Soldier Boy by X Minus One

Summary

Relic Radio Sci-Fi: Episode Summary - "Soldier Boy" by X Minus One

Title: Soldier Boy
Host/Author: RelicRadio.com
Release Date: April 21, 2025
Original Airing: X Minus One
Adapted From: Michael Scherrer’s story, adapted for radio by Ernest Kanoy
Cast Highlights:

• Larry Haynes as Captain Dylan
• Ralph Bell as Lieutenant Bossio
• Alan Hewitt as Russell
• Bob Hastings as Shore Patrolman
• Wendell Holmes as Colonel Swift
• Kermit Murdoch as the Alien
• Narrator: Floyd Mack
  Directed By: Daniel Sutter
  Production: NBC Radio Network

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Introduction

"Soldier Boy," presented by X Minus One and adapted from Michael Scherrer's work, delves into the turmoil faced by a military contingent during an unexpected alien assault. Set against the backdrop of a once-peaceful interplanetary society, the episode explores themes of duty, isolation, and the essence of humanity when confronted with existential threats.

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Setting and Context

The story unfolds in a distant future where humanity has established colonies across various planets. After five centuries of peace, the United Earth Defense Command oversees these outposts. The protagonist, Captain Dylan, a seasoned veteran of garrison life, engages in typical duties on the rim colonies—guarding, managing disruptions, and maintaining order in what were once vibrant human settlements.

Colonel Swift introduces a Scandinavian legend, symbolizing hope and the cyclical nature of conflict:

Colonel Swift [02:38]: "There is a Scandinavian legend in the northland... he will come."

This legend foreshadows the recurring need for military intervention during times of crisis.

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Main Characters

• Captain Dylan: The central character, a 20-year veteran of the Defense Command, grappling with his role and personal demons stemming from prolonged garrison life.
• Lieutenant Basio: An earnest subordinate tasked with delivering urgent messages, representing the diligent yet weary personnel in the Defense Command.
• Russell: Possibly another officer or support character, involved in dispatching messages and coordinating evacuations.
• Gunner: A cynical crew member who provides comic relief and philosophical musings amidst tense situations.
• Colonel Swift: The authoritative figure whose decisions drive the evacuation orders.
• Alien Director: The antagonist, orchestrating the alien assault from a strategic standpoint.

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Plot Summary

Initial Call to Duty

Captain Dylan's routine is disrupted when Lieutenant Basio arrives at a local bar intoxicated, bearing urgent orders:

Lieutenant Basio [02:38]: "I'm supposed to tell you to report to division headquarters."

Dylan's initial contemptuous reaction masks his deep-seated fatigue and disillusionment with the Defense Command’s dwindling effectiveness after centuries of peace.

Arrival at Garrison Town

The narrative transitions to the garrison town, described as a hub of saloons and gambling houses, reflecting the complacency bred by prolonged peace:

Captain Dylan [04:00]: "The army bases... men that sifted down into the army were not quite the best adjusted of human beings."

Colonel Swift orders an urgent evacuation of the Rim colonies due to an alien threat, revealing that a catastrophic event occurred at Lupus 5, where survivors found their equipment and infrastructure destroyed, but the detonator for a cobalt bomb was sabotaged.

Encounter with Colonists

Captain Dylan and his team embark on a mission to warn and evacuate ten planets within their route. On Norge 1, Dylan’s attempt to communicate faces hostility from the pioneers:

Colonist [11:28]: "This is our planet. Demand some protection from the fleet."

The colonists’ frustration stems from their pioneering efforts and the sudden withdrawal of military support, highlighting tensions between civilians and the military.

Suspicious Wire Cuts

Investigations reveal a pattern where detonator wires are being sabotaged prior to alien attacks, suggesting an internal threat:

Captain Dylan [14:01]: "The wire at lupus 5 was cut just about before an alien attack."

This discovery points to either a traitor within the ranks or advanced alien tactics, intensifying the suspense.

Climactic Confrontation

As Captain Dylan delves deeper, he uncovers the presence of alien robots masquerading as local fauna. During a tense encounter in the snowy landscape, Dylan confronts and disables a robotic entity, revealing the aliens' strategic planning for total destruction:

Alien Director [17:07]: "Total destruction is necessary for further operations."

