Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Tell me in.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Welcome, I'm E. G.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Marshall waiting to fill your ears with the sounds of tomorrow.
Some pessimists believe those sounds will be the blast of
bombs and the roar of guns, the groans of suffering,
and the rattling chains of servitude. Personally, I take a
happier view of the future. But in the story you're
about to hear rose bombs have burst, those guns have roared.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
And the people have grown.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
But this particular war of the future is over, and
from Major John Gulliver of D Company, rocket attacking is
the beginning a very strange sort of servitude. If we
give ourselves something, you know what's gonna happen.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
We'll be in turn private.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
We'll set out this war in a prison camp.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
I'm afraid mature.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
I can't help it.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I'm afraid of them, the max.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
There's something horrible about it. I think a refrigerator is horrible.
A washing machine, that's all they are, just a machine.
Let us what scares me? I mean the idea of
a refrigerator or a washing machine with a power of
life and death. Our mystery story, Prisoner of the Machines,
(01:41):
was written especially for a Mystery Theater by Henry Slesser
stars John Lithgow.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
With that one.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Look up.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
There's a new object in the heavens, a new satellite
in orbit. No, there's nothing unusual about that. Man has
been hurtling strange mental debris into the skies for a
hundred years now, and this year of our Lord two
thousand eighty five.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
But look again.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Puts your highest power telescope on the object, because you
never seen one.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Like it before.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
It appears to be a soap bubble, an iridescent transparent globe,
but there's something inside it, a human being. Because this,
my friends, is the first experimental model of an orbital
solitary station for prisoner.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
Correction, punishment, and isolation.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
The man inside this orbiting prison is Major John Gulliver,
and Major Gulliver has nothing else to do but think.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
I don't know when I stopped counting the orbits.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
All I can do is lie against the smooth dome
of my bubble prison and drift with the cosmos. My
food and water tubes float about my head like friendly
mocking snakes.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
Somewhile back I had decided.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
To refuse their blandishments to let hunger shrivel my stomach
and thirst blacken my tongue, to cheat my jailers by
dying in a death proof cell. But the snakes had
floated and coiled and mocked at my noble intentions, knowing
that sooner or later I would clutch them fiercely in
(03:39):
a loving embrace.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
I would eat and drink until I was sated and.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Sick with self disgust, and fall back, panting against my
prison wall, and sleep like the miserable, unloved infant.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I had become. No, I couldn't die.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
They wouldn't let me.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
It was against the code of my jailer's, a law
more inflexible than any written for humanity since the days
of Moses.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
But of course my jailers weren't human. I thought back
to my first food of self.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Major. If if we give ourselves up, what's going to
happen will be interned private.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
We'll set out the.
Speaker 5 (04:31):
War in a prison can calibrate, Major, I can't help it,
calibrate of them the max. There's something horrible that's on
the way you look at it. You think a refrigerator
is horrible, a washing machine, because that's.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
All they are.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Machine.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Yeah, that's what scares me.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
The idea of a refrigerator or a washing machine with
put the power of.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Life on the.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
But we were taken prisoner anyway. Every last survivor of
Company D Rocket Battalion and the MAX, with characteristic efficiency,
integrated our forlorn and splintered unit into a larger body
of prisoners heading north. There were eighteen of us assigned
(05:29):
to the Transport D eighty five, including the two MAC guards,
and for a while a rumor persisted.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
That we were heading the race itself.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
It wasn't true, of course, Our destination was the uncharted
asteroid they called Prison one.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
But the rumor excited us because.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
It would have been the first time any of us
had come face to face with the enemy on the Moon.
Since our outfit had been organized, we had fought nothing but.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Max and never even seen a rouble.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Sometimes it was hard to believe they existed at all,
even if the War Department bulletins still talked about the
rebel ships and rebel losses, but it had been a
long time since we had heard official word about anything.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Baker, can I talk to you?
Speaker 4 (06:16):
Of course, Morley, you don't have to whisper.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
The MAX can't hear us from here.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
I don't know about that.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
For all we know they got superhuman hearing. What's the difference.
You're not plotting to take over the ship, are you? Oh,
a telemasor a couple of the guys with one drink?
See Henderson there, he's going to pilot Spice.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
So for what a space buggy?
Speaker 3 (06:39):
You think you could pilot a transport this size if
we could get it away from our two friends up
in the controls.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
But that's it. There are only two of them, for sure.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Neither one of those Max could blast us all into
talcum power in one second flat. You know, something measuring
and never seen a MAX or close before.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Look exactly the daughter.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
They all look like they all came from the same
cooking cutter. No what corporate ply one calls them law
and hearty, fully man.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
The corporal Soon things are here, Major? Is it true that.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
They eat human passion? Nothing but mechanical weapons like tanks
or artillery? But they think Major, they figured things out.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
I hear they're smarter than we are.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Then how come the rebels had to retreat to.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
The moon base.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
We're beating them privates, They're beating them good.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
That's why the max are taking prisoners now.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
The rebels are adhering to the old Geneva Convention rules,
paving the way for leniency in case they get linked,
and they will be here soon.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
Okay, thanks Pature, you may.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
You feel better.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
I'm glad I made him feel better.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
But I didn't because no matter what happened in the
war on Earth and the Moon, we were heading for
an asteroid to a prison camp. We knew nothing about
run by android machines.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
I tried to remember when I first saw MAC.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
I had never even heard of them until the night
the Army transport Hornet had been blown up during blast
off from the Moon's Tiger rocking station. The charge of
sabotage and the subsequent confession, like the Kora the Mad.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
Fanatic, was branded by the Independent Party of Indasia as
a frame up, an excuse to outlaw them.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
For the first time since the world had finally united
under one system of law, there was calcab war. Nobody
was really alarmed. The Invasions were famous for their robut
industry but cold, and they were all made for domestic purposes.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
They looked human, and they were gentle, useful.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Machines designed to do the dirty jobs humans no longer
wanted to do. But suddenly there was a different breed
of android coming out of Indasian fact trees, the Max
mechanical brutes, impervious to cold, hunger, fatigue and despair and homesickness.
(09:11):
We saw a headless MAX charging our lines blindly, armless Max,
unable to hold weapons, lumbering along.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Obedient to their program destiny.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
There were officers Max with minds trained in the arts
of battle, commanding their battalions with cold logic made no
allowances for human beadiness. There were engineer Max, programmed to
repair damage to their mechanisms.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
And now it.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Seems there were prison camp MAX, and we were their
first prisoners.
Speaker 6 (09:41):
Cel Please, we were making land Ball a prison after one.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
S elth Please.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Prison Asteroid one might have been a prison co in
any country, in any war. The money grounds were filled
with prisoners and their non human guards.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
There were to be fourteen.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Hundred of us on that brim rock, where no walls
or fences were needed to contain us.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
All. The camp looked like a model of.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Military penal institutions to twenty six and neatly spaced barracks
of processing station and mess hall and administration buildings. There
was a great complex that housed the oxygen producing machinery,
the hydroponic food factory, machine shops, space.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Ships, hangars.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
An intricate system of scanners covered every inch of the place,
sending information back to the computer called SCAM scamp scanning,
Control and movement of prisoners machines house a bunch of boots.
Maybe they can fight, but the cat out thinkers carrier.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
Mation maybe not.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
But we're the prisoner's private You have are note prolonged
for me.
Speaker 6 (10:58):
Anyways, back and all Prisidents were filed by counter. They
won bed and stabbing about his wrist. Repeat President well
date one bend front counter.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
And staff by about red.
Speaker 6 (11:15):
Presidents nailing to wear their be hend at all times
will be turned off.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Turn off do they mean kill may tink us That's
what they mean. So you wear that thing private. But
is a PSC personal speaker command. So the Mexican deliver
their commands to us individually or collectively.
Speaker 6 (11:35):
Presidents well relod clothing and.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Place and disposal men.
Speaker 7 (11:40):
Presidents will then back through disinfection room and received clothing racing.
