Loading...
About this Episode
A surreal sci-fi series exploring speculative concepts, dreams, and philosophical what-ifs. Each episode is a cerebral journey into the mind’s deepest questions.
Transcript
Finding great candidates to hire can be like, well, trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Sure, you can post your job to some job board, but then all you can do is hope the right person comes along.
Which is why you should try Zip Recruiter for free.
At ziprecruiter.com slash zip.
Zip Recruiter doesn't depend on candidates finding you.
It finds them for you.
It's powerful technology identifies people with the right experience and actively invites them to apply to your job.
You get qualified candidates fast.
So, while other companies might deliver a lot of hay, Zip Recruiter finds you what you're looking for.
The needle in the haystack.
See why four out of five employers who post a job on Zip Recruiter get a quality candidate within the first day.
Zip Recruiter, the smartest way to hire.
And right now, you can try Zip Recruiter for free.
That's right.
At ziprecruiter.com slash zip.
That ziprecruiter.com slash zip.
Zip Recruiter.com slash zip.
Access to affordable credit helps me pay my employees.
But I don't really need it.
The inflation is killing me.
Who cares? Big retailers and making record profits.
That's why we support the German Marshall credit card bill.
See?
Banks and credit unions help small businesses make payroll.
This bill would cut the vital resources they need.
While increasing megastore profits.
They deserve it.
Don't they?
Tell Congress stop the German Marshall money grab for corporate megastores.
Paid for it by the electronic payments coalition.
Finding great candidates the hire can be like, well, trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Sure, you can post your job to some job board.
But then all you can do is hope the right person comes along.
Which is why you should try Zip Recruiter for free.
At ziprecruiter.com slash zip.
Zip Recruiter doesn't depend on candidates finding you.
It finds them for you.
It's powerful technology identifies people with the right experience.
And actively invites them to apply to your job.
You get qualified candidates fast.
So while other companies might deliver a lot of, hey, zip Recruiter, find you what you're looking for.
The needle in the haystack.
See why four out of five employers who post a job on zip Recruiter get a quality candidate within the first day.
Zip Recruiter, the smartest way to hire.
And right now you can try Zip Recruiter for free.
That's right.
Free at ziprecruiter.com slash zip.
That ziprecruiter.com slash zip.
Zip Recruiter.com slash zip.
Zip Recruiter.com welding.
Mindblad.
Welcome to a half hour of mind-waves, short stories from the worlds of speculative fiction.
This is Michael Hanson.
The story this evening is gained for a motel room by Fritz Lieber copyright 1963 by Mercury Press.
Sonya moved around the warm, deeply carpeted motel room in the first grey trickle of dawn,
as if to demonstrate how endlessly beautiful a body can be if only its owner will let it.
Even the body of a woman in, well, perhaps your 40s, Burton Jones, might have some lazy recoup for having thought that grudging word even.
It occurred to him that bodies did not automatically grow less beautiful with age, but that a lot of bodies are neglected, abused, even hated by their owners.
Women in particular are happy to grow contemptuous in the shame of their flesh, and it's always shows.
They start thinking old and ugly and pretty soon they look at it.
Like a car, a body needs tender, constant care, regular tune-ups, an occasional small repair and above all it needs to be intimately loved by its owner, and from time to time by an admiring second party.
And then it never loses beauty and dignity, even when it corrupts in the end and dies.
All the dawns, the cold hour for philosophy, Burton told himself, and somehow philosophy always gets around the cold topics, just as love-making and all the rest of the best of life make one remember death, and even worse things.
His lean arms snaked out to the bedside table, came back with a cigarette, an empty folder of matches.
Sonia noticed, and she rummaged in her pale ivory traveling case and tossed him a black pear-shaped lighter.
Burton caught the thing, lit his cigarette, and then studied it.
It seemed to be made of black ivory, and shaped rather like the grip of a revolver while the striking mechanism was a blue steel.
The effect was sinister.
Like it?
Sonia asked from across the room.
Uh, frankly, no. It doesn't really suit you.
You show good taste to our sound instinct. It's a vacation present for my husband.
Yeah, he has bad taste, and married you.
He has bad everything.
Hush, baby.
Burton didn't mind.
Not talking, letting him concentrate on watching Sonia.
Slian and crop heritage, he looked as trimly beautiful as her classic cream-colored hardtop, the Italian sportscar,
in which she had driven into this cozy hideaway from the bar where they had picked each other up.