In a pivotal moment, Dylan sacrifices himself to secure an alien artifact, symbolizing a personal redemption and the rekindling of his lost courage:

Captain Dylan [23:26]: "An army does what it has to... there comes a time when you have to make a stand."

His actions not only thwart the immediate threat but also inspire renewed determination among the remaining crew to resist and protect humanity.

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Key Scenes with Notable Quotes

1. Colonel Swift’s Legend [02:38]:

   "Deep in a great cave, by an ever burning fire, the warrior sleeps... when we are sore in need and out of the north he will come."

2. Captain Dylan’s Disillusionment [03:37]:

   "Do not use the best iron to make nails or the best men to make soldiers. Old Chinese proverb."

3. Sergeant on Lupus 5 [05:13]:

   "Aliens... somebody dug it up and cut it."

4. Captain Dylan Reflects on His Role [15:53]:

   "After 20 years of hanging around and playing like the town drunk, a man can't be expected to rush out and plug the breach just like that."

5. Alien Director’s Report [17:07]:

   "Total destruction is necessary for further operations."

6. Captain Dylan’s Final Stand [23:26]:

   "An army does what it has to... there comes a time when you have to make a stand."

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Themes and Analysis

1. The Burden of Command:
Captain Dylan’s internal struggle underscores the heavy responsibilities borne by military leaders, especially in times of unforeseen conflict. His initial cynicism evolves into reluctant heroism, emphasizing personal growth under duress.

2. Isolation vs. Community:
The story juxtaposes the isolation of the garrison life with the tight-knit communities of the pioneer colonies. The evacuation highlights the fragility of these communities when faced with existential threats.

3. Trust and Betrayal:
The sabotage of detonator wires introduces themes of mistrust and the fear of internal betrayal, questioning the integrity of those within one's own ranks.

4. Humanity in Adversity:
Dylan's transformation from a disillusioned soldier to a self-sacrificing hero illustrates the innate human capacity for resilience and altruism when confronted with dire circumstances.

5. Technology as a Double-Edged Sword:
The use of robots by the alien forces highlights the complex relationship humanity has with technology, serving both as a tool for defense and a means of destruction.

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Conclusion

"Soldier Boy" masterfully portrays the decline and resurgence of a military force facing an alien invasion. Captain Dylan’s journey from apathy to heroism serves as a compelling narrative on the human spirit’s enduring capacity to rise against overwhelming odds. The episode not only entertains but also provokes thought on military ethics, community resilience, and the essence of leadership in times of crisis.

Through its nuanced characters, suspenseful plot, and profound themes, "Soldier Boy" stands as a quintessential example of classic science fiction storytelling, inviting listeners to ponder the complexities of duty and the depths of human courage.

Transcript

[Narrator]

Relic Radio.

[Captain Dylan]

This is Relic Radio Sci Fi Old Time Radio Science fiction stories.

[Russell]

From relicradio.com Countdown for blast off X/5432 X/1 fire from the far horizons of the unknown. Come Transcribed Tales of new dimensions in time and space. These are stories of the future. Adventures in which you'll live in a million could be years on a thousand maybe worlds. The National Broadcasting Company in cooperation with Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine presents Minus One. Tonight's story Soldier Boy by Michael Scherrer.

[Colonel Swift]

There is a Scandinavian legend in the northland Deep in a great cave, by an ever burning fire, the warrior sleeps. For this is the resting time, the time of peace. And so shall it be for a thousand years. And yet we shall summon him again, my children, when we are sore in need and out of the north he will come. And again and again. Each time we call out of the dark and the cold with the fire in his hand, he will come.

[Captain Dylan]

I was off duty when the call came to report. I was off duty and out of uniform. As a matter of fact, I was in a bar, drunk. Basio had just spilled a beer over me. I cussed him out. And when I looked up, there was a shore patrol standing over me.

[Lieutenant Basio]

Captain Dillon.

[Captain Dylan]

Well, where did they find you, buster? Did you flunk out of high school or get into a fight with your father and run away from home?

[Lieutenant Basio]

Captain Dillon, I have a message for you.

[Captain Dylan]

Well, well, well. Look, Basio, this is humanity's finest. He has joined the service to protect home and hearth against the savage aliens.

[Gunner]

Touching, Dylan, touching.

[Lieutenant Basio]

Are you Lieutenant Basio? I have a message for you, too.

[Captain Dylan]

Have a drink.

[Lieutenant Basio]

No, thank you, sir.