A president closing unnecessary delay will be turned off.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
It was in the clothing room that I had my
first dissillusion about MAC efficiency. The prison uniform, consisting of fatigues, socks,
thick leather shoes, a cap, and a field jacket, came
in only one size wrong. When we emerged from the
processing area, we filed past a MAC who was handing
(12:17):
out barrack assignments from.
Speaker 8 (12:19):
A clipboard list.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
The system was simple.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
I was sent to Barrack G, along with Gal Wests, Grady, Gunderson, Gruber,
and every other prisoner whose name began with G. The system, however,
had a flaw which never occurred to the.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
Mechanical brains of the next Barracks.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
G had accommodations for some one hundred and fifty prisoners,
but there were less than sixty of us.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
Whose names began with G.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Barracks S, on the other hand, was overflowing with prisoner,
some four hundred of them, milling about the bunks and
wondering what to do.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
The situation was so ludicrous.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
That I felt like laughing, but I was over it
up when I met Sergeant Zilpowski, and the pudgy.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
Little man grabbed my arm and babbled, and.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
They're putting me by myself, Major, just sticking me in
the barracks all by myself.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Take it easy, ZILPASKI is just temporary.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
It'll straighten it all hour. What they won't, you'll the Max.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Major, once I get an idea in their heads, once
say they've been programmed, they don't change.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
They don't have to when.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
They see what's happening. If you're all alone, just because
my name begins to see, I won't have anybody to
talk to.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
You gotta help me, Major, You gotta do something. So
I tried to do something about it.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
I stuck my neck out and that.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
Was the beginning of it.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
And here I am floating in space, in the loneliest
prison cell in the history. And the worst part of
a whole thing is that it's all mine.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
The idea.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
A prisoner in orbit that definitely comes under the heading
of a cool and unusual punishment.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
But what can you expect.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
From a machine.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Anyone who's ever lost money in a vending machine or
stalled their car a freeway knows that machines can be
tricky and temperamental and turn against you at any minute.
But how will Major John Gulliver and the prisoners of
the asteroid deal with their machinery problems. You'll find out
when I return shortly with that too. Major John Gulliver,
(14:52):
Prisoner of War, circles the asteroid in his strange bubble
prison and thinks back to the moment when he first
came into conflict with his captors, the machine men known
as the Max. Major Caliber wasn't the highest ranking officer
in the prison compound, but he must have been the
most nervous officer among them when he was finally given
(15:14):
audience with an android who wore silver bars on his
artificial shoulders.
Speaker 5 (15:22):
My name is Captain one sand Or Dashbe. I am
Adjutant two General sixth, commanding off of Prison one.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Won't you sit down?
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Thank you?
Speaker 5 (15:33):
Arcio has asked me to discuss an assignment with you.
Made a moment, Captain, I came here to discuss a problem. Yes, Major,
we received your request through proper channels, but as a
result of studying your records, we discovered something about your
past which is a particular interest to General six What
do you mean the profession in which you were engaged
(15:56):
before they wore you were a psychologists?
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Correct, as I was college trained University of Mental Sciences,
then computer instructor at the Hayward Teaching Center Rank.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
We believe you may be useful in helping us make
an adjustment to our responsibility. This is our first prison camp,
you know, and we are anxious to conduct it along
satisfactory lines.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Don't you have any rev any invasion advisors. No, they
camp as entirely in the hands of the android auxiliary.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
And what do you want me to do?
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Why?
Speaker 5 (16:32):
Help us to understand our prisoners to run an effective,
trouble free institution.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Fine, if you want my advice, let's start with your
crazy alphabets. No, no, major, We do not wish your advice.
We are satisfactorily programmed. We really wish your help in
interpreting prisoner behavior to us when it does not track
properly with previous data. Do you understand if you're asking
(17:00):
me to be a.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
Spotting like that, we will plant spies. Of course, that
is in the manual. Oh, we ask of you is
to be ours your prison psychologist?
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Yuck?
Speaker 1 (17:13):
What is it?
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Private?
Speaker 1 (17:15):
I gave instructions.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Hey guys, prisoner the man, what's up doing in there? Wait?
Speaker 1 (17:19):
You're lady turn him off now? Way him?
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Innute, Captain, your wish to say something.
Speaker 5 (17:25):
Man, Yes, I thought your camp was programmed under the
rules of the Geneva Convention.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Is your fine matter?
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Man has to have a fear hearing our trial.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
You don't even know the circumstances.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
He very well in my job.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Bring in the prisoner, yes that he.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Clive?
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Want what the table are you doing here?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Major? What did you do?
Speaker 4 (17:45):
Corporal? Oh?
Speaker 3 (17:46):
I jumped one of those busy machines, That's what I did.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
He stuck his gone into my back and I jumped him.
I wasn't moving fast enough for him.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
You admit to this.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
That's not sure.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
I admitted You're really a fool, Corporal Major.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Is that sufficient hearing for you? Try it?
Speaker 3 (18:04):
You will take this prisoner outside and turn him up.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
Right.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
You can't just kill him.
Speaker 5 (18:09):
Will if you don't want to riot on your hands,
kill him?
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Who said we wished him? Kill leasure.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
We do not kill prisoners.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
That is unthinkable.
Speaker 5 (18:20):
The annual strictly publish us to kill humans in prison camp.
But still we must punish and cooperative prisoners. That is
our order too. You must tell us how to solve
this contradiction.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Major, there's no contradiction. If you want to punish a
prisoner do what he's done in human prisons. Put us
in solitary confinement for a term, deny us the company
of our fellow prisoners.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
Believe me, that's.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Punishment enough, Captain to ask Sergeant Zokowski.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
Very well, what you say seems logical, I will put
the question to our commanding at the General six.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
You are this, miss Major.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
I went back to my barracks and told everyone and
everyone whose name began with G the good news. The
NATS had been programmed not to kill their human prisoners,
except in self defense or during escape attempts.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
I told them about.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
My suggestion of solitary confinement as a punishment, that it
seemed like the easiest sort of penalty. Captain one seventy
four dash B sold the idea to his commanding officer,
but it wasn't the solitary I had in mind. Gentlemen,
you're attention please well got a drummond, Major Gottia, you
(19:47):
and your federal officers had been asked here to witness
the first experimental model of prison one's orbital solitary station
for prisoner correction, punishment and isolation.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Your comments, please.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
You mean that bubble is an orbital satellite. That is Correctually,
you don't intender centerlemen into orbit.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
Ah, you're cruelty, Captain.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
You told me that you were proscribed against taking human life.
Surely you must know that no one could live a
thing like that.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Incorrect.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Pissors will be supplied with oxygen, food, water, and waste
disposal facilities in solidary orbit for the duration of their sentence.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Your comments, please, how long.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
You think a man can survive in one of these things?
Speaker 5 (20:35):
We have consulted our commander, and our information is that
a human can survive twenty eight hundred asteroidal orbits with
the oxygen, food, and water supply provided nine eight hundred orbits.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
That's almost stream much.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Your commanding officer is wrong. He is not allowed for
the mental and emotional strain of such imprisonment.
Speaker 5 (20:58):
There is nothing in the annual concerning mental or emotional strain.
You are a psychologist, major. Such things are a matter
of individual human response, are they not.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Your comments, pre I say you can't do this.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
The man would be better up dead than.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
In one of these things.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Impossible.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
We cannot, our prisoner, and I, Captain, I am the
highest ranking officer in this camp. I demand a personal
talk with your superior impossible.
Speaker 5 (21:27):
The commander has no communications mechanism with humans. Such an
interface would have been superfluous.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
What General six is a computer kernel? Don't you understand? Oh,
good Lord, that is correct.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
General six is a computer and he does not interfere
with humans. The sentence will now be carried out. Prisoner
one ten Corporal R. Clive On will be launched into
orbit at oh nine hundred.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Girl, you will honor all your men to fall.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Out hand loves a management major. It's not really true,
is it. They're not really going to do it.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
One thing about the Max, Private, they tell no lies.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
I've heard talk around.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
I mean some of the guys are saying that it
was your fault. They say you're soft on the MAX,
that you suggested the book.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
What do you think, Private?
