
I tell you it's his death or mine.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
This time.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I'll get him if I can. I shoved Larry violently
away and ducked back into our doorway. Only a few
breathless seconds had passed. Jew was still so one hundred
feet away from us. Larry and Tina ran behind the cage,
darted between the boulders of the ridge, and vanished. I
crouched in the cage, qu was not visible from here.
(03:12):
A moment passed, Dad, I remain if I could get
you within twenty feet of me, my shot was as
good as his. The silence was horrible. Was he coming forward?
Did he know where I was in here? I thought?
Surely he must have seen Larry and Tina run away
(03:33):
and me dart in here. We had all been in
plain sight of him. That's horrible silence. Was he creeping
up on me? Would he fire through the doorway or
appear abruptly at the window. I could not tell where
to place myself in the room, and it could mean
my life or death. The silence was split by Tina
(03:56):
calling Chu, we've caught you. Her voice was to one
side and behind our cage, calling defiance at Tue to
distract his attention from me. Through the window, I saw
the flash of his beam, slanting sideways at Tina. I
gaged the source of his ray to be still some
distance off, and crept to the door, cautiously peering. Chu
(04:19):
stood on the open rock surface. He had swung to
my right and was near the little ridge of rocks,
where it turned and bent down to the shore. Behind me,
came Tina's voice again, at last, we have you, chew.
As Sutina poised on the top of the ridge, partially
behind me, at the elbow of the ridge curve, she
screamed her defiance, and again Jewe fired at her, being
(04:42):
slanted over me, but still was short. Larry had vanished.
Then I saw him, though Tube did not. He had
run along behind the ridge and appeared now well down
towards the shore. He was barely a hundred feet from
the cripple. I saw him stoop, seize chunk of rock
and throw it. The missile bounded and passed close to June.
(05:05):
Larry instantly damped back out of sight. A bounding stone
startled Chewe. He whirled toward it and fired over the ridge.
Tina again had changed her position and was shouting at him.
They were trying to exhaust his cylinder charges, and if
they could do that, he would be helpless before me.
For a moment, he stood as though confused as he
(05:25):
turned to gaze after Tina. Larry flung another rock, but
this time Jude did not fire. He started back towards
where by the wreckage of his cage. Mary was now
sitting up in the daze. Then he changed his mind,
whirled and fired directly at my doorway. I was just
beyond the effective range of his being, but it was
truly aimed. I felt the horrible, nauseous impact of it,
(05:47):
a shuddering indescribement was sickening of all my being. I
staggered back into the room and recovered my strength. A
side window port was opened. I leapt through it and
landed upon the rocks, with the cage between Tue and me.
He fired again at the doorway. Tina had disappeared. Larry
was now out of rage, standing on the ridge, shouting
(06:10):
and hurling rocks, but Tu did not heed him. He
was shambling from my doorway. He would pass within twenty
feet of me. As I crouched outside the cage at
his opposite corner, I could take him by surprise. And
then he saw me. He was less than one hundred
feet away. He changed his direction and fired again, fall
(06:32):
at me. But I had heard enough warning, and as
the beam struck the cage corner, I ran back along
the outer wall of the cage and appeared at the
other corner. Tue came still closer, his weapon pointed downward
as he ran fifty feet away.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Not close enough.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I think there at the last that Tue was wholly confused.
Larry had come much closer. He was shouting, and from
a ridge behind me, Tina was shouting. She ran not
for where I was lurking now, but for the corner
where a moment before he had seen me. Now he
was thirty feet from me, twenty then nearer than that.
(07:11):
Wholly without caution, he came forward and leaned around the
edge of the cage and fired one breathless instant, the
voices of Tina and Larry abruptly hushed. My beam was
struck chewe in the chest. He caught him and clung
to him, bathing him in its spreading intense white glare.
