X Minus One radio and Vopla

Please enjoy Vopla a great episode of the legendaryX Minus One radio - A Classic Old Time radio Show - OTR

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Episode Transcript

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From the far horizons of the unknown, comtails of new dimensions in time and
space. These are stories of thefuture adventures in which you'll live in a
million, could be years, ona thousand, maybe worlds. The National
Broadcasting Company presents minus one bolt Blahby Wyman Gwynn. But first hear this,

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what can you do with forty threecents ah X minus one and voltfla

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not here, I'll be right there, I'm coming. So I'm an old
hermit am I and our daughter says, I'm expedric now, and I wonder
how the devil cha we found outto me? But you love me just
to say I reached the dangerous aidsand lady, I am going to have

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fun. Well, come on outto the terrace. The Hambard does will
get cold, my dear, I'mgoing to have a new kind of fun.
Oh it's a joke. I'm goingto play a tremendous joke on the
whole world. I have been workingfor this moment for ten years and now

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voltlus three of them, a maleand two females. I had called them
volt plus since that day ten yearsago when I got the idea of creating
a frying mutant, which I woulddeep to feed, play and talk.
Now I was almost ready to playmy joke on the world. After lunch.
When I returned to the lab,the vulpalas were moving about on the

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mattress, for I had placed them, and the male was trying to stand.
They were about twenty eight inches high. Except for the face, chest,
and belly. The vulplas were coveredwith a soft, almost golden down.
The skin was pink upon his headand across his shoulders. The male
had a shock of fur as softas the chinchilla. The cranium was in
the same proportion to the body asit is in the human, and they

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were shockingly human eyed. When themale spread his arms, the span was
forty eight inches. I held hisarms out and tried to tease the spars
open. These spars turned backward andran alongside the wrist, almost to the
elbow. Powerful wrist muscles could sniffthem outward and forward. Suddenly, as
I teased the male volpla, thishappened, the spars shot outward, adding

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nine inches to each side of hisspan. The lateral skin that had until
now been resting in folds, wastightened into a golden plane that stretched from
the tip of the spar to hiswaist, a true gliding plane, perhaps
even a soaring plane. By fouro'clock that afternoon, they were ready for
their first solid food. Come on, now here, hold the cup.

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That's the way, Hold the cup. Hello, your beauty, your own
beauties. No, no, no, I don't clamp in. My back
stops better. Oh, hello,pretty one. Hello, Hello, So
that's the way it's going to be. Hello, Hello, wonderful, wonderful.

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Oh you have no idea what Ihaven't store for you, My DearS.
I will teach you a language,perhaps English, the simple basic English.
You will have your own crafts,and you live in small treehouses without
keep you legends that you came fromthe stars, that you watch the red
men and the white men, andyou listen to this speech. And when
you're able to take care of yourselves, I'll turn you loose. There'll be

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Votela colonies up and down the coastbefore anyone suspects. And then, my
dear, one day somebody will seea vaultla and the scientists will observe them.
Then the legends will come. Isn'tthat funny? Don't you think that's
terribly funny you're listening to Votela nonX minus one, bow back to X

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minus one and act two VOLPLA.I used the metabolic accelerator to cut the
volta's gestation down to one week,and I used it to bring the infants
to maturity in one month. Bythe next spring, I had a colony

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of over one hundred volt plans,and I shut down the accelerator. From
now on, they could have theirbabies in their own way. I had
devised the language for them, andI carefully adulterated it with English, as
if they had observed us and learnedMy vol plays were amazing. They were
bilingual. Jane and Susie went downto Santa Barbara for a week, and

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I took the opportunity to ship themale and the oldest two females out of
the lab. I put them ina jeep beside me and drove to a
secluded valley about a mile back ofthe ranch. Pre pre tree rock sky,
sky, sky, that's right,jeez, that's the sky. All
right, Come on, everybody,I'll run. That's right, that's why

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I can't off. Go ahead.He spent about two hours chasing the two
girls wulfless around, and then hemade a leaf for one. And when
he spread his arms, his firessnapped out, and those golden planes sheered
into the air. He sailed overher, and he rose up, and

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he hung in the breeze for along moment, three feet above the ground.
Why, that's right, you canfly. You can fly, they
learned quickly and prisantly they were notreally flyers. They were gliders and swords.