Speaker 1 (22:31):
See, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
It's just a well major.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
You just they accept them too, Damn Easo.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
We've got to accept machines.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
We accept them all our lives, don't we. Don't you
trust the mechanism of your car, your air sled, your
house power plant. You can't get angry at levers, gears,
integrated circuits.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Oh can't.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
I can do it majure, I can do it easih,
so can't you? Or eleven weeks we watched the bubbles
spin over our heads.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
A tiny, gleaming new star containing.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Corporal Ronald Clyborne, or what was left of him. Then,
weary of its monotonous journey, the Bubble returned, breaked by
its single retro rocket. It landed undamaged, and they brought
Clyborne back to Prison One, singing, singing at the.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
Top of his lungs. He didn't stop singing until.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
He died two weeks later in an accidental fall in
the hospital ward. I'll say one thing for the MAX.
Their own psychology wasn't bad. There was no more trouble
on Prison Asteroid one. But there was something else. Talk
about escape. Oher said, you're the only man on this
(24:04):
rock who seems to understand that the MAX are only
the tools of the rebels, that we are wrong to
direct aggression against them. There's only one sensible course.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Now.
Speaker 4 (24:19):
We've got to play it cool, keep out of.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
Trouble, wait till the war is over, although of course
we are duty bound to escape. If we can't escape, ridiculous,
isn't it escape from an asteroid heaven?
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Os where in the universe.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Even if a prisoner are past scape, there's no place
to go, you know, nature.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
There's no use bothering about escape talking of the men
are bothering.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Uh, it's true, that's all they're talking about.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
Didn't you know?
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Now Now I didn't.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
But it has to stop.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
We have to issue in order.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
You can't order them to stop talking.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
I'm commanding off.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
That's what I intend to do, and that's what he did.
Colonel Drummond lined up the men ate ranks deep and
read them the Riot Act.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
He outlined the futility.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Of escape talk the impossibility of a return to.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
Earth before the end of the war.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
When he dismissed them, he had a separate talk with
the officers, emphasizing that it was our duty to report.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
Any escape plan to him.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Remember, the macs are prescribed against killing prisoners, but they're
also programmed to prevent escapes. They won't have any compunction
against killing if it occurs during an escape attempt.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
But three weeks.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Later came in J Escape. It was called the J
Escape for obvious reasons. Only the occupants of J Barracks
were involved, led by Lieutenant Lamar Jackson.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
One evening.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
An hour before lock up.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Jackson noticed that a scanner beam on the north side
of the compound, near the hangars where the space ships
were kept, failed to follow him as he crossed its path,
and Jorgenson, a computer engineer, slipped out one night and
examined the defective scanner. It was then that he realized
they could abort the SCAMP system.
Speaker 4 (26:28):
For a period of at least two hours.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Jackson organized the actual escape. His idea was simple, to
get his men to the hangars and space ships and
hold the ships as ransom for their release. If the
MAX failed to agree, the ships would be destroyed. It
was a desperate gamble, of course, and the first part
of their plan worked.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
The MAX had no.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Provision in their magn inoperative scanning to work period. General
six probably blew a dozen fuses that night as the
prisoners and jay barracks smashed their way into the spaceship
hangers like a gang of hoodlums crashing a party. The
party was over in one terrible instance, because when they
entered the hangars there were no spaceships. Every transport had
(27:26):
been dismantled. The hangars were empty, with the camp fuild
to capacity. The machine minds of the Max assumed they
had no further need for space vehicles. And now we
knew why Prison one was truly escape proof, because our
guards were prisoners two. Obviously, there is no escape from
(27:54):
Prison Asteroid one. Not even the infamous Deviled Island could
boast the security of this prison yemp. But never underestimate
the ingenuity of desperate men or the perversity of machines.
We'll learn more about both when we returned shortly with
Act three. Fourteen men died and the escape from Barracks
(28:26):
j fourteen prisoners named Johnston, Jacobs, Jorginson, James, and so forth.
But four men were taken alive by the Android guards
and faced the punishment of the Bubble, the terrible three
month isolation in space, which no one had yet survived
with their minds all in one piece. But one of them,
(28:48):
Lieutenant Lamar Jackson, did survive his three month prisonment, and
his first visitor in the prison hospital was Major John CALIBERO.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Did you talk.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
About it, Lieutenant? Can you tell me how it was
out there?
Speaker 3 (29:02):
It was dark, Major, dark and full of nightmare, but
you made it.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
You're a tough guy.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Attended the whole camp's proud of you.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
If you got to be very still.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
You can't move around in that thing. Every every little.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Move spins you around, changes the axis. You get disoriented
every few seconds, and then then you start getting ideas
that you're not alone. That's something he's outside the bubble
trying to get in.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
It's okay, lieutenant, you don't have to tell me anymore.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
But but then you get the worst nightmare. That and
the thing that was outside is now inside that he's
touching you.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
That's why it really gets bad.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
I understand you tell you, tell the boys to stay
out of trouble. Major, stay out of trouble, Stay out
of the bubble. The lieutenant was crying, and his tears
made me determined to keep anyone else out.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Of that damned bubble.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
But the escape talk went on.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
One afternoon, a committee of three men came to see me,
two shaved tail lieutenants and a captain.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
Why rushing out men or doing what we figure The
only way to do it.
Speaker 8 (30:23):
Is amass the whole camp. Now we need a leader,
and we think you're it. That is, if you change
your mind about being reasonable with these beauties, I don't
have you.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
You're a fool. Captain, who maybe so. I don't think
much of you either, But sir.
Speaker 8 (30:43):
But you have got something we need. You've got the
ear of the MAX.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Tell me how you plan to escape from an asteroid
without ships?
Speaker 4 (30:53):
We don't plan to.
Speaker 8 (30:55):
Our idea is to overcome the MAX and take control
of the entire prison. So once we have the facilities,
we think we can build a radio transmitter powerful enough
to be my message to Earth and request a.
Speaker 4 (31:08):
I see, and just.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
How do you plan to overcome the MAX?
Speaker 4 (31:13):
We fight?
Speaker 8 (31:14):
Ah Uh, Well we outnumber them, don't we. We attack
a group of them, take away as many weapons as
we can, and attack the rest.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Some of us live, some of us die. If enough
of us survive we get off of this world, we
wouldn't have a chance.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
We need this organization, a strategy, I a battle plan.
Speaker 8 (31:35):
We need somebody to pull this whole thing together.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
This is a job offer, Major Captain.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Don't you realize the odds or a thousand to one?
Speaker 4 (31:48):
Why do it? Why can't you sit it out? The
war's almost over? Why get killed now we think the
war is over?
Speaker 2 (31:57):
A major?
Speaker 8 (31:59):
Oh Wilcox, here was a radio man. A couple of
months ago. We asked the MAX permission to build a
receiving station. They agreed under one condition that we receive
only broadcasts from the Moon and the vicinity and the rebels.
Now we didn't get much. A few faint signals from
space traffic, and they the propaganda broadcasts. Oh, they had
(32:21):
some pretty good music sometimes, but then the music stopped.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
Everything stopped. Maybe your centerent on the blink. No, no, no, no,
it was fine.
Speaker 8 (32:31):
They're just not sending signals from the Moon anymore.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
Major, And I think it's because the war is over, Captain.
Can you make that receiving station more powerful?
Speaker 4 (32:44):
Sure, if we had the parts.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
Maybe I can get the parts. I got the parts
without much trouble. The MAX had our objections about receiving
stations only transmitters. I made promises about prisoner cooperation and
got the material.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
That helped us build a receiver with three times the
capacity of the original. But we heard nothing from the
Moon base.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
More.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
And then it's worse.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Major.