[Captain Dylan]

Well, listen to that.

[Narrator]

Sir.

[Captain Dylan]

Bossio, this kid has got morale. It's a fact, Dylan.

[Sergeant]

He's crawling with it.

[Captain Dylan]

Sure, I haven't heard morale like that since the second Martian revolt in 23. Boy, don't you know that the armed service is a scrap heap?

[Gunner]

Do not use the best iron to make nails or the best men to make soldiers. Old Chinese proverb.

[Captain Dylan]

I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier. Ancient folk song Please, Captain.

[Lieutenant Basio]

Lieutenant. I'm just doing what they told me to. I'm supposed to tell you to report to division headquarters.

[Captain Dylan]

And they told you to try every bar on the strip. And you'd be sure to run into us, huh?

[Lieutenant Basio]

Yes, sir. Those were Colonel Swift's orders.

[Captain Dylan]

A good commander. He knows the whereabouts of his troops. All right, Bossio, drink up. Let's go. Duty call. The garrison town was wide open. The street was lined with saloons. Gambling houses and whatever. They cleaned up this sort of thing on Earth and every colony in the solar system and beyond. But they let them stay near the army bases, mostly because they knew there'd been 500 years of peace. And the men that sifted down into the army were not quite the best adjusted of human beings. The drinkers, the gamblers, the men who were destructive in a hundred different quietly degrading ways wore the uniform of the Defense Command. The uniform that was usually creased and just a little dirty. I know because I'm a veteran of 20 years of it. Not a veteran of any wars nor any fighting except in some saloon on payday, but a survivor of garrison life, of chasing smugglers and rally catching. The colonel was fat and sweaty and as a gesture to military discipline, he chased a frowsy blonde out of the office before he spoke to us.

[Sergeant]

Sit down, Dylan. Have you ever heard of Lupus 5?

[Captain Dylan]

No.

[Sergeant]

It's out on the rim, on a 360 vertical sector. They were wiped out a year ago.

[Captain Dylan]

Disease?

[Sergeant]

Aliens. A mail ship found it. By the time they called the army in, almost six months had gone by. There were 70 columns, 31 were dead. The rest were missing. All the technical equipment, all radios, guns, machines, even books were gone. The rest of the place was burned over. Only one of the men found something in the ash. As you know, every colony is equipped with a detonator in a main building and a cobalt bomb buried right in the middle. Because it's a lot more important to blow a whole village and let some hostile alien learn vital technical facts about human technology and body chemistry.

[Captain Dylan]

Why didn't the bomb blow at Lupus?

[Sergeant]

Because the wire was cut at the heart of the camp, under 12 inches of earth. Somebody dug it up and cut it.

[Captain Dylan]

Who?

[Sergeant]

I don't know. Dylan, we're pulling back, evacuating the Rim colonies. There's nothing else to do.

[Captain Dylan]

No defense possible after 500 years of peace.

[Sergeant]

Look at you, Dylan. Look at me. And the rest of the army is about the same. We're pulling out.

[Captain Dylan]

They're not gonna like that out at the Rim colonies.

[Sergeant]

If they don't like it, they can wait. And be burned by the aliens. We can't protect them. You report to the 38th sector. You'll have 10 planets on your route to warn and evacuate. Try and stay sober.

[Captain Dylan]

I'll try.

[Sergeant]

That's all. Get out of here and send Kitty back in. On your way out.

[Captain Dylan]

We cleaned up three planets, delivered the dispatches from headquarters and tried to find out if they had anything Worth drinking in the colonies. Usually they didn't. And we were stuck with something that Basio made out of high thrust fuel with a little lemon juice and oil of wintergreen for flavoring. We headed out for number four.

[Gunner]

Hey, Dylan, want another belt?

[Captain Dylan]

No, not now. I got to feed orbits into this fool. Computer, light up. Come on. There she goes.

[Gunner]

You know, it's funny.

[Captain Dylan]

What?

[Gunner]

Life.

[Captain Dylan]

You're a 90 proof philosopher, Basil. Nah.

[Gunner]

Look, we come down on a planet, nobody talks to us. We can stand out in the landing field in snow or sand or whatever they got on their miserable planet. Nobody wants it.

[Captain Dylan]

Look at you. Can you blame them?

[Gunner]

No, no, you don't get it.

[Captain Dylan]

What are we here for?

