Conundrum in the Desert
(by Matt McIrvin, with comedy
improvements by James "Kibo" Parry)
(Music. Superimpose title on a rotating, dish-like object, mounted on top of an oscilloscope cabinet:
SCIENTIFICTION
PLAYHOUSE
A GIX Television Production
The camera pans past several boxes with ammeters on them. Enter COOLIDGE MERCER, holding a rose.)
Hello, I'm your host, Coolidge Mercer. What I have here is an ordinary, perfect red rose. You're all familiar with the lovely smell of such a flower. (Smells rose.) But did you know that the smell of this rose can start a deadly fire? That's exactly what this parabolic odor antenna developed at Universal Telegraphic Labs can do.
(MERCER gestures toward another object resembling a dish antenna. A match is clamped to a stand in front of it; a thick electric wire runs up the stand and along the clamp.)
This match is mounted at the "focus," or center of gravity, of the odor antenna. Now suppose I hold the flower right here.
(MERCER holds the flower in front of the dish, a few feet from the match. Suddenly the match bursts into violent flame and throws a few sparks. Squibs go off elsewhere on the table.)
The smell of the flower-a seemingly harmless smell-can cause a remarkably large effect. This is an example of "genetic adaptation," just as the bumblebee adapts to flight, despite the protest of the scientist who knows that it cannot be so. And that is the subject of tonight's story, a story that could happen...right now.
(Title:
CONUNDRUM IN THE DESERT
A desert road with a couple of Joshua trees. A wood-paneled pickup truck stops, and a couple of PROSPECTORS emerge, carrying a pickaxe and a meat thermometer wired to an ammeter.)
(holding pickaxe) They say the government gives fifty dollars to anyone finding radium. Boy, I sure hope we find some of that radium here. We've been searching all week, and we've found nothing.
(holding meat thermometer) Oh, don't you worry. This Geiger counter will see us through. It could sniff out a speck of plutonium the size of a pea.
I hope we find more radium than that!
(GRIZZLED OLDSTER runs into the scene, brandishing a shotgun.)
Off my land! Off my land, I say!
I'll have you know that this is a U.S. Goverment missile range! And we've got an official permit to look for radium here!
Well, if pigs have wings, I don't care! This is my land, because I say so, and so does my trusty shootin' iron, Bessie!
(Softly) I have an idea, Jake. Maybe we could cut him a deal. (Louder) Say, Pops, what would you say to a cut of the take? How about thirty percent of the money we make when we strike it rich with radium?
Well... (scratches his chin) all right. But no monkey business, you hear? And seeing as you're here, you might as well have dinner with the missus and me.
It's a deal, old-timer.
(The OLDSTER's remote cabin. The OLDSTER'S WIFE, a strangely young and attractive woman, is clearing the dinner table. The OLDSTER retreats behind a mysterious door in the rear wall. The PROSPECTORS speak softly to each other, eyeing the WIFE lasciviously.)
Saay, now, I could get to like prospecting around here.
Now she's the kind of H-bomb I go for. Her molecules are stacked!
I'll say. But I wonder what our friend the forty-niner is doing behind that door.
Beats me. (A sudden electronic glissando.) Hey, Jake! Take a look at the Geiger counter!
(Close-up of the meat thermometer, which registers 425 curies Fahrenheit.)
Maybe it's coming from over there.
(Picks up the meat thermometer and the ammeter, and carries them over to the mysterious door. Close-up of the meat thermometer, going wild.)
Hey, I think he's got enough radium in there to build his own atomic pile!
(Opens the door. Inside lies the GRIZZLED OLDSTER, motionless, face-down on the floor. Next to him is a small cube of metal, about an inch on a side.)
Let's get out of here, Jake!
(They run for the door, but are blocked by the OLDSTER'S WIFE, who has a seductive, evil expression on her face.)
What's the matter, boys? Wouldn't you like to stay a while?
(Music. Commercial.)
(Title:)
CONUNDRUM IN THE DESERT
(VOICEOVER) After fleeing the mysterious cabin, our prospectors visited Dr. Herbert Krause, a leading expert on radiation and hysterical disorders.
(KRAUSE's wood-paneled office. A movie projector and screen are to one side; the projector bears a reel of film.)
In some ways, this is not an unusual case. For instance, consider the black widow spider. She mates and then kills her husband. It is the same with the praying mantis, and the lemming.
So, Doc, you're saying that...that woman was like an insect?
Very much so. And the cause may have been radiation. You say that the metal cube was radioactive. Radioactivity has been known to affect the pineal and endocrine glands. And in a woman of hysteric constitution, this could constrict the frontal lobes, inducing insect-like behavior. Observe this film.
(KRAUSE starts the projector. The film shows a pair of mice walking around on a rotating turntable, seen from above.)
These mice have been exposed to 6,000 pounds of radium. As you can see, this has almost completely negated the effects of gravity. Those mice are as light as fleas.
Gee, Doc, I always thought that what goes up must come down.
Not if it is a rocket-powered, orbiting satellite.
I never thought of that.
But she seemed so young, Doc!
Another effect of the radiation. As I said, those mice are not subject to gravity, (pause) as we know it. Under those conditions, they could live a thousand years. The only cure is a simple frontal lobotomy, such as we would give any neurotic person, or hysterical woman.
Well, I suppose we'd better call the authorities, just to be safe. ...And we may need your services, Dr. Krause.
I am glad to oblige. Science must serve the best interests of humanity. It must...and does.
(The desert cabin. Police and doctors mill about.)
I don't get it, Officer. There's nobody here! Not even a body!
We haven't found any woman matching your description, sir. Nor have there been any reports of the old man living in this area. It's as if they disappeared into thin air.
Perhaps they did, Officer.
What do you mean?
(pointing out door) Look.
(The PROSPECTORS, Dr. KRAUSE, and the OFFICER leave the cabin. In the sand outside is a peculiar, darkened area, shaped like a circle.)
It's almost as if...
They escaped in a flying saucer, into outer space!
I wonder if that's just what they did.
(Music swells, with the title THE END.)
(COOLIDGE MERCER's desk, where he sits in a comfortable armchair, reading Scientific American.)
A strange cube possibly made of radium. A woman who behaves like an insect. And two people who just may have come from outer space in a flying saucer... The story we have told for you today is fiction. It did not happen. Could it happen? Genetic adaptation is a scientific fact. And leading experts agree that some of the unbelievable things in this story have a solid basis in scientific reality. If you don't believe me, come with me on a visit with HERBERT.
(MERCER walks over to a low table, completely covered by a tablecloth, which in turn supports a chessboard covered with pieces. Part of a shoe is visible beneath the tablecloth. Wires and tubes emerge from the tablecloth to connect to a large box covered with blinking lights and breathing holes; a centrally located oscilloscope displays a sine wave.)
Meet my friend HERBERT. HERBERT is a chess-playing computer developed at Universal Telegraphic Labs. His name is short for "Heuristically Educated Robot Brain Energized by Radioactive Thought." How do you do, HERBERT?
How! Do! You! Do! Mr.! Mercer! How! Do! You! Do! Mr.! Mercer!
HERBERT and I are in the middle of a friendly game of chess. And I see that it's my move. (MERCER moves a white pawn. Lights blink on HERBERT's front panel, then a black rook shakily creeps diagonally to the white king and knocks it over.)
Check! Mate! Check! Mate!
(smiling broadly) Well, what do you know!... Join us next week for another adventure from the thrilling world of fiction...and science.
(Music. Closing credits.)