Her movements now, stooping to retrieve a smoke-blue stocking and trellet across a chair,
momentarily teasing a part two ribs in the upward-slanting Venetian blinds,
appeared to cold, gray, world outside, executing the fraction of a dance figure, stopping the smile and emptiness.
These movements added up to nothing, but the rhythms and symbolisms of a dream.
Yet it was the sort of dream in which actor and onlooker might float forever.
In the morning twilight, she looked now like a schoolgirl, now like a witch,
now like an age-out-witting ballerina out for her 25th season,
but still in every way the supreme of ballerina.
As she moved, she hummed in a deep, contralto voice attuned that Burton didn't recognize,
and as she hummed, the dim air in front of her lower face seemed to change color very faintly,
the deep purples and blues and browns, matching the tones of the melody.
Pure illusion, Burton was sure, like that which some hashesh eaters and wheat smokers experience during their ecstasy
when they hear words as colors, but most enjoyable.
To exercise his mind, now that his body had had its fill,
and while his eyes were satisfyingly occupied, Burton began to set an order,
the reasons why a mature lover is preferable to one within you-hooing distance of 20 in either direction.
Reason one, she does quite as much of the approach work as you do.
Sonia had been both heart-warmingly straight forward and remarkably intuitive at the bar last night.
Reason two, she's generally well-equipped for adventure.
Sonia had provided both sports car and motel room.
Reason three, she doesn't go into an emotional tail-splint after the act of love,
even if her thoughts trend toward death, then, like yours do.
Sonia seemed both lovely and sensible, the sort of woman it was good to think of getting married to and having children by.
Sonia turned to him with a smile.
Sorry, baby, but that's quite impossible, especially your second notion.
Did you really read my mind?
What do you mean? Why couldn't we have children?
I think I'll take a little chance and tell you why.
She came over and sat on the bed beside him and bent down and kissed him on the forehead.
That was nice. Did it mean anything special?
It was to make you forget everything I'm going to tell you.
How? How if I'm to understand what to tell?
After a while, I will kiss you again on the forehead and then you will forget everything I've told you in between.
Or if you're very good, I'll kiss you on the nose.
And then you'll remember, but you won't be able to tell anyone.
Well, if you say so. But what is it you're going to tell me?
Oh, just that I'm from another planet in a distant star cluster and I belong to a totally different species.
We could no more start a child in a Chihuahua in a cat or giraffe in a rhinoceros.
Unlike the mare and the donkey, we couldn't even get a cute little sterile mule with glossy fur and blue bows on its ears.
Burton Grind. He had just thought of reason four.
I really grown up a lover plays the most delightfully childish nonsense games.
Now, go on.
Well, superficially, of course, I'm very like an earth woman.
I have two arms and two legs and this and these.
Yeah, for which I am eternally grateful.
You like them, huh?
Yeah, I do. Especially these.
Watch out. They don't even give milk. They're used in asking.
You see, inside I'm very different. My mind is different, too.
It can do mathematics faster and better than any one of your electric calculating machines.
Oh, yeah. What's two and two?
22 and also 100 in the binary system and 11 in the trinary and four in the dual decimal.
I have perfect recall. I can remember every leaf thing I've ever done and every word of every book I've ever leafed through.
I can read unshielded minds. In fact, anything up to triple shielding and harm in colors.
I can direct my body heat so that I never really need clothes to get me warm at temperatures above freezing.
I can walk on water if I concentrate and even fly.
So I don't do it here because it would make me conspicuous.
Yeah, especially at the present moment, though it'd be one hell of a sight.
Why are you here, by the way, and not behaving yourself on your home planet?
I want vacation.
Really?
Yeah. Well, we use your rather primitive planet for vacations like you use Africa and the Canadian for it.
A little machine teaches us during one night's sleep, several of your languages.
It implants in our brains the necessary background information, too.
My husband surprised me by giving me the money for this vacation.
The same time it gave me the letter. Usually he's very stingy.
But perhaps he had some little plot.
I don't know, an affair with his chief nuclear chemist, I guess, and wanting me out of the way.
I can't be sure, though, because he always keeps his mind quadruple shield even from me.
So you actually have husbands in your planet, too?
Oh, yes. Indeed, very jealous, and possessive ones, too.
So watch yourself, please.
Yeah, although my planet is much more advanced than yours, we still have husbands and wives,
and a very stuffy system of monogamy.
That seems to go on forever and everywhere.
Oh, yes, and on my planet we have deaths, and taxes, and life insurance, and wars,
and all the rest of the universal idiocy.
I don't want to talk about that anymore, or about my husband.
Let's talk about you. Let's play truth.