[Gunner]

To save them? They shove a firecracker under their tails and get them out while there's still time.

[Sergeant]

What do they call us? Soldier boy.

[Captain Dylan]

Drunken bum.

[Gunner]

Now what did they do that for?

[Captain Dylan]

Three guesses.

[Gunner]

Yeah, like on that last one, they Almost marvelous. Every time we walk out in the street, they look at us as if these uniforms are some kind of a.

[Captain Dylan]

An insult. Well, look up your history, Bossio. There's been too much misery tied up with soldier suits of some kind. It's practically a racial memory. Ah, baloney.

[Gunner]

They got no call to treat us like we were criminals. They would have shot me down if you hadn't taken off so quick.

[Captain Dylan]

Yeah, look, look, Bossio. If somebody comes and tells you you got to get off the planet that's been home for 20 years and then wretched their best restaurant in the brawl, what do you expect, the medal?

[Gunner]

I guess you're right. Hey, that was some scrap. I didn't like the way that stuck up for head waiter called me soldier boy. I'll do it all over again.

[Captain Dylan]

I know you would. On the next planet. Do you're drinking on the ship? It's safer all around.

[Gunner]

They still got no right to be so stuck up. After all, somebody's got to be in the army.

[Captain Dylan]

Yeah, I guess so. Well, that's the last orbit it passes the bottle. The fourth planet was Norge 1. A big green world about 20% cooler than Earth. Temperate. They'd heard about the evacuation and when we sent the scout down on the landing field, there was a crowd gathered. When I opened the hatch, I could smell a wet heavy breeze. That meant snow was below freezing and army issue cold weather gear wasn't worth much. I waited out at the edge of the field for 15 minutes, waiting for somebody to take notice of a ship of the United Earth Defense Committee. I just stood there in a Cold wind with a pipe to keep me warm. Finally somebody came out to talk to me.

[Narrator]

What do you want?

[Captain Dylan]

I'm Captain Dylan. I have a message from Fleet Headquarters. You in charge here?

[Narrator]

Nobody's in charge here. Want a spokesman? I guess I'll do. What is it?

[Captain Dylan]

Well, I got a dispatch for you from headquarters.

[Narrator]

I'll look at it later. Is it always this cold this time of year?

[Captain Dylan]

He's a brass lucky Drake.

[Narrator]

No, thank you.

[Captain Dylan]

Mind if I do?

[Narrator]

You have to.

[Captain Dylan]

I don't suppose you got any decent liquor on this planet?

[Narrator]

No, we don't have any.

[Captain Dylan]

Yeah, it's got. All right, let's get going. We haven't got much time. They had a meeting at the main warehouse. Russell read the dispatch in the order for evacuation. It took them a long time to understand. They took it pretty well. But then these were pioneers. Pioneers. Before you settle a planet, you boil it and bake it and purge it of possible diseases. Then you step down gingerly and inflate your plastic houses which harden and then become warm and impregnable. You send your machines out to plant and harvest and set up automatic factories that transmute dirt into coffee. And without having lifted a finger, you've braved the wilderness. Hewed a home out of living rock. And you're a pioneer. Of course they were angry and as usual, they'd take it out on me.

[Narrator]

Now look here, soldier. This is our planet. This is our home. Demand some protection from the fleet. Been paying taxes for all of you all these years and it's about time you earned your keep.

[Captain Dylan]

Maybe, Mr. Russell. Maybe. But there is no fleet. There are a few hundred half shot old tubs that were obsolete before you were born. And there are four or five new jobs for the brass and the government. But that's all the fleet there is. Look, it's 10:30 now and those aliens might be coming in at any time for all we know. So we better get going. Lieutenant Bossio has gone on to the sister colony at frame two of this system. He'll return to pick me up by nightfall. And I've been instructed to have you gone by then. I wanted to remind them that nobody wanted the army. That the fleet had grown smaller and smaller. But there wasn't any point to it now. I realized long ago that they were right. In a way, I was a big fat anachronism, a fossil, a hangover from the Dark Ages. Only unfortunately, we'd run right into a new Dark Ages that came from somewhere out in the stars and picked off colonies and burned Them to a sea. Well, when they finally left the meeting, I went out to check the bomb. The detonator was in the radio shack was a long metal bar with a lock on it. I followed the conduit down the wall till it entered the ground. Then I started to chop at the frozen earth to follow the wife.