Speaker 4 (33:19):
It's good old Morse language.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
It's got to be from an Earth vehicle coming.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
From where the vicinity of the Moon. It has to
be up with women.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
I can make up a little.
Speaker 8 (33:32):
There's something about a delivery provision provision measure.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
That isn't the military vehicle. It's a commercial vessel.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
They're delivering provisions to the moon.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
Base in art heading to the Moon.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
And it's true.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
They have given up.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
The war is over.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
It's the truth. The war's over.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
It's been over for months, and yet we're still prisoners
out of the MAC.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
How do you know this?
Speaker 3 (34:05):
We picked up radio talk from Earth. The moon base
doesn't exist anymore neither. It's the invasion army.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
They're all gone, wiped out to the last man.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
All right, all right, let's say that's true. In due course,
the MAX.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Will disband prison want to return our men to her? Really,
who give them orders?
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Colonel?
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Don't you understand their masters are gone.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
The MAX won't do it on.
Speaker 5 (34:28):
Their own, their program to run a prison camp period,
they'll never let us go.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
I don't believe that measure, but the men believe it.
That's more important. That's why they're planning a massive uprising.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
They can't do that. It's suicidal if that's what it
amounts to.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Yes, well, we can't let that happen.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Nature.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
It's our responsibility to keep these men alive.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
I know me.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
How do we stop it?
Speaker 4 (34:50):
There's only one way we can tell the Max. Are
you crazy?
Speaker 3 (34:54):
They're hundred ring leaders in those bubbles before the day
is out.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
It's not too high a price.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
I'm going to them right now.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
It'll wait. Don't try to stop me.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Major, Colonel.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Something just struck me. The way you've been taking all this,
the way you've been taking all your responsibilities. You don't
look one bit different. No gray hair, it's no lines.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
On your face. Nothing.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Let go my arm.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
Major. What's in this arm, Colonel?
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Bones and muscles and block or steel, rots and wires
and lubricating oil. A good morning, Major, How are you feeling?
I'm fine, considering your guards took half my head off.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Your head is are in one piece? Major? You may
take my word for it.
Speaker 5 (35:51):
The worst damage was self inflicted.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
When you try to strike Colonel Drummond. You mean android Drummond,
don't you? How did you discover the secret?
Speaker 1 (36:02):
It was our believe that the.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
Colonel was a fine humanoid specimen, indetectable from the real thing.
He looks humil al right, he just didn't act human.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
Well, what time does the balloon go up?
Speaker 2 (36:19):
I beg your pardon.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
I expect my bubble is waiting for me. There will
be no punishment, Major Gunaver in destroying our secret agent.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
You Mary acted in the interest of your men.
Speaker 5 (36:33):
Incidentally, you are now the highest ranking among the prisoners.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
The war is over.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Captain, I've told you that a thousand times. He still
have no such information. We cannot release the prisoners.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Without a direct order.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
You can't get any worries from the moon base.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
They're all gone.
Speaker 5 (36:51):
Commanding as a general seeks, will receive the instructions.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Until then, we go on as we have.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
I want to see him. I want to se you
are commanding officer. General six does not interface with humor.
I'm not just a human. I'm the highest ranking officer. Remember,
I insist, Captain, and if I'm denied, you won't get
any more cooperation from me.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
You can send me up in the bubble for the
rest of my life.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Very well, Major, I will arrange for you to see
General six, who was brought into the majestic presence of
General six by embrace of Mac soldiers.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
And Captain one seven four B.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
I had never seen a Mac computer before.
Speaker 4 (37:40):
And it was an awesome sight.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
General six required a housing of several thousand square feet,
and he i mean it towered to a height of
sixteen feet. The room it occupied was early lit by
its own diodes. That was the only wominition since the Max,
requiring no light sensors for a vision, didn't use artificial lighting.
(38:09):
Captain one seven four B himself stood at the console
control board, his fingers poised lightly over the keyboard.
Speaker 5 (38:17):
Very well, Major, you may ask your question of the
commander ask it.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Ask him if he has any means of contacting Invasian
Supreme Headquarters.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
They answer is yes.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Ask him if he can make such contact now.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
He answer is no.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
Ask him if he knows why this contact is no
longer possible. He answer is yes.
Speaker 5 (38:57):
Contact is no longer possible because of instruction of Moon
base and anhilation of all Indiesian forces, bringing an end
to hostilities.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
He see it's true.
Speaker 5 (39:08):
Now, Last General six, if he will issue orders for
the immediate release and transportation to Earth of his business,
The answer is listen. One will be maintained until orders
to the country are received directly from from Prime Headquarters.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
According to section.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
Five of the manual, that's insane.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
The war's over finished.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
There is no Supreme at Cohalience is over, Major and
you hear his reply. The war is over. Your masters
are dead.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
You don't have any reason the keeper here wait for
instructions from headquarters.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
Major, please obey my order and leave.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Failure to comply or place you in jeopardy up.
Speaker 5 (39:46):
And you can't keep us here for the rest of
our life here.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
Don't let him have that. Rise a Major, don't be foolish.
You can't kill us.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
I won't kill you all, Captain, just your commanding officer.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
And so I was condemned to my dark little prisms
where I flirted.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
With the cosmos for three long months.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
And when I came down, I was insane. I must
have been insane, because when the bubble landed, I saw
the MAX standing about like so many statutes, and the
human prisoners roaming about, free and unfettered and exhilarated.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
I saw face.
Speaker 5 (40:44):
Smiling and laughing. I hadn't heard the sound of laughter
in years. There could only be one explanation.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
I was mad. You know you're okay, Well, trouble what happened?
It was only a week after the launch. You see,
the mets were going nuts trying to repair the damage
to their mechanical commanding officer, and they didn't know how
they got so desperately calling some of our guys, the
computer engineers, just to help them. Well, our guys went
(41:14):
to work, all right. They rigged Gerald six to give
one order.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
The only one that.
Speaker 4 (41:18):
Mattered turned off. They were told to turn themselves.
Speaker 5 (41:25):
That's it, Major, We turned them up. We pulled out
the plug of the machines. And now Wilcox is rigging
up a transmitting station big enough to contact her, and hey,
we're going home.
Speaker 4 (41:45):
We did go home. I got married and had three
children and no robut.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
Servants, not for a while anyway. Eventually my wife convinced
me I was being foolish, and we purchased two domestic robots,
one of superb cook and children's nurse, the other hard
working general housekeeper.
Speaker 4 (42:12):
I named them.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
Laurel and Hardy, and someday I might even stop being
afraid of them. And so Major John Gulliver and his
men are back on Earth.
Speaker 4 (42:33):
Back where it all began.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Will machines one day destroy us?
Speaker 2 (42:39):
Of course not.
Speaker 4 (42:40):
We can handle them, or can we?
Speaker 2 (42:44):
He'll be back shortly. Some Wise.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
Man once said, one machine can do the work of
fifty ordinary men, but no machine can do the work
of one extraordinary man.
Speaker 4 (43:08):
We think that's going to be true in the future
as it has been in the past.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
The question is what will the machines think now that
we've given them brains. We may well be entering the
age when man's own inventions will be in conflict with
man himself. Our cast included John letgow Ian, Martine Earl
Hammond and Ray Owens. The entire production was under the
(43:35):
direction of Hymond Brown and now a preview of our
next taiale. If you feel you can't, well you can't.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
It.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
You're in no real danger now and you won't be
until he brings up that little matter of assurance. Jane,
you time do it? You must, oh right, good girl.
The one thing more, Yes, he doesn't remain long in
(44:11):
one place. He kills and runs. You might say, I'll
probably suggest leaving Detroit and going somewhere else if he does,
and we're positive he will, so along with him. Don't
cross him. Don't ever cross him. One false move could
(44:32):
mean sudden death, train sudden and agonizing death. This is e. G.
Marshall inviting you to return to our mystery theater for
another adventure in the macabre. Until next time, Pleasant dream,
Tell me in.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Welcome, I'm E. G.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Marshall waiting to fill your ears with the sounds of tomorrow.