Speak down truth.
Okay.
What's the thing you're most afraid of in the whole world?
Oh, jeez, you really want me to give you an honest answer to that?
Of course. It's the first rule of the game.
Well, I guess I'm most afraid of something going wrong with my brain, you know?
Growing wrong, really, something like a brain tumor, that'd be it.
Oh, you poor baby.
Just wait a minute.
Still uneasy from his confession, Burton started nervously to pick up Sonia's black lighter,
but its black pistol looked repelled him.
Sonia came bustling back with something else in her right hand.
Sit up. No, none of that. This is serious.
I pretend I'm a very proper lady doctor who just forgot to get dressed.
Burton could see her slim back, and his own face over her right shoulder
in the wide mirror of the dresser.
She slipped her right hand and the small object had held behind his head,
and there was a click.
No, I can't see any sign of something wrong in your brain, or it's likely to grow wrong.
It's as healthy as an ancient.
What's the matter, piece?
Look, Sonia, it's wonderful to play nonsense games and all that,
but when you start using magic tricks or hypnotism to back them up,
well, that's cheating.
And what do you mean?
I mean, when you clicked that thing, I saw my head turn into a pinkish skull,
and then into like a pulsing blob with folds in it.
Oh, I'd forgotten the mirror, but you really were just imagining things.
You were having a mild optical spasm and seeing colors.
No, I won't let you see my little XYZ-ray machine.
She tossed it across the rule into her traveling case.
It would spoil our little nonsense games.
As his breathing and thoughts quieted, Burton decided she was possibly right,
or at least that he'd best pretend she was right.
It was the safest and sanest thing to think of what he'd glimpsed in the mirror as an illusion,
like the faint colors he'd fancy performing in front of her humming lips.
Perhaps Sonia had an effect on him like Hashish or some super marijuana,
plausible enough I'd be considering how much more powerful a beautiful woman is than any drug,
nevertheless.
All right, Sonia.
Tell me, what's your deepest fear?
I don't want to tell you.
Come on, I stuck to the rules.
My husband will go crazy and kill me.
That's a much more dreadful fear on my planet than yours,
because we've conquered all diseases, and we each of us can live forever,
though it is customary to disintegrate after 40 to 50,000 years.
And we each of us have tremendous physical and mental powers
so that the mere thought of any genuine insanity is dressfully shocking.
Insanity is so nearly unknown to us that even our advanced intuition doesn't work on it,
and what's unknown is always most frightening.
By insanity, I don't mean minor irrationalities.
We have those.
My husband, for instance, is bugged on the number 33.
He won't begin any important venture except in the 33rd day of the month.
And me, I have a weakness for a black-haired baby from a primitive planet.
Hey, wait a minute.
You said the 33rd day of the month?
Yeah, my planet has longer months, nights, too.
You'd love more time for demonstrating affection and empathy.
You play this nonsense game pretty seriously,
like you'd read nothing but speculative fiction all your life.
You know, maybe there's more inspecative fiction than you realize.
But I always had enough of that game.
Come on, black-haired baby, let's play.
Hey, wait a minute. Wait a minute.
She drew back, making a sulky mouth at him.
He made his own grim, or perhaps his half-emerged thoughts did that for him.
Okay, so you've got a husband on your planet,
and he's got tremendous powers,
and you're definitely afraid he's going to go crazy and try to kill you.
And now he does an out-of-character thing
by giving you vacation money and...
Oh, yes. He's such a dreadful mixed-up Superman.
He always keeps up that permissible but uncustomary quadruple shield,
and he looks at me with such a secret gloating viciousness when we're alone,
that I'm choked full of fear day and night,
and I've wished I could really get something on him
so that I could run to an officer of public safety
and have the maniac put away.
But I can't. I can't. He never makes a slip.
I begin to see how I'm going crazy.
I, with my supremely trained and guarded mind,
and I just have to get away to vacation planets and forget them
and loving someone else.
Come on, baby. Let's...
Okay, wait a minute.
You said you've got insurance on your planet, right?
Are you insured for very much?
A very great deal.
You know, perfect health and a life expectancy of 50,000 years
makes the premium rather cheap.
All right, and your husband's a beneficiary?
Yes, he is. Come on, Burton.
Let's not talk about him. Let's...
No, Sonya, what does your husband do?
I mean, what is his work?
He manages a bomb factory.
I work there, too. I told you we had wars.
They're between the league, our planet belongs to,
and another star cluster.
You've just started to discover the super bombs on Earth,
the fission bomb, the fusion bomb.