[Narrator]

Captain Dillon.

[Captain Dylan]

Yeah?

[Narrator]

How many people can your ship take While she sleeps?

[Captain Dylan]

To won't take off with more than 10. Why?

[Narrator]

We're overloaded. There are 60 of us and our ship won't take over 40. We came out in groups, so we never thought.

[Captain Dylan]

You sure?

[Narrator]

Only a little ship? She's all we could afford.

[Captain Dylan]

Well, it looks as if somebody's going to find out firsthand what those aliens look like.

[Narrator]

It's not very funny.

[Captain Dylan]

All right, all right. Maybe the colony on 2 has room. I'll call Bossio and ask.

[Narrator]

Aren't there any fleet ships within radio display?

[Captain Dylan]

Look, the fleet is spread out kind of thin nowadays.

[Colonel Swift]

What's that?

[Captain Dylan]

It's a wire from the detonator to the bomb. Somebody dug it up, cut it and then buried it again and packed it down again real nice. Who? Who?

[Narrator]

One of us. Of course. I knew nobody ever liked sitting on a live bomb like this, but I never.

[Captain Dylan]

You mean one of your people?

[Narrator]

Isn't that obvious?

[Captain Dylan]

Why?

[Narrator]

Well, they probably thought it was too dangerous, like most government rules. Maybe one of the kids.

[Captain Dylan]

No, no, no. There was a bomb wire cut on lupus 5 just before the alien attack.

[Narrator]

Maybe an animal.

[Captain Dylan]

Now, no animal did that. Same coincidence, huh? The wire at lupus 5 was cut just about before an alien attack. Now, this one was cut too. Newly cut. So something new. Enough about this camp to know that a bomb was buried here. And also to know why it was something didn't want the camp destroyed. So it came into the middle, traced the wire, dug it up and cut it. And then walk right out again.

[Narrator]

What do we do?

[Captain Dylan]

Pass out your guns. Try not to scare them. I'll be with you as soon as I splice. This way. I spliced the wire, went back into the radio shack and pulled out my pistol. I checked it and primed it and tried to remember the last time I'd fired it. The snow began falling near noon. By one o'clock, the visibility was down to zero. I tried to contact Bossio to tell him to hurry. He didn't answer. I figured he was probably drunk or sleeping it off. I suppose I should have been out organizing some kind of defense, inspiring everybody with grim lantern jawed courage. But as a Matter of fact, my jaw is somewhat slack and I'm not strong on courage, so I took a belt from the bottle and considered things. Attention was beginning to get me. After 20 years of hanging around and playing like the town drunk, a man can't be expected to rush out and plug the breach just like that. You have to work up to these things gradually, I suppose. There was something to me originally, but I lost it. I lost it in 20 years of idiotic garrison spit and polish in saloons and the icy looks and choice words that civilians save for peacetime soldiers. I had half the bottle killed when Rosso came back to see me.

[Narrator]

Captain, I just can't make any sense of this. Who cut that wire?

[Captain Dylan]

Well, as far as I can figure, an alien cut it.

[Narrator]

No, there haven't been any aliens or any peculiar animals near this camp. We've got planet wide radar, and there have been no unidentified ships since the first landing a year ago. One of us must have found it's the only possible explanation.

[Captain Dylan]

You mean a traitor or a dupe?

[Narrator]

Maybe the aliens can exert some kind of telepathic control.

[Captain Dylan]

I can't see it. If they're able to control one, why not all and save half the bottle? Now look, is there any animal that ever comes near here that's as large as a dog?

[Narrator]

Well, there's a big O, like a monkey with four legs. We shoot them now and then when they get into the crops. We're going to post sentries. Do you want to place them?

[Captain Dylan]

Well, you know this site better than I do. Post them in a ring within calling distance.

[Narrator]

Dylan, what are they like? The aliens?

[Colonel Swift]

Do you know?

[Captain Dylan]

No, I don't think anybody does. We don't know what they look like, what they think like, or where they come from.

[Narrator]

You think they've landed yet?

[Captain Dylan]

Don't know. With this snow coming down, they could be out there in the woods right now and we'd never know.