Some pessimists believe those sounds will be the blast of
bombs and the roar of guns, the groans of suffering,
and the rattling chains of servitude. Personally, I take a
happier view of the future. But in the story you're
about to hear rose bombs have burst, those guns have roared.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
And the people have grown.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
But this particular war of the future is over, and
from Major John Gulliver of D Company, rocket attacking is
the beginning a very strange sort of servitude. If we
give ourselves something, you know what's gonna happen.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
We'll be in turn private.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
We'll set out this war in a prison camp.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
I'm afraid mature.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
I can't help it.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I'm afraid of them, the max.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
There's something horrible about it. I think a refrigerator is horrible.
A washing machine, that's all they are, just a machine.
Let us what scares me? I mean the idea of
a refrigerator or a washing machine with a power of
life and death. Our mystery story, Prisoner of the Machines,
(01:41):
was written especially for a Mystery Theater by Henry Slesser
stars John Lithgow.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
With that one.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Look up.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
There's a new object in the heavens, a new satellite
in orbit. No, there's nothing unusual about that. Man has
been hurtling strange mental debris into the skies for a
hundred years now, and this year of our Lord two
thousand eighty five.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
But look again.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Puts your highest power telescope on the object, because you
never seen one.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Like it before.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
It appears to be a soap bubble, an iridescent transparent globe,
but there's something inside it, a human being. Because this,
my friends, is the first experimental model of an orbital
solitary station for prisoner.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
Correction, punishment, and isolation.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
The man inside this orbiting prison is Major John Gulliver,
and Major Gulliver has nothing else to do but think.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
I don't know when I stopped counting the orbits.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
All I can do is lie against the smooth dome
of my bubble prison and drift with the cosmos. My
food and water tubes float about my head like friendly
mocking snakes.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
Somewhile back I had decided.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
To refuse their blandishments to let hunger shrivel my stomach
and thirst blacken my tongue, to cheat my jailers by
dying in a death proof cell. But the snakes had
floated and coiled and mocked at my noble intentions, knowing
that sooner or later I would clutch them fiercely in
(03:39):
a loving embrace.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
I would eat and drink until I was sated and.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Sick with self disgust, and fall back, panting against my
prison wall, and sleep like the miserable, unloved infant.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I had become. No, I couldn't die.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
They wouldn't let me.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
It was against the code of my jailer's, a law
more inflexible than any written for humanity since the days
of Moses.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
But of course my jailers weren't human. I thought back
to my first food of self.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Major. If if we give ourselves up, what's going to
happen will be interned private.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
We'll set out the.
Speaker 5 (04:31):
War in a prison can calibrate, Major, I can't help it,
calibrate of them the max. There's something horrible that's on
the way you look at it. You think a refrigerator
is horrible, a washing machine, because that's.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
All they are.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Machine.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Yeah, that's what scares me.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
The idea of a refrigerator or a washing machine with
put the power of.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Life on the.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
But we were taken prisoner anyway. Every last survivor of
Company D Rocket Battalion and the MAX, with characteristic efficiency,
integrated our forlorn and splintered unit into a larger body
of prisoners heading north. There were eighteen of us assigned
(05:29):
to the Transport D eighty five, including the two MAC guards,
and for a while a rumor persisted.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
That we were heading the race itself.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
It wasn't true, of course, Our destination was the uncharted
asteroid they called Prison one.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
But the rumor excited us because.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
It would have been the first time any of us
had come face to face with the enemy on the Moon.
Since our outfit had been organized, we had fought nothing but.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Max and never even seen a rouble.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Sometimes it was hard to believe they existed at all,
even if the War Department bulletins still talked about the
rebel ships and rebel losses, but it had been a
long time since we had heard official word about anything.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Baker, can I talk to you?
Speaker 4 (06:16):
Of course, Morley, you don't have to whisper.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
The MAX can't hear us from here.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
I don't know about that.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
For all we know they got superhuman hearing. What's the difference.
You're not plotting to take over the ship, are you? Oh,
a telemasor a couple of the guys with one drink?
See Henderson there, he's going to pilot Spice.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
So for what a space buggy?
Speaker 3 (06:39):
You think you could pilot a transport this size if
we could get it away from our two friends up
in the controls.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
But that's it. There are only two of them, for sure.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Neither one of those Max could blast us all into
talcum power in one second flat. You know, something measuring
and never seen a MAX or close before.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Look exactly the daughter.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
They all look like they all came from the same
cooking cutter. No what corporate ply one calls them law
and hearty, fully man.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
The corporal Soon things are here, Major? Is it true that.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
They eat human passion? Nothing but mechanical weapons like tanks
or artillery? But they think Major, they figured things out.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
I hear they're smarter than we are.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Then how come the rebels had to retreat to.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
The moon base.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
We're beating them privates, They're beating them good.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
That's why the max are taking prisoners now.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
The rebels are adhering to the old Geneva Convention rules,
paving the way for leniency in case they get linked,
and they will be here soon.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
Okay, thanks Pature, you may.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
You feel better.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
I'm glad I made him feel better.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
But I didn't because no matter what happened in the
war on Earth and the Moon, we were heading for
an asteroid to a prison camp. We knew nothing about
run by android machines.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
I tried to remember when I first saw MAC.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
I had never even heard of them until the night
the Army transport Hornet had been blown up during blast
off from the Moon's Tiger rocking station. The charge of
sabotage and the subsequent confession, like the Kora the Mad.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
Fanatic, was branded by the Independent Party of Indasia as
a frame up, an excuse to outlaw them.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
For the first time since the world had finally united
under one system of law, there was calcab war. Nobody
was really alarmed. The Invasions were famous for their robut
industry but cold, and they were all made for domestic purposes.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
They looked human, and they were gentle, useful.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Machines designed to do the dirty jobs humans no longer
wanted to do. But suddenly there was a different breed
of android coming out of Indasian fact trees, the Max
mechanical brutes, impervious to cold, hunger, fatigue and despair and homesickness.
(09:11):
We saw a headless MAX charging our lines blindly, armless Max,
unable to hold weapons, lumbering along.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Obedient to their program destiny.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
There were officers Max with minds trained in the arts
of battle, commanding their battalions with cold logic made no
allowances for human beadiness. There were engineer Max, programmed to
repair damage to their mechanisms.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
And now it.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Seems there were prison camp MAX, and we were their
first prisoners.
Speaker 6 (09:41):
Cel Please, we were making land Ball a prison after one.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
S elth Please.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Prison Asteroid one might have been a prison co in
any country, in any war. The money grounds were filled
with prisoners and their non human guards.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
There were to be fourteen.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Hundred of us on that brim rock, where no walls
or fences were needed to contain us.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
All. The camp looked like a model of.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Military penal institutions to twenty six and neatly spaced barracks
of processing station and mess hall and administration buildings. There
was a great complex that housed the oxygen producing machinery,
the hydroponic food factory, machine shops, space.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Ships, hangars.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
An intricate system of scanners covered every inch of the place,
sending information back to the computer called SCAM scamp scanning,
Control and movement of prisoners machines house a bunch of boots.
Maybe they can fight, but the cat out thinkers carrier.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
Mation maybe not.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
But we're the prisoner's private You have are note prolonged
for me.
Speaker 6 (10:58):
Anyways, back and all Prisidents were filed by counter. They
won bed and stabbing about his wrist. Repeat President well
date one bend front counter.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
And staff by about red.
Speaker 6 (11:15):
Presidents nailing to wear their be hend at all times
will be turned off.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Turn off do they mean kill may tink us That's
what they mean. So you wear that thing private. But
is a PSC personal speaker command. So the Mexican deliver
their commands to us individually or collectively.
Speaker 6 (11:35):
Presidents well relod clothing and.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Place and disposal men.
Speaker 7 (11:40):
Presidents will then back through disinfection room and received clothing racing.