They are clumsy, oversized toys.
The bombs, my husband's factory manufacturers,
can each of them destroy a planet.
They're really fuses for starting the matter
of the planet disintegrating spontaneously
so that it flashes into a little star.
If the bombs are so tiny,
you can hold one in your hand.
In fact, the cigarette lighter is an exact model
of one of them.
The models were used for a cosmos-day presence
to type official.
My husband gave me this along with the vacation money, Burton.
Which one of those foul Earth cigarettes, will you?
If you're going to refuse the other excitement,
I've got to have something.
Finding great candidates to hire can be like,
well, trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Sure, you can post your job to some job board.
But then all you can do is hope the right person comes along.
Which is why you should try Zippercrooter for free.
Add zippercrooter.com slash zip.
Zippercrooter doesn't depend on candidates finding you.
It finds them for you.
It's powerful technology identifies people with the right experience
and actively invites them to apply to your job.
You get qualified candidates fast.
So, while other companies might deliver a lot of hey,
Zippercrooter finds you what you're looking for.
The needle in the haystack.
See why four out of five employers who post a job on Zippercrooter
get a quality candidate within the first day.
Zippercrooter, the smartest way to hire.
And right now, you can try Zippercrooter for free.
That's right, free.
Add zippercrooter.com slash zip.
That zippercrooter.com slash zip.
Zippercrooter.com slash zip.
Access to affordable credit helps me pay my employees.
But I don't really need it.
Inflation is killing me.
But who cares?
Big retailers and making record profits.
That's why we support the Durban Marshall Credit Card Bill.
See?
Banks and credit unions help small businesses make payroll.
This bill would cut the vital resources they need.
While increasing Megastore profits.
They deserve it.
Don't they?
Tell Congress stop the Durban Marshall Money Grab for corporate megastores.
Paid for it by the Electronic Payments Coalition.
Finding great candidates to hire can be like, well,
trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Sure, you can post your job to some job board.
But then all you can do is hope the right person comes along.
Which is why you should try Zippercrooter for free.
Add zippercrooter.com slash zip.
Zippercrooter doesn't depend on candidates finding you.
It finds them for you.
It's powerful technology identifies people with the right experience
and actively invites them to apply to your job.
You get qualified candidates fast.
So, while other companies might deliver a lot of hey,
Zippercrooter finds you what you're looking for.
The needle in the haystack.
See why four out of five employers who post a job on Zippercrooter
get a quality candidate within the first day.
Zippercrooter, the smartest way to hire.
And right now, you can try Zippercrooter for free.
That's right.
Free.
Add zippercrooter.com slash zip.
That zippercrooter.com slash zip.
Zippercrooter.com slash zip.
Okay.
Tell me one more thing, Sonya.
Now, you say you've got a perfect memory.
How many times have you struck that cigarette lighter
since your husband gave it to you?
Uh, 31 times, counting the one time you used it.
She flicked it on and touched the tiny blue flame
to her cigarette and hailed deeply.
And let the tiny snuffer snap down the flame.
Twin plumes of faint smoke reaved from her nostrils.
And that's 32 now.
She held the black pear-shaped object towards him.
Her thumb on the neural distilled blue trigger.
Shall I give you a light?
No.
Sonya, as you value your life and mine
and the lives of three billion other primitives,
don't work that lighter again.
Put it down.
All right, all right, baby.
She smiled nervously and dropped the black thing on the white sheets.
Why is baby so excited?
Sonya, look, maybe I am crazy
or maybe you are only playing an on-sense game
backed up with hypnotism, but...
But what is it, baby?
If you really do come from another planet
where there's almost no insanity, homicidal or otherwise,
well, I'm going to tell you'll be news, Sonya.
We've just lately had several murders here on Earth
where a man plants a time bomb on a big commercial airplane
to explode it in the air and kill all the passengers and crew
just to do away with a single person,
generally for the sake of collecting a big insurance policy.
Now, if an Earth murderer could be cold blooded
or mad enough to do that,
why couldn't a super murderer...
No, no, not blow up a whole planet to get
that of just one person.
Well, why not?
Your husband is crazy.
Only you can't prove it.
He hates you, right?
He stands to collect a fortune if you die in an accident.
Like on a primitive vacation planet that explodes,
he gives you the money for a vacation on such a planet.
And at the same time, he gives you a cigarette lighter
that's an exact model of...
I can't believe it.
Not a whole planet.
But that's the sort of thing insanity can be, Sonya.
And what's more, you can check it.