[Alien Director]

Planet Director 7396 recording progress report on attack day. Physical situation Excellent. Headquarters bunker 10ft underground. Electrical heating apparatus running smoothly. View screens operating human colonists. Activity? Not according to pattern eight. Humans have taken up watch positions on the perimeter of the colony. Original plan was for attack at night, but presence of Earth vessel dictates change in plans. The humans move quickly. They might be gone by nightfall. It would be necessary to disable their ship proceeding on this alternate plan.

[Captain Dylan]

At noon. Rossell reported that Planet 2 didn't answer his call. Bossio might be drunk, but the colony on 2 wouldn't be if there Was no answer. It was because they were dead. The people were quiet and frightened. Some of the women were beginning to cry. They brought me coffee. Now it had begun to dawn on the women that they might be leaving without their husbands or sons. They had their ships stripped down and they were loaded. The ones that were going stood outside and stripped off their clothes. Cold weather gear of 40 people weighed enough to get a few more on board. In the end, the ship took 46 people. When they were all loaded and they cleared the landing field and the hatches closed, you could hear the generators surge for a lift. But then there was a sharp burning smell. And she never got off the ground. Over here, under the tree. What happened?

[Narrator]

The lining's burned up. Being repaired.

[Captain Dylan]

How long will it take to fix?

[Narrator]

4 or 5 hours.

[Captain Dylan]

It'll be dark by then. Seems like they want to wait till the dark.

[Narrator]

Probably aren't many of them.

[Captain Dylan]

Might mean that. Or maybe they see better at night. Or maybe they move slow. You got any idea how they got to the ship?

[Narrator]

No.

[Captain Dylan]

You know, I've been in the army 20 years. This is the first time I was ever in a fight. I never shot at anybody. I always figured I'd be afraid. There doesn't seem to be any sense in being afraid. There's nothing to do but wait until night comes. I sat there thinking of Bossio. He was dead. There wasn't much start of that. Probably died dead drunk and not giving a solitary hoot. I stared out into the snow and thought the same thought over and over. Bossio is dead. Bossio is dead. In all this dog eared apron universe, he was about the only friend I had. And so naturally he was dead. Dead because he tried to come out here to help these people. People who cursed him and called him a drunk, which he was, and a brawler, which he was when somebody crossed him. But he was the one who came to help. And in short time I'd be staying behind so that some columnist could jam himself aboard my ship and lift out to safety. And I'd die to save somebody I didn't even know. Somebody who 24 hours before would be ashamed to be found in my company. They come to an army for help too late. An army like me, sodden and not knowing whether they can fight or not. Dillon. What?

[Narrator]

Over there, at the edge of the woods. Something moving. You can see it through the snow.

[Captain Dylan]

Look out. How far do you make it to that tree?

[Sergeant]

About 50 yards.

[Captain Dylan]

50 yards.

[Russell]

There it is.

[Captain Dylan]

You see by the bush. 50 yards. No wind. Hatch, I have A feeling I'm forgetting something. He goes.

[Sergeant]

You got it.

[Captain Dylan]

Get down. Maybe more of them. Wait and see.

[Narrator]

I saw it clear when it jumped one of those monkeys.

[Captain Dylan]

Maybe. We'll see. I waited 10 minutes and then I ran over. Whatever it was was gone. Almost all of it. My bolt had taken a paw and taken a clean off. I picked it up, but there was no blood. The skin was real and furry, all right. But the bone was steel and the muscles were springs. It wasn't any four legged monkey. It was a robot.

[Alien Director]

Planet Director 7396 recording progress report on attack day due to component tube failure. Small robot unit out of control. Wandered towards settlement. Took calculated risk with poor seeing due to snow that humans would overlook it and still think of it as an animal. Even firing with ports open. But a part of the robot is missing and the humans have found it. There will be no chance to disable the smaller ship now. In order to carry out total destruction, the settlement will have to be detonated. The settlement will have to be bombed from previously planted locations. I will have to leave control bunker for a more distant position. As soon as protective armor is put on, I will proceed to carry out this plan. I realize this is not the ideal operation. It is more disciplined to capture humans and their equipment undamaged. But total destruction is necessary for further operations. Recommend duplication of essential controls on robots. The procedure of planting them on worlds before colonization by humans. The shape of local animals demands perfect operation. When attack day arrives or the resident director planted at the same time on each world will be unable to carry through attack plans. Now leaving bunker.

[Narrator]

That's how they got the ship all right. Probably slipped a vigil through the aft port and left it in there to foul the lining. What else they've got?