A president closing unnecessary delay will be turned off.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
It was in the clothing room that I had my
first dissillusion about MAC efficiency. The prison uniform, consisting of fatigues, socks,
thick leather shoes, a cap, and a field jacket, came
in only one size wrong. When we emerged from the
processing area, we filed past a MAC who was handing
(12:17):
out barrack assignments from.
Speaker 8 (12:19):
A clipboard list.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
The system was simple.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
I was sent to Barrack G, along with Gal Wests, Grady, Gunderson, Gruber,
and every other prisoner whose name began with G. The system, however,
had a flaw which never occurred to the.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
Mechanical brains of the next Barracks.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
G had accommodations for some one hundred and fifty prisoners,
but there were less than sixty of us.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
Whose names began with G.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Barracks S, on the other hand, was overflowing with prisoner,
some four hundred of them, milling about the bunks and
wondering what to do.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
The situation was so ludicrous.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
That I felt like laughing, but I was over it
up when I met Sergeant Zilpowski, and the pudgy.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
Little man grabbed my arm and babbled, and.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
They're putting me by myself, Major, just sticking me in
the barracks all by myself.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Take it easy, ZILPASKI is just temporary.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
It'll straighten it all hour. What they won't, you'll the Max.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Major, once I get an idea in their heads, once
say they've been programmed, they don't change.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
They don't have to when.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
They see what's happening. If you're all alone, just because
my name begins to see, I won't have anybody to
talk to.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
You gotta help me, Major, You gotta do something. So
I tried to do something about it.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
I stuck my neck out and that.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
Was the beginning of it.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
And here I am floating in space, in the loneliest
prison cell in the history. And the worst part of
a whole thing is that it's all mine.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
The idea.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
A prisoner in orbit that definitely comes under the heading
of a cool and unusual punishment.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
But what can you expect.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
From a machine.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Anyone who's ever lost money in a vending machine or
stalled their car a freeway knows that machines can be
tricky and temperamental and turn against you at any minute.
But how will Major John Gulliver and the prisoners of
the asteroid deal with their machinery problems. You'll find out
when I return shortly with that too. Major John Gulliver,
(14:52):
Prisoner of War, circles the asteroid in his strange bubble
prison and thinks back to the moment when he first
came into conflict with his captors, the machine men known
as the Max. Major Caliber wasn't the highest ranking officer
in the prison compound, but he must have been the
most nervous officer among them when he was finally given
(15:14):
audience with an android who wore silver bars on his
artificial shoulders.
Speaker 5 (15:22):
My name is Captain one sand Or Dashbe. I am
Adjutant two General sixth, commanding off of Prison one.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Won't you sit down?
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Thank you?
Speaker 5 (15:33):
Arcio has asked me to discuss an assignment with you.
Made a moment, Captain, I came here to discuss a problem. Yes, Major,
we received your request through proper channels, but as a
result of studying your records, we discovered something about your
past which is a particular interest to General six What
do you mean the profession in which you were engaged
(15:56):
before they wore you were a psychologists?
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Correct, as I was college trained University of Mental Sciences,
then computer instructor at the Hayward Teaching Center Rank.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
We believe you may be useful in helping us make
an adjustment to our responsibility. This is our first prison camp,
you know, and we are anxious to conduct it along
satisfactory lines.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Don't you have any rev any invasion advisors. No, they
camp as entirely in the hands of the android auxiliary.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
And what do you want me to do?
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Why?
Speaker 5 (16:32):
Help us to understand our prisoners to run an effective,
trouble free institution.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Fine, if you want my advice, let's start with your
crazy alphabets. No, no, major, We do not wish your advice.
We are satisfactorily programmed. We really wish your help in
interpreting prisoner behavior to us when it does not track
properly with previous data. Do you understand if you're asking
(17:00):
me to be a.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
Spotting like that, we will plant spies. Of course, that
is in the manual. Oh, we ask of you is
to be ours your prison psychologist?
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Yuck?
Speaker 1 (17:13):
What is it?
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Private?
Speaker 1 (17:15):
I gave instructions.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Hey guys, prisoner the man, what's up doing in there? Wait?
Speaker 1 (17:19):
You're lady turn him off now? Way him?
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Innute, Captain, your wish to say something.
Speaker 5 (17:25):
Man, Yes, I thought your camp was programmed under the
rules of the Geneva Convention.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Is your fine matter?
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Man has to have a fear hearing our trial.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
You don't even know the circumstances.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
He very well in my job.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Bring in the prisoner, yes that he.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Clive?
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Want what the table are you doing here?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Major? What did you do?
Speaker 4 (17:45):
Corporal? Oh?
Speaker 3 (17:46):
I jumped one of those busy machines, That's what I did.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
He stuck his gone into my back and I jumped him.
I wasn't moving fast enough for him.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
You admit to this.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
That's not sure.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
I admitted You're really a fool, Corporal Major.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Is that sufficient hearing for you? Try it?
Speaker 3 (18:04):
You will take this prisoner outside and turn him up.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
Right.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
You can't just kill him.
Speaker 5 (18:09):
Will if you don't want to riot on your hands,
kill him?
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Who said we wished him? Kill leasure.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
We do not kill prisoners.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
That is unthinkable.
Speaker 5 (18:20):
The annual strictly publish us to kill humans in prison camp.
But still we must punish and cooperative prisoners. That is
our order too. You must tell us how to solve
this contradiction.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Major, there's no contradiction. If you want to punish a
prisoner do what he's done in human prisons. Put us
in solitary confinement for a term, deny us the company
of our fellow prisoners.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
Believe me, that's.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Punishment enough, Captain to ask Sergeant Zokowski.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
Very well, what you say seems logical, I will put
the question to our commanding at the General six.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
You are this, miss Major.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
I went back to my barracks and told everyone and
everyone whose name began with G the good news. The
NATS had been programmed not to kill their human prisoners,
except in self defense or during escape attempts.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
I told them about.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
My suggestion of solitary confinement as a punishment, that it
seemed like the easiest sort of penalty. Captain one seventy
four dash B sold the idea to his commanding officer,
but it wasn't the solitary I had in mind. Gentlemen,
you're attention please well got a drummond, Major Gottia, you
(19:47):
and your federal officers had been asked here to witness
the first experimental model of prison one's orbital solitary station
for prisoner correction, punishment and isolation.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Your comments, please.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
You mean that bubble is an orbital satellite. That is Correctually,
you don't intender centerlemen into orbit.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
Ah, you're cruelty, Captain.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
You told me that you were proscribed against taking human life.
Surely you must know that no one could live a
thing like that.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Incorrect.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Pissors will be supplied with oxygen, food, water, and waste
disposal facilities in solidary orbit for the duration of their sentence.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Your comments, please, how long.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
You think a man can survive in one of these things?
Speaker 5 (20:35):
We have consulted our commander, and our information is that
a human can survive twenty eight hundred asteroidal orbits with
the oxygen, food, and water supply provided nine eight hundred orbits.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
That's almost stream much.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Your commanding officer is wrong. He is not allowed for
the mental and emotional strain of such imprisonment.
Speaker 5 (20:58):
There is nothing in the annual concerning mental or emotional strain.
You are a psychologist, major. Such things are a matter
of individual human response, are they not.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Your comments, pre I say you can't do this.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
The man would be better up dead than.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
In one of these things.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Impossible.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
We cannot, our prisoner, and I, Captain, I am the
highest ranking officer in this camp. I demand a personal
talk with your superior impossible.
Speaker 5 (21:27):
The commander has no communications mechanism with humans. Such an
interface would have been superfluous.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
What General six is a computer kernel? Don't you understand? Oh,
good Lord, that is correct.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
General six is a computer and he does not interfere
with humans. The sentence will now be carried out. Prisoner
one ten Corporal R. Clive On will be launched into
orbit at oh nine hundred.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Girl, you will honor all your men to fall.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Out hand loves a management major. It's not really true,
is it. They're not really going to do it.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
One thing about the Max, Private, they tell no lies.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
I've heard talk around.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
I mean some of the guys are saying that it
was your fault. They say you're soft on the MAX,
that you suggested the book.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
What do you think, Private?