Use that XYZ-ray gadget thing of yours
to look through the lighter.
But he couldn't.
Not even he could.
Look through the lighter, will you?
Sonya picked up the black thing by its base
and carried it over to a traveling case.
Remember not to flick it.
You told me he was bogged on the number 33.
I imagine that would be about the right number to allow
to make sure that you were settled on your vacation planet
before anything happened.
He saw the shiver travel down her back as he said that.
And suddenly Burton was shaking so much himself
he couldn't possibly have moved.
Sonya's hands were on the other side of her body
from him busy above her traveling case.
There was a click, and her pinkish skeleton showed through her.
It was not quite the same as the skeleton of an Earth human.
There were two long bones in the upper arms and upper legs,
fewer ribs, and what looked like two tiny skulls in the chest.
She turned around, not looking at him.
You were right, and now I've got the evidence
to put my husband away forever.
I can't wait.
She whirled into action, snatching articles of clothing
from the floor chairs and dresser,
whipping them into her traveling case.
The whole frantic little dance took her less than 10 seconds.
Her hand was on the outside door before she paused.
She looked at Burton, put down her traveling case
and came over to the bed and sat down beside him.
Poor baby.
I'm going to have to wipe out your memory
and yet you were so very clever.
I really mean that Burton.
He wanted to object, but he felt paralyzed.
She put her arms around him and moved her lips towards his forehead.
Suddenly she said,
No, I can't do that. There's got to be some reward for you.
She bent her head and kissed him partly on the nose.
Then she disengaged herself,
hurried to her bag, picked it up, and opened the door.
Besides, I hate for you to forget any part of me.
Hey, you can't go out like that.
Why not?
You don't have any clothes on.
On my planet, we don't wear them.
The door slammed behind her.
Burton sprang out of bed and threw it open again.
He was just in time to see the sports car take off straight up.
Burton stood in the open door for half a minute,
stark naked himself,
looking around at the unexploded earth.
And he started to say a lot.
Gash, I didn't even get the name of her planet,
but his lips were sealed.
You've heard Fritz Lieber's story,
game for Motel Room, copyright 1963,
but the Mercury Press.
This is Michael Hanson,
reading with millions,
the princess from the 94st,
technical production for this program by Bob Chan.
Mindwebs has produced a WHA radio and Madison,
a service of University of Wisconsin Extension.
Warning, the following Zippercruder radio spot
you are about to hear is going to be filled with F words.
When you're hiring,
we at Zippercruder know you can feel frustrated.
For Lauren even,
like your efforts are futile,
and you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people,
only to get flooded with candidates who are just fine.
F***!
Fortunately, Zippercruder figured out how to fix all that.
And right now, you can try Zippercruder for free
at zippercruder.com slash zip.
With Zippercruder, you can forget your frustrations
because we find the right people for your roles fast,
which is our absolute favorite effort.
In fact, 4 out of 5 employers who post on Zippercruder
get a quality candidate within the first day.
Fantastic!
So, whether you need to hire 4,
40, or 400 people,
get ready to meet first straight talent.
Just go to zippercruder.com slash zip
to try Zippercruder for free.
Don't forget that zippercruder.com slash zip.
Finally, that zippercruder.com slash zip.
Warning, the following Zippercruder radio spot
you are about to hear is going to be filled with F words.
When you're hiring, we at Zippercruder know you can feel frustrated.
For lore and even.
Like your efforts are futile.
And you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people
only to get flooded with candidates who are just...
Fine.
F***!
Fortunately, Zippercruder figured out how to fix all that.
And right now, you can try Zippercruder for free
at zippercruder.com slash zip.
With Zippercruder, you can forget your frustrations
because we find the right people for your roles fast
which is our absolute favorite effort.
In fact, four out of five employers who post on Zippercruder
get a quality candidate within the first day.
Fantastic!
So, whether you need to hire four, 40 or 400 people
get ready to meet first straight talent.
Just go to zippercruder.com slash zip to try Zippercruder for free.
Don't forget that zippercruder.com slash zip.
Finally, at zippercruder.com slash zip.
Access to affordable credit helps me pay my employees
that I don't really need it.
Infliction is killing me!
Who cares?
Big retailers and making record profits!
That's why we support the German Marshall Credit Card Bill!
See?
Banks and credit unions help small businesses make payroll.
This bill would cut the vital resources they need.
While increasing mega store profits, they deserve it.
Don't they?
Tell Congress, stop the German Marshall Money Grave
for corporate megastores.
Paid for by the Electronic Payments Coalition.