(07:33):
He stopped in his tracks, stood transfixed for one breathless,
horrible instant. He was so close that I could see
a stupid surprise on his hideous features. His wide slit
of mouth gaped with astonishment. My beam clung to him,
and he did not fall. He stood astonished, then turned
and came up me. For just a moment, I was stricken,
(07:54):
helpless there before him. What manner of man was this?
He did not fall. My ray, which had decomposed the
body of Alley the Guard had left his skeletons strip
and bleached in an instant, did not harmed you. He
had walked into it, taken it full, and he did
not fall. He was still alive. Had came to my
(08:16):
senses and saw that Larry, seeing my danger, had run
into the open dangerously close, and hurled the rock. It
struck to you upon the shoulder and deflected his aim,
so his flash went over me. I saw a chew
whirled toward Larry, and I rushed forward, ripping loose the
cylinder of the ray projector from its restraining battery cord.
(08:37):
In the instant the cripples turned half way from me.
I landed upon him, and that all my strength brought
the point of the small, heavy cylinder down on his skull.
There was a strange splintering crack and a wild, eerie
scream from his voice. He fell, with me on top
of him, crowning horror. Hulaow motionless, twisted half on his back,
(09:01):
his thick arms outstretched on the rocks, and his weapon
still clutched in his hand, culminating gruesome horror. I rose
from his body and stood, shuddering amazing realization. The bulging,
misshapen head was splintered open, and from it strewn over
the rocks with tiny, intricate cogs and wheels, coils and
(09:22):
broken wires. It was not a man but a robot,
a super robot from some unknown era, running a muck,
a mechanism so cleverly fashioned by the genius of man
that it stood diabolically upon the threshold of humanity, a
super mechanical exile of time. But it's while the rational
(09:43):
career of destruction through the ages now was over a
leoneor smashed and broken at my feet. End of chapter
twenty three, Chapter twenty four, the return. I think there
is little I should add. Jue's last purpose had been
(10:04):
to hurl himself and Mary past the lifetime of our world,
wrecking the cage and flinging them into eternity together, and
Chu was luring our cave and us to the same fate.
For Mary to save us, who had watched her opportunities
seize the main control over and demolished the vehicle by
its instantaneous stopping. We left the shower of Tiw lying
(10:27):
there in the red sunlight of the empty, dying world,
and returned to Tina's palace. We found that the revolt
was over. The city, with help arrived, was striving to
emerge from the bloody chaos. Barry and Tina decided to
remain permanently in her time. They would take us back.
That the cage was too diabolical to keep in existence.
(10:51):
I shall send it forward unoccupied, said Tina, flash it
into eternity, where Chew tried to go. Accompanied by Larry.
She carried Mary and Meat. In nineteen thirty five, with
Mary's father, her only relative, dead. She yielded to my urging.
We arrived in October nineteen thirty five. My New York,
(11:12):
like Tina's, victim of the exile of time, was rapidly
being reconstructed. It was night when we stopped, and the
familiar outlines of patting place were around us. We stood
at the cage doorway. Goodbye, I said to Larry and Tina.
Good luck to both of you. The girls kissed each other.
(11:34):
Such strangely contrasting types. Over a thousand years was between them,
yet how alike they were fundamentally both just girls. Larry
with my hand. In times of emotion, one is sometimes inarticulate. Goodbye, George,
she said. We we've already said all there is to say,
(11:54):
haven't we. There were tears in both The girl's eyes
had been so close, We'd been through so much together,
and now we were parting forever. All four of us
were stricken with surprise at how it affected us. We
stood gazing at one another. No, I burst out, I
(12:15):
haven't said all there is to say. Don't you destroy
that cage. You come back, guard it as carefully as
you can, and come back land here next year in October,
say night of the fifteenth, will you We'll be waiting. Yes,
Tina abruptly agreed. We stood watching them as they slid
(12:37):
the door closed. The cage for a moment stood quiescent.
Then it began faintly humbling. He glowed, faded to a specter,
and was gone. Mary and I turned away in the
New York City of nineteen thirty five to begin our
life together. End of exile of time by commings Kam
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