Speaker 1 (22:31):
See, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
It's just a well major.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
You just they accept them too, Damn Easo.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
We've got to accept machines.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
We accept them all our lives, don't we. Don't you
trust the mechanism of your car, your air sled, your
house power plant. You can't get angry at levers, gears,
integrated circuits.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Oh can't.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
I can do it majure, I can do it easih,
so can't you? Or eleven weeks we watched the bubbles
spin over our heads.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
A tiny, gleaming new star containing.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Corporal Ronald Clyborne, or what was left of him. Then,
weary of its monotonous journey, the Bubble returned, breaked by
its single retro rocket. It landed undamaged, and they brought
Clyborne back to Prison One, singing, singing at the.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
Top of his lungs. He didn't stop singing until.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
He died two weeks later in an accidental fall in
the hospital ward. I'll say one thing for the MAX.
Their own psychology wasn't bad. There was no more trouble
on Prison Asteroid one. But there was something else. Talk
about escape. Oher said, you're the only man on this
(24:04):
rock who seems to understand that the MAX are only
the tools of the rebels, that we are wrong to
direct aggression against them. There's only one sensible course.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Now.
Speaker 4 (24:19):
We've got to play it cool, keep out of.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
Trouble, wait till the war is over, although of course
we are duty bound to escape. If we can't escape, ridiculous,
isn't it escape from an asteroid heaven?
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Os where in the universe.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Even if a prisoner are past scape, there's no place
to go, you know, nature.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
There's no use bothering about escape talking of the men
are bothering.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Uh, it's true, that's all they're talking about.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
Didn't you know?
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Now Now I didn't.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
But it has to stop.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
We have to issue in order.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
You can't order them to stop talking.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
I'm commanding off.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
That's what I intend to do, and that's what he did.
Colonel Drummond lined up the men ate ranks deep and
read them the Riot Act.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
He outlined the futility.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Of escape talk the impossibility of a return to.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
Earth before the end of the war.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
When he dismissed them, he had a separate talk with
the officers, emphasizing that it was our duty to report.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
Any escape plan to him.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Remember, the macs are prescribed against killing prisoners, but they're
also programmed to prevent escapes. They won't have any compunction
against killing if it occurs during an escape attempt.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
But three weeks.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Later came in J Escape. It was called the J
Escape for obvious reasons. Only the occupants of J Barracks
were involved, led by Lieutenant Lamar Jackson.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
One evening.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
An hour before lock up.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Jackson noticed that a scanner beam on the north side
of the compound, near the hangars where the space ships
were kept, failed to follow him as he crossed its path,
and Jorgenson, a computer engineer, slipped out one night and
examined the defective scanner. It was then that he realized
they could abort the SCAMP system.
Speaker 4 (26:28):
For a period of at least two hours.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Jackson organized the actual escape. His idea was simple, to
get his men to the hangars and space ships and
hold the ships as ransom for their release. If the
MAX failed to agree, the ships would be destroyed. It
was a desperate gamble, of course, and the first part
of their plan worked.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
The MAX had no.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Provision in their magn inoperative scanning to work period. General
six probably blew a dozen fuses that night as the
prisoners and jay barracks smashed their way into the spaceship
hangers like a gang of hoodlums crashing a party. The
party was over in one terrible instance, because when they
entered the hangars there were no spaceships. Every transport had
(27:26):
been dismantled. The hangars were empty, with the camp fuild
to capacity. The machine minds of the Max assumed they
had no further need for space vehicles. And now we
knew why Prison one was truly escape proof, because our
guards were prisoners two. Obviously, there is no escape from
(27:54):
Prison Asteroid one. Not even the infamous Deviled Island could
boast the security of this prison yemp. But never underestimate
the ingenuity of desperate men or the perversity of machines.
We'll learn more about both when we returned shortly with
Act three. Fourteen men died and the escape from Barracks
(28:26):
j fourteen prisoners named Johnston, Jacobs, Jorginson, James, and so forth.
But four men were taken alive by the Android guards
and faced the punishment of the Bubble, the terrible three
month isolation in space, which no one had yet survived
with their minds all in one piece. But one of them,
(28:48):
Lieutenant Lamar Jackson, did survive his three month prisonment, and
his first visitor in the prison hospital was Major John CALIBERO.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Did you talk.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
About it, Lieutenant? Can you tell me how it was
out there?
Speaker 3 (29:02):
It was dark, Major, dark and full of nightmare, but
you made it.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
You're a tough guy.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Attended the whole camp's proud of you.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
If you got to be very still.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
You can't move around in that thing. Every every little.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Move spins you around, changes the axis. You get disoriented
every few seconds, and then then you start getting ideas
that you're not alone. That's something he's outside the bubble
trying to get in.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
It's okay, lieutenant, you don't have to tell me anymore.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
But but then you get the worst nightmare. That and
the thing that was outside is now inside that he's
touching you.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
That's why it really gets bad.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
I understand you tell you, tell the boys to stay
out of trouble. Major, stay out of trouble, Stay out
of the bubble. The lieutenant was crying, and his tears
made me determined to keep anyone else out.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Of that damned bubble.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
But the escape talk went on.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
One afternoon, a committee of three men came to see me,
two shaved tail lieutenants and a captain.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
Why rushing out men or doing what we figure The
only way to do it.
Speaker 8 (30:23):
Is amass the whole camp. Now we need a leader,
and we think you're it. That is, if you change
your mind about being reasonable with these beauties, I don't
have you.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
You're a fool. Captain, who maybe so. I don't think
much of you either, But sir.
Speaker 8 (30:43):
But you have got something we need. You've got the
ear of the MAX.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Tell me how you plan to escape from an asteroid
without ships?
Speaker 4 (30:53):
We don't plan to.
Speaker 8 (30:55):
Our idea is to overcome the MAX and take control
of the entire prison. So once we have the facilities,
we think we can build a radio transmitter powerful enough
to be my message to Earth and request a.
Speaker 4 (31:08):
I see, and just.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
How do you plan to overcome the MAX?
Speaker 4 (31:13):
We fight?
Speaker 8 (31:14):
Ah Uh, Well we outnumber them, don't we. We attack
a group of them, take away as many weapons as
we can, and attack the rest.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Some of us live, some of us die. If enough
of us survive we get off of this world, we
wouldn't have a chance.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
We need this organization, a strategy, I a battle plan.
Speaker 8 (31:35):
We need somebody to pull this whole thing together.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
This is a job offer, Major Captain.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Don't you realize the odds or a thousand to one?
Speaker 4 (31:48):
Why do it? Why can't you sit it out? The
war's almost over? Why get killed now we think the
war is over?
Speaker 2 (31:57):
A major?
Speaker 8 (31:59):
Oh Wilcox, here was a radio man. A couple of
months ago. We asked the MAX permission to build a
receiving station. They agreed under one condition that we receive
only broadcasts from the Moon and the vicinity and the rebels.
Now we didn't get much. A few faint signals from
space traffic, and they the propaganda broadcasts. Oh, they had
(32:21):
some pretty good music sometimes, but then the music stopped.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
Everything stopped. Maybe your centerent on the blink. No, no, no, no,
it was fine.
Speaker 8 (32:31):
They're just not sending signals from the Moon anymore.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
Major, And I think it's because the war is over, Captain.
Can you make that receiving station more powerful?
Speaker 4 (32:44):
Sure, if we had the parts.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
Maybe I can get the parts. I got the parts
without much trouble. The MAX had our objections about receiving
stations only transmitters. I made promises about prisoner cooperation and
got the material.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
That helped us build a receiver with three times the
capacity of the original. But we heard nothing from the
Moon base.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
More.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
And then it's worse.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Major.