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Before long they took agiley to thetrees and launched themselves in beautiful glides
for hundreds of feet, banking andturning and spiraling to a gentle halt.
Oh, I laugh, flowered withanticipation. And wait until the first pair
of these is brought before a sheriff. Wait till the newspaper reporters are rotting
out into the hills to witness this. When they were tired, the Volcalas

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lay on their backs with their planesstretched out. The oldest one came over
to me. He squatted his elbowsresting in the ground, his wrist crossed
at his chest. Before the redmen. We living. That's right in
places like these. You lived allalong these mountains. Now there are very
few of you left, since you'vebeen staying in my place. You've naturally
forgotten the ways of living outdoors.We learn again, we stay in that's

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right now. Look look you seeup on that tree. That's a bird.
That's your food if you can killit. Well, I don't think
you can get at them in thetree. You'll have to soar up above
and catch one of them on thewing when they fly away. Go ahead,
try it. He climbed the treeand launched himself and caught a warm

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uptrackt from the hillside. In notime, he was about two hundred feet
away. He began working his waycrisp crossing back to us, and then
suddenly he died. He cut thebird. He cut the bird may read
good we eat? Yes, yes, you eat this. I'll show you
how to build a fire again.I told them the story I had made

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up, how they came long beforethe Red Men in a ship from the
stars. I taught them to pointto the planet Venus and say that was
the star that came from I grinnedto think of him many stories that have
bewritten the Sunday supplements. Oh whata great joke I was playing in the
world we came from a star beforethe red man from a star. Yes.
Yes. The next week I broughtall the Voltlers out to the oak

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woods. There were one hundred andseven men, women and children. By
the end of the week they werescattered over four square miles of the ranch.
They hunted sparrows and cooked them overtiny fires. The little creatures delighted
me more and more. For hoursI could watch them play. I could
sit all afternoon and watch them atwork in a treehouse. Fike forgetting to

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go home? Whoa how does themighty hudder who now returns from the forest?
Fine, I've been enjoying the localanimal life. So as I daughter,
What do you mean? She hastwo of them up in her room?
Two what? I don't know?What do you call them? She
went up the stairs, three ata time, and pursed into my daughter's
room. There she sat in herbed, reading a book to two vol

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plus. What's going on here?Nothing, daddy, It is reading like
we always do, like always.How long has this been going on?
Oh? Weeks and weeks? Howlong is and since that first time you
came here to visit me? Weeka week? But you're teaching them to
read? Oh? Of course thisis good pupils and so oh great daddy.

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You will make him go away,will you? Oh Jane, why
didn't you tell me such a thinglike this was going on? Now you
listen to me, mister. Yourwhole life is a secret from us.
Just what makes you think your daughtercan't have a little secret about all fine
secret? Didn't it occur to youthat this might be dangerous? Those creatures
are oh max, for heaven's sake, They're sweet, loveful little creatures without

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a harm and their furry little bodies. Now, don't excited, jeejee?
Look where are you here? First? Listen? Listen? Do you realize
that are too vocals in my daughter'sbedroom? Yes? They go there every

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day. Is there anything wrong withthat? But she's teaching them the words
men put on paper. Yes,you told us. Men may be enemies.
We wish to learn so we canprotect. I have been here,
that's the San Francisco Chronicles. We'vebeen taking it for some time from box
at your household. I have learnedfrom the others. I can read most

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of this. It was terrible,the whole wonderful joke of the vocalus would
be lost, But I knew whatI would have to do. I'd have
to well, I'd have to explainthat my family and I had found a
colony of them in our ranch andtaught them English and taught them to read.
I was stuck with that. Menare dangerous. They will shoot us