[Captain Dylan]

Probably all kinds of things. Must have been some kind of lizard that went under and cut the wire.

[Russell]

A spicer lizard.

[Narrator]

They can burrow underground.

[Colonel Swift]

And we've got a bat that could.

[Narrator]

Do aerial reconnaissance for them.

[Captain Dylan]

They know everything about you and we don't know anything about them. They're probably sitting out there right now, swarming behind those trees, waiting for it to get nice and dark. All right. You better get back to the others and tell them I'll stay here.

[Narrator]

Why?

[Captain Dylan]

Because we only need one. If we could just get one back to a lab, we'd have some clue to what they are. We can't just cut and run. We gotta make a stand.

[Narrator]

I didn't think the army made stand, but they just pulled out.

[Captain Dylan]

Yeah, I suppose so. An army does what it has to. And ours is weak and filled with men like me. But even so, there comes a time when you have to make a stand. I stayed out there in the snow. I wasn't thinking very calmly. It was too cold. But it was probably just as well. I put in about 10 minutes being afraid of whatever it was that was behind those trees. What I needed was luck. Just good, plain old luck. I didn't know where they were or how many there were or what kind. So I needed luck. I started to inch forward in the snow. There was nothing but quiet in the trees. I got past the first trunk. My elbow hit a rock and it hurt. My feet were cold. And then I heard a noise. The thing was moving down the left side of a gorge up ahead. I got up on my knees. I blew on my fingers. I threw the charge level on my pistol over to full. It was a great black lump on a platform. The platform had legs and was plotting up a path that came right past me. It hadn't seen me yet, but it would. There were five of those little monkeys skipping on before it, acting as eyes. Then one of them spotted me and started running. My first shot took the monkey in the head. And then I aimed for the lump on the platform. They got one blast off before I hit anything vital. It burned across my shoulder. My shirt charred. Felt as if I'd been hit in the arm with an axe. Nothing else moved. The monkeys were stiff, like statues in the platforms on its side. Through a hole in the black lump, something gray and soft was oozing out. I looked around and saw the robots frozen. And I realized I'd got him. I'd hit the guide. The alien who was directing the robots. I kicked at it with my foot, was too big and heavy to carry. I'd have to send someone back for it. But I wanted to take something. So I grabbed one of the monkeys by a stiff and began to drag it back to the village. We put the alien in a freeze tank and shipped it back to Earth. They learned a lot in the lab, but out there in the colony we learned a lot more. We learned that man wasn't born to live out his days at home by the fire in the wee black corner of space which man had taken for his own. Other men were learning. And the snow fell and the planets whirled. And when it was spring, where I had fought, men were already leaping back out to the stars.

[Russell]

You have just heard X minus 1. Presented by the National Broadcasting Company in cooperation with Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine, which this month features the Native Problem by Robert Sheckley, in which a misfit discovers that there is not plenty of room in space for his kind, that in fact, there is less room in space for him than anywhere else. Galaxy magazine on your newsstand today. Tonight, by transcription, X minus 1 has brought you Soldier Boy, a story from the pages of Galaxy, written by Michael Scherer and adapted for radio by Ernest Kanoy. Featured in the cast were Larry Haynes as Dylan, Ralph Bell as Bossio, Alan Hewitt as Russell, Bob Hastings as the shore patrolman, Wendell Holmes as the colonel, and Kermit Murdoch as the alien. Your narrator was Floyd Mack. This is Fred Collins speaking. X Minus one was directed by Daniel Sutter and is an NBC Radio Network production.

[Fred Collins]

One of the best, one of the most popular programs on radio that you bet your Life with Groucho Marx. And here's a reminder now Groucho can be heard on Saturdays, and he's on at a time when every member of the family, from junior to grandpa, can join in the laughter that goes with each question and answer session. A new day, a new hour, but the very same fun and good times that have made Groucho and YOU BET your Life so popular throughout the years. Have you ever met a hamburger king or an earthworm farmer or a famous beauty contest winner? Well, these are some of those who have appeared as Groucho's guests. Who will be his guests tomorrow? Well, that's a secret, but you can bet your life they'll be full of fun and surprises. Have you ever heard Groucho sing his classic, Captain Spalding or throw a romantic line at a pretty girl? Well, listen in and you'll find out. Hear music in the Morgan Manor Russ Morgan live weekday mornings on NBC Bandstand.