Speaker 4 (33:19):
It's good old Morse language.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
It's got to be from an Earth vehicle coming.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
From where the vicinity of the Moon. It has to
be up with women.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
I can make up a little.
Speaker 8 (33:32):
There's something about a delivery provision provision measure.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
That isn't the military vehicle. It's a commercial vessel.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
They're delivering provisions to the moon.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
Base in art heading to the Moon.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
And it's true.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
They have given up.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
The war is over.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
It's the truth. The war's over.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
It's been over for months, and yet we're still prisoners
out of the MAC.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
How do you know this?
Speaker 3 (34:05):
We picked up radio talk from Earth. The moon base
doesn't exist anymore neither. It's the invasion army.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
They're all gone, wiped out to the last man.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
All right, all right, let's say that's true. In due course,
the MAX.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Will disband prison want to return our men to her? Really,
who give them orders?
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Colonel?
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Don't you understand their masters are gone.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
The MAX won't do it on.
Speaker 5 (34:28):
Their own, their program to run a prison camp period,
they'll never let us go.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
I don't believe that measure, but the men believe it.
That's more important. That's why they're planning a massive uprising.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
They can't do that. It's suicidal if that's what it
amounts to.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Yes, well, we can't let that happen.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Nature.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
It's our responsibility to keep these men alive.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
I know me.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
How do we stop it?
Speaker 4 (34:50):
There's only one way we can tell the Max. Are
you crazy?
Speaker 3 (34:54):
They're hundred ring leaders in those bubbles before the day
is out.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
It's not too high a price.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
I'm going to them right now.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
It'll wait. Don't try to stop me.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Major, Colonel.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Something just struck me. The way you've been taking all this,
the way you've been taking all your responsibilities. You don't
look one bit different. No gray hair, it's no lines.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
On your face. Nothing.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Let go my arm.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
Major. What's in this arm, Colonel?
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Bones and muscles and block or steel, rots and wires
and lubricating oil. A good morning, Major, How are you feeling?
I'm fine, considering your guards took half my head off.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Your head is are in one piece? Major? You may
take my word for it.
Speaker 5 (35:51):
The worst damage was self inflicted.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
When you try to strike Colonel Drummond. You mean android Drummond,
don't you? How did you discover the secret?
Speaker 1 (36:02):
It was our believe that the.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
Colonel was a fine humanoid specimen, indetectable from the real thing.
He looks humil al right, he just didn't act human.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
Well, what time does the balloon go up?
Speaker 2 (36:19):
I beg your pardon.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
I expect my bubble is waiting for me. There will
be no punishment, Major Gunaver in destroying our secret agent.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
You Mary acted in the interest of your men.
Speaker 5 (36:33):
Incidentally, you are now the highest ranking among the prisoners.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
The war is over.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Captain, I've told you that a thousand times. He still
have no such information. We cannot release the prisoners.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Without a direct order.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
You can't get any worries from the moon base.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
They're all gone.
Speaker 5 (36:51):
Commanding as a general seeks, will receive the instructions.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Until then, we go on as we have.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
I want to see him. I want to se you
are commanding officer. General six does not interface with humor.
I'm not just a human. I'm the highest ranking officer. Remember,
I insist, Captain, and if I'm denied, you won't get
any more cooperation from me.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
You can send me up in the bubble for the
rest of my life.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Very well, Major, I will arrange for you to see
General six, who was brought into the majestic presence of
General six by embrace of Mac soldiers.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
And Captain one seven four B.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
I had never seen a Mac computer before.
Speaker 4 (37:40):
And it was an awesome sight.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
General six required a housing of several thousand square feet,
and he i mean it towered to a height of
sixteen feet. The room it occupied was early lit by
its own diodes. That was the only wominition since the Max,
requiring no light sensors for a vision, didn't use artificial lighting.
(38:09):
Captain one seven four B himself stood at the console
control board, his fingers poised lightly over the keyboard.
Speaker 5 (38:17):
Very well, Major, you may ask your question of the
commander ask it.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Ask him if he has any means of contacting Invasian
Supreme Headquarters.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
They answer is yes.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Ask him if he can make such contact now.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
He answer is no.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
Ask him if he knows why this contact is no
longer possible. He answer is yes.
Speaker 5 (38:57):
Contact is no longer possible because of instruction of Moon
base and anhilation of all Indiesian forces, bringing an end
to hostilities.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
He see it's true.
Speaker 5 (39:08):
Now, Last General six, if he will issue orders for
the immediate release and transportation to Earth of his business,
The answer is listen. One will be maintained until orders
to the country are received directly from from Prime Headquarters.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
According to section.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
Five of the manual, that's insane.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
The war's over finished.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
There is no Supreme at Cohalience is over, Major and
you hear his reply. The war is over. Your masters
are dead.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
You don't have any reason the keeper here wait for
instructions from headquarters.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
Major, please obey my order and leave.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Failure to comply or place you in jeopardy up.
Speaker 5 (39:46):
And you can't keep us here for the rest of
our life here.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
Don't let him have that. Rise a Major, don't be foolish.
You can't kill us.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
I won't kill you all, Captain, just your commanding officer.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
And so I was condemned to my dark little prisms
where I flirted.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
With the cosmos for three long months.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
And when I came down, I was insane. I must
have been insane, because when the bubble landed, I saw
the MAX standing about like so many statutes, and the
human prisoners roaming about, free and unfettered and exhilarated.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
I saw face.
Speaker 5 (40:44):
Smiling and laughing. I hadn't heard the sound of laughter
in years. There could only be one explanation.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
I was mad. You know you're okay, Well, trouble what happened?
It was only a week after the launch. You see,
the mets were going nuts trying to repair the damage
to their mechanical commanding officer, and they didn't know how
they got so desperately calling some of our guys, the
computer engineers, just to help them. Well, our guys went
(41:14):
to work, all right. They rigged Gerald six to give
one order.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
The only one that.
Speaker 4 (41:18):
Mattered turned off. They were told to turn themselves.
Speaker 5 (41:25):
That's it, Major, We turned them up. We pulled out
the plug of the machines. And now Wilcox is rigging
up a transmitting station big enough to contact her, and hey,
we're going home.
Speaker 4 (41:45):
We did go home. I got married and had three
children and no robut.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
Servants, not for a while anyway. Eventually my wife convinced
me I was being foolish, and we purchased two domestic robots,
one of superb cook and children's nurse, the other hard
working general housekeeper.
Speaker 4 (42:12):
I named them.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
Laurel and Hardy, and someday I might even stop being
afraid of them. And so Major John Gulliver and his
men are back on Earth.
Speaker 4 (42:33):
Back where it all began.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Will machines one day destroy us?
Speaker 2 (42:39):
Of course not.
Speaker 4 (42:40):
We can handle them, or can we?
Speaker 2 (42:44):
He'll be back shortly. Some Wise.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
Man once said, one machine can do the work of
fifty ordinary men, but no machine can do the work
of one extraordinary man.
Speaker 4 (43:08):
We think that's going to be true in the future
as it has been in the past.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
The question is what will the machines think now that
we've given them brains. We may well be entering the
age when man's own inventions will be in conflict with
man himself. Our cast included John letgow Ian, Martine Earl
Hammond and Ray Owens. The entire production was under the
(43:35):
direction of Hymond Brown and now a preview of our
next taiale. If you feel you can't, well you can't.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
It.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
You're in no real danger now and you won't be
until he brings up that little matter of assurance. Jane,
you time do it? You must, oh right, good girl.
The one thing more, Yes, he doesn't remain long in
(44:11):
one place. He kills and runs. You might say, I'll
probably suggest leaving Detroit and going somewhere else if he does,
and we're positive he will, so along with him. Don't
cross him. Don't ever cross him. One false move could
(44:32):
mean sudden death, train sudden and agonizing death. This is e. G.
Marshall inviting you to return to our mystery theater for
another adventure in the macabre. Until next time, Pleasant dream,
Popular Podcasts
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!