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with guns if we leave here.Oh no, not an a Listen.
When they know who you are,they'll leave you alone. Now you must
disperse all your families at once,send them far away and spread off.
No, we cannot leave these words. Men would shoot us. What I'm
telling you is perhaps you are nota good friend, Perhaps you have lied
to us. Why are you sayingwe should leave these words? But it's

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important. The whole I mean,you'll be safer. We will decide the
whole thing was critical. It couldbe disastrous. I went back to the
house and up to Susie's room.I found her talking to two vocalas.
Oh no, no, I'm sureyou didn't come from the stars. That

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doesn't sound right. The more Ithink about it, the more I'm sure
that my father made you. Susie. What business have you telling them that?
I don't want you talking to themthat way? Do you hear me?
Daddy? You want to play ajoke, don't you. At the
time you said I could have ahorse for my birthday, you gave me
that dried sea horse in the bottleinstead of a real one. Are you
going to make that kind of ajoke? No, No, now,

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Susie, any that isn't exactly it. No, I don't think it's very
funny. The votalers are my friends. I wouldn't want to play a practical
joke on them. Gee, Gee, where are you? Gee? You
confound that the fires are out?Lett of them around? Gee? Are

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you up found that treehouse? Whoare you? Where are you? You've
got to listen to me. Imade you the joker. The whole joke
is Bible. Where are you?Jee? Oh? BLUs oh bus.

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I was away from the house forhours. When I came back, I
found Jane sitting on the terrace.Are you looking for something to I suppose
they're all gone? What do youmean the little flying things? I saw
them fly by about four in theafternoon. You did, where'd they go
over that way? You could seethem sewing over the trees. Ooh,
it was so pretty well. Where'sSusie? She's been watching television. She's

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all excited about the rocket flight.You know what rocket? Oh, you
have been living in the woods,the Venus rocket. My goodness, has
been at all the newspapers. Butwhere are you going? I gotta talk
to Susie, Susie, Susie.Steady. The rocket almost ready to go.
It approaches zero or now. Therocket stands tall and silvery. The

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gantry crane is pulled away. Nowwe're actually at least five miles away watching
from the remote monitors. Some disturbance. Now it seems to be some birds,
big birds, like a flock ofowls, circling the ship. Oh
hey, wait a minute, they'reflying through the hatch. It seems to
be jammed open. This is certainlyan unforeseen development. The metal of the

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ground are driving a motor driven ladderup to the ship, and the owls
seem to be fighting them off.There goes the hatch. It's closed.
Those birds are inside, not bigbirds, big as eagles. As we
told you previously, ladies and gentlemen, the rocket is on automatic fire.
It'll go off in precisely at tenseconds. We stared at the television screen.

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Here we saw the red blast offire and the silvery rockets streak up
into the sky the cameras following.A reporter at Scientific headquarters reports that none
of the rocket telemeters are recording theowls who bought it into the open hatch,
and this heartbreaking accident seemed to lookthis up to the automatic recorders.
The controls there cannot be altered.The rocket will land on Benus a schedule.

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Daddy, those weren't owls, werethey? No, No, they
weren't owl She thought they were owls. That kind of a joke, isn't
it. Isn't it a joke,Daddy? I'd say, next here the
joke's on. You wait till menland on Venus and find Venusians with a
legend about their great father in California. Of course they left me a note.

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The handwriting wasn't very good, butthen you wouldn't write very well either
if your index finger was nine incheslong. I sat on the patio and
read the volplus farewell, they said, the man who made us we forgive
you. We know we did notcome from the stars, but we go

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there. I the Chief give youwelcome to visit. We will try not
to laugh. Have you goodbye.X minus one has brought you VOLFLA a

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story written by Wyman Gwynn and adaptedfor radio by Ernest Cannoy. Featured in
our cast were Nelson Lmstead as thescientist and Potoniac as his wife, Jane
Adele Newton as his daughter Susie.This is Fred Collins X Minus one was
directed by George Boutsas and is anNBC Radio Network production. We pause now

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for station identification.