 Welcome, Weirdos! I'm Darren Marlar and this is Retro Radio, old-time radio in the dark, presented by Weird Darkness. Each week I bring you a show from the golden age of radio, but still in the genre of Weird Darkness. I'll have stories of the macabre and horror, mysteries and crime, and even some dark science fiction. If you're new here, welcome to the show and be sure to subscribe or follow the podcast so you don't miss future episodes. And if you're already a member of this Weirdo family, please take a moment and invite someone else to listen in with you. Spreading the word about the show helps it to grow. If you're here because you're already a fan of nostalgic audio and print, you'll want to email WeirdDarkness at RadioArchives.com. When you do that, you'll get an instant reply with links to download full-length pulp audiobooks, pulp e-books and old-time radio shows for free. That's Weird Darkness at RadioArchives.com. Coming up it is the entire six-episode serial of Orbit 10. Orbit 10 was a British science fiction radio drama in six 30-minute parts. The plot involves the search for a source of gamma radiation in space and the discovery of a mysterious cylinder on a remote island. The cylinder quickly takes center stage, but a connection to the radiation source becomes important to the final resolution of the story. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me into the Weird Darkness as we listen to Orbit 10 from 1961. It's my belief that the whole inside story never was told. That was why a few weeks ago I tracked down the man who lives with the whole truth, Dr. Hayward Petrie. I found him in an Oxfordshire village. He's retired now, and we talked about the old days for a long time. I came away with an empty notebook, but not empty-handed. I have here six wheels of recording tape which Dr. Petrie lent me. His own recordings made ten years ago dictated by him alone in his study, remembering. I played these tapes. It's all here better than I could tell it. Our glimpse across a weird threshold on the rim of space where there should be nothing but eternal frozen darkness. Yet where there was something more. We're going to hear the first of the Petrie recording. For the moment, I need to know more than press the switch and let Dr. Petrie and the facts speak for themselves. Ready? Notes, first wheel. My name is John Hayward Petrie. I'm a doctor of science, and my purpose in making these observations is to... Oh, hang it. I can't lecture to a machine. I'll do this my own way or not at all. Now, where to begin? I must go back. Kensington, London. Some years ago, the old Imperial Museum in South Kensington was turned into the Commonwealth College of Science. It worked well, the college. Some of the old vision of empire must have lingered, though, because there was a department to study a new potential empire, space. The School of Astrophysics, East Wing, third floor, quite handy for the canteen. I was at head in those days and a keen crowd we were. It really began on a great November day in the college's second year. I was lecturing my course that morning, and among the heads bent due to play over notebooks were two that, with me, were to experience things that would make us doubt our sanity. But none of us knew that then. To summarize, the effects of cosmic radiation, filtered by the Earth's atmosphere and observed in relation to botany and geology, are understood well enough. But the source of these radiations remains one of the best guarded secrets of the universe. Well, that'll be all for today, ladies and gentlemen. We shall not now meet again until next January, by which time I trust I shall have received an admirable learned thesis from each one of you. Good morning. What, my dearest rider, is that a new form of lecture shorthand? Hello, Cliff. This? Yeah. Well, just a doodle. Some doodle. I've been watching it develop for the last half hour. Took me right out of myself and the lecture. Well, if anything, it represents the state of mind of a second year student, with two months to produce a thesis, and there hasn't a clue for a subject. Sure does, me too. Well, that wraps it up for this term. Do we drown our sorrows in canteen tea? I think we do. Let's go before the queue reaches halfway to Marble Arch. Don't forget your notes, Cliff. You're going to leave them. Don't remind me. Am I betrayed, Bill? Want some hot tea down your neck? All right. Well, I guess we can squeeze in here by the window. Okay. You have a chocolate biscuit? Thanks. You know, Cliff, it's hard to believe sometimes. So this is tea? Believe me, and no other civilized lander, they make tea quite like this. No. Up there. Hendington. With a miss. It hasn't changed in a hundred years. And here we sit in the middle of six pours of electronics. And this is a science college, not a school for romantic lady poets. Now, back to Earth, Liz. Petrie won't accept the sonnet for a thesis. Ten thousand words. That's a lot of words. And a lot of hours in my bed sitting, Chelsea. And a lot of shillings for the gas meter. You're not trying to get home for Christmas? Clear. Daddy works for a copper mine. He doesn't own one. He paid my fare here from Rhodesia. If I don't pass at the end of next jail, well, I can see myself walking back. Look, if one of us is doomed to fail, Liz, it certainly won't be you. And Montreal is no bus ride away. My people run a hardware store. So I guess I sweat it out in the college hostel. We'll send each other Christmas cards. And you can take me to see the Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square. You've got yourself a date. Wow. Now, why is our colleague from down under fighting his way over here? You'll make it, Whitey. Hi, Liz. Got a message for you, too. The prof wants to see you when it's starting. Dr. Peachey? Yeah, it's Whitey. Stop rubbing the wrong way for Pete's sight. Many a good scholarship now hangs in the balance. Dr. Peachey's effect. I'd be to you, he is. There's a difference. We'd better go, Liz. Thanks, Whitey. OK. What have we done to deserve this? Nothing, I hope. Come on. If we can carve our way through. We had to have a corner table. Excuse us, please. Don't block the camera. Ken? Oh, Mr. Boyden, Miss Rider. You've got my message. Yes, sir. So I'll just sit down here. Thank you, sir. I have your course records here. I've been granting through them. They may not on the whole suggest that you're the two most brilliantly gifted students of your year. We don't think so either, Doctor. We just hope we're good enough to get through all three. Still, you do have something that's rare, even here. Inquiring minds. Inquiring minds. Now, look here, if neither of you are committed for Christmas, how would you like to spend it 80 miles out in the Atlantic? The Atlantic. Well, not float on an island. Well, sir, I just... But we have theses to get started work on. Perhaps the two can be combined. I have a letter here from an old colleague of mine. Yes, Professor Campbell McLaren. He's in charge of the radio telescope that three of our universities built between them. The one in the outer head, Boudinus? Yes. It's on the Isle of Skara, about 40 miles west of Barra. It's a very powerful apparatus, more adaptable than the one at the Opera Bank. McLaren's been working there in splendid isolation for two years, