Original subtitles

Good evening. Do you enjoy assembling your own high fidelity or stereophonic

sound systems?

with their complicated components and speakers on every wall, then you will be

especially interested in what I'm about to show you. I have just developed what

I consider the latest in sound reproduction.

This is designed for those persons who desire simplicity rather than fidelity.

As you can see, there is only one speaker, nor is that the only

We have also eliminated the old -fashioned record changer.

Now only two attachments are necessary.

A small crank and a hearing aid.

By the way, neither of those items is needed for our next number.

All right, the police caught her outside of the house.

What's the charge?

Drinking in public view.

I don't know, maybe I can get something out of it. Thank you very much.

Everett here.

Yeah. No, I'm not too busy. I got a little toy to knock out, but I can do it

later.

Huh? Okay, Corrigan, I'll be right in.

You know Barney Welch?

Never heard of him. Not much. He runs a tavern right across the street.

I... I've seen you in there a hundred times.

Yeah, I know him. He mixes a pretty good drink. Look, you ask me a silly

question, I'm gonna give you a silly answer.

What about it?

He just called in a tip on what might be his story.

Says there's a guy over there who claims he's a Martian. A Martian?

You mean from the planet Mars?

That's what he says.

Barney thought there might be a gag story in it.

He's going to keep them over there till we get somebody over there to talk to

him.

You're the boss. I'm on my way. Hey, no drinks on the expense account.

What about the drinks I've got to buy him to make him talk?

All right, but don't go overboard.

All right.

Hello, Barney. Did you talk to Cargan?

Yeah.

Guy at the end of the counter.

What, you think he's drunk?

Doesn't seem so.

I'd say he's cold sober when he walked in.

That's only the second glass of beer he's had.

Here.

Well, look, Barney, he's either kidding you or he's crazy.

Sure didn't sound like he was kidding.

Sounded serious and pretty worried.

Well, then he's crazy.

I guess.

Don't know what else.

Listen, Barney, I'm going to walk down and brace you. Now, when I sit down, you

bring down a couple of beers.

That is, if you'll talk to me.

I'll talk to you, all right.

I already set it up for you.

Good. Now, what did you tell him? Did you tell him I'm a reporter or what?

Just told him I had a friend who's a real smart guy and could give him good

advice about what to do.

You might climb up if you tell him you're a reporter.

Well, as long as you were good enough to set this up for me, then I got time for

a shot.

Here's Powell.

One more of these and I'll be ready for the Martians.

Sure, Bill.

How much did he tell you?

That he's a Martian.

Well, did he tell you how he got here on Earth?

How long he's been here?

Hasn't an idea how he got here.

As for when, about two hours ago, he says.

Yeah.

Tell you his name?

Let's see.

Yang something.

Oh, yeah.

Yang and Dahl.

Yeah, well, I'll bet that's not the name on his driver's license.

Well, here goes nothing.

Mr. Dahl, my name is Everett. You know, the man that Barney mentioned.

Oh, glad to meet you, Mr. Everett.

Now, sit down.

What'll you have?

Bartender? Don't bother. I already ordered two beers before I came over.

thanks.

Um, please don't call me Mr. Doll.

We don't use titles, and it sounds strange.

Call me Yang, then.

Or just Yang.

Well, all righty, Yang.

Tell you what.

Why don't you call me Bill?

I don't like formalities, either.

You better take the rest of this.

Do you drink beer on Mars?

Oh, no.

Nothing alcoholic at all.

Alcohol is poison to a Martian, even in very small quantities.

Well, how come you're drinking it now?

Because this isn't me you're looking at, Bill.

This is somebody else's body I suddenly found myself in.

You speak pretty good English.

Well, that's because this body I'm in.

I'm not him.

But I've got his memories besides my own.

I know everything that he knew.

That includes his language.

Your language, of course.

Well, if you have his memories, you must know his name.

Well, sure.

Howard Wilcox.

Well, you wouldn't have anything to verify that. You know, like

driver's license or something.

Well, I don't need it.

I know.

But if you want proof... Driver's license on top, other

cards under it, social security, couple of club memberships, things like that.

Hmm.

Howard Wilcox, 614 Bryn Mawr Street.

Is that your address?

It's Howard Wilcox's address, yes.

Of course, I remember it because I remember everything that he knew, but...

not Howard Wilcox.

But I don't want to talk about him.

I want to talk about me.

The real me.

Not this body I'm in.

But can I ask you a question first?

Sure.

Are

you

a doctor?

I know the bartender thinks I'm crazy. He was nice about it, but I could tell

thought so.

Did he fend for you because you're a doctor?

No, I'm not a doctor.

And I'm not a cop either.

It's just that Barney knows I'm interested in psychology.

But you're not a psychologist?

No, no, I work in an office about three or four blocks from here.

Yeah, I guess you could call me a lay psychologist.

Do you think I'm insane?

Well, people who usually are don't wonder whether they are or not.

Look, why don't you just start from the beginning?

Well... I'll start three days ago.

Three days ago, I was on Mars.

I was a Martian.

I am a Martian, I mean, but... Well... This isn't my own body I'm in.

My own body is nothing like this one.

I'm about eight feet tall.

Your method of measurement?

Six -fingered hands.

The fingers jointed differently from yours.

This body I'm in, it frightens me.

It seems awkward to me.

You sure distract yourself.

You're a gang and doll, and three days ago you were on Mars.

Go on.

Well, three days ago, they stopped bringing me food.

I was locked in a place... Well, it was something like what you'd call a jail.

The window was barred, but you could... You could see the street outside.

It had been a busy street.

Hundreds of people walking by in an hour.

Sometimes I used to count them.

Just to pass the time.

Make a game of it.

Try and guess how many go by in the next hour and then count them to see how

close my guess had been.

That morning there was no one on the street.

Empty.

Deserted.

No one came to feed me.

And I got hungry and I yelled and pounded on the door, but nobody came.

Yeah, well, uh...

How did you manage to get out?

Took me almost three days.

I managed to pry a stone out of the floor.

And then more of them until I had an area big enough to start digging.

And I tunneled under the door.

Yeah?

I was starving by then.

I went to the... Well, you'd call it the kitchen.

Found food and ate it.

The whole building was deserted.

It was cooked food on the stove, cold.

Big piles of dirty, our equivalent of dishes.

They just walked off and left everything.

Well, I went outside and wandered around the city.

It was Scar, one of our big cities.

Well over a million people.

What is the population of Mars?

Oh, about a hundred million.

That is, there were that many.

Millions are dead now.

I found them finally.

All in one place.

The body's starting to rot.

What killed him?

I don't know.

It wasn't krill.

That's the disease that was killing us off.

It came from the winds off the deserts and our scientists couldn't cure it.

It made Mars a dying world.

A dying world with a hundred million people.

Oh, yes, you see, only a few generations ago, there were about five times as

many of us.

Half a billion instead of a hundred million.

But at the rate Krill was killing us off, there wouldn't have been any of us

all in a generation or so.

Let's have a couple of more beers.

Barney. Hi.

Oh, let me pay for this one. There's plenty of money in this wallet.

That's all right. I've got a company tab here. Oh, thank you very much.

You were saying that the population of Mars was dying.

Yes.

Uh, where was I before I got on the population angle?

You were walking through the streets looking for people, and you couldn't

soul. A city named... Oh, Targon, that's right.

I found a Targon, and I took it... Found a what? A Targon. Something like an

airplane. On a different principle, of course. The air on Mars is too thin.

All right, you took a Targon where?

To Andanel.

That's our biggest city.

You'd call it the capital.

I didn't see anyone there either.

Not until... Until what?

Well, I had an idea.

Although I didn't know what the idea was.

I took the Targon up again, and I headed it for the big ceremonial field north

of Undernel.

And there I found her.

Them?

Yeah, the other Martians.

Yes.

It's a big field.

And we're all there.

Like I said, their body's starting to rot.

I still don't know what killed them.

Well,

you mentioned some disease earlier that was killing them off.

What was the name of it?

Krill?

Yeah, krill. Well, maybe it was that.

When a Martian dies of krill, his body doesn't rot.

It withers.

In the middle of the field, there was a platform big enough for me to land the

target on, and I did.

And in the center of the platform, there was a tall column of copper.

Copper on Mars is like gold or platinum on this planet.

There was a button in the column, and slumped at the foot of the pedestal was

the body of a priest, almost as though he'd pressed the button.

And then died.

You mean mass suicide?

Oh, no.

A Martian never commits suicide.

To us, it's a terrible crime.

I leaned over the priest's body and pressed the button.

And... And?

And in this body, I was walking along a street.

Here on Earth.

Sit down.

How did you know you were on Earth?

Because I had this Howard Wilcox's memories, too.

And I was confused.

I walked and wandered, trying to straighten things out.

And then I... This body got thirsty.

I was passing here and came in.

And I couldn't stand it any longer, and I... I started to talk to the bartender

over here.

You all right?

Yeah.

Did you tell the bartender everything you told me?

Oh, no.

Just the start of it.

He told me to sit down and wait, and he called you.

End of story?

Yeah.

Well, it's been a pleasure.

Well, what am I going to do?

Look, why don't you call your wife?

Why should I?

It isn't my home. It's Howard Wilcox's.

Now, look, Howard or Yangon or whoever you are, right now there's a woman

sitting home and she's worrying about you. The least you could do is call her

and give her an explanation.

But I'd have to tell her the truth.

Martians don't lie.

Yeah, but humans do, and especially to their wives. I mean, let's face it, man,

whether you're part Martian or not.

Whether you're part Martian or not, you're also part Earthman. You've got

Wilcox's memories. Now, what would he do?

Well, call, of course.

But you mean I should pretend to be him?

Act like him?

Howard, possibly a man, a Martian named Yangendall, did die on Mars a few hours

ago. And somehow his mind got mixed up with yours at the time of death. Now,

not saying this is what happened, but it's not entirely impossible.

You've got to believe something.

Believe that.

Yeah, I see what you mean.

Why don't you call her?

Well, what can I tell her?

Well, what would Howard Wilcox tell her? You can answer that better than I can.

Well, I can... I can say that I ran into an old school friend and we got talking

and lost track of time.

That'll do it.

Hey, listen.

Well, if it's going to help you out any, I can go along with you.

Would you?

Yeah.

You will wait, won't you?

Yeah, sure.

Getting along with the Martian?

Yeah, he's quite a fellow.

He's in there talking to his wife.

I wonder what story he's telling her.

You sure you won't let me help you, dear?

Absolutely sure.

You two must still have a lot to talk about.

What do you do, Mr. Edwards?

Oh, well, by preference, I eat wiener schnitzel, but I'm a salesman, you know,

men's clothes.

Oh, at a men's shop?

No, no, wholesale. I travel, cover a lot of the Midwest.

Must be interesting work.

Yeah. Excuse me.

You're a lucky man, Howard.

You have a lovely wife.

Yeah.

You married, Bill?

No, no, not yet.

Maybe someday.

Well, I don't want to wait too long. You'll be sorry.

Yeah.

Bill, I've been thinking.

The advice you gave me in that bar was very good.

I'm going to take it.

Or try to.

Except for one thing.

What's that?

About not telling anyone.

I'm going to tell Elsie all about it tonight.

Yeah, but what are you going to gain by that?

Probably nothing.

That's not the point.

It's just that... Well... Elsie and I have never had any secrets from one

another, and I wouldn't like to start now.

Yeah, but what if she thinks you're insane and wants to have you committed

institution?

I'll try and talk her out of it.

She won't accept my explanation, maybe she might be right.

In other words, if she wants you to accept treatment, you'll do it.

Sure.

And there's another angle.

And what's that?

Well, look how much good it did me talking to you, Bill.

I think it'll do me even more good to talk to Elsie. After all, she's my wife.

Yeah.

Maybe even to other people.

Maybe.

At least to a psychologist.

Listen, Howard, before you make any decisions, I'd like you to take a walk

me. I want to show you something.

Sure, what is it?

Well, it'll be a lot easier to show you than to tell you about it. Look, why

don't you tell your wife we're going after some beer or something. It won't

very long.

Well, if you say so.

Right.

Uh, honey, we're all out of beer and Bill would like some, so we're going to

out. We'll be right back.

All right, dear.

Say, do you think if you're wanting a drink later on, you better stop and pick

it up?

I'll use the last of the gin for the martinis. Will do. Bye, honey.

What is it?

This is it. Come on.

What was it, Bill?

False alarm?

No, he was a Martian, all right.

He didn't know he'd come here.

Thought we were all dead.

What had happened?

Well, apparently he had a mental breakdown.

He was in an institution in Scar.

Somebody slipped up and left him in his room.

Nobody bothered to tell him to score.

But how did he find his way here?

Well, he finally got out of the room. He took a Targon, found a mental control,

pushed the button, had enough juice left to send him after us.

Did you tell him?

No.

No, I couldn't trust him. I was afraid he might talk.

I had to kill him.

You mean you couldn't trust him with the truth?

His IQ was about 20.

By our standards, that's about as smart as an average Earth man.

Luckily, he didn't know that Barney was one of us and tipped us off.

What about the wife?

Does she suspect anything?

No, not a thing. But she can identify me.

I think you better move me up to copy desk.

You know, keep me from wandering around during the day.

All right.

What about your evenings?

I'll stay in my apartment.

Won't be for long.

Just until we take over.

Our next bit of science fiction comes in the form of a one -minute commercial,

after which I shall reappear.

As for Mr. Everett, I should say that he was caught and paid his debt to

society, except that the Earthman Society, that loved to catch and

one another, ceased to exist after we took over.

We have taken over, haven't we?

We haven't.

My fellow Martians seem to have taken umbrage at my letting the cat out of the

bag.

However, I shall be allowed to return to Earth next week at this same time.

We Martians have found that those not smart enough to be trusted, the ones

very low IQs, are still perfectly suited to appear on television.

Our institutions are full of them.

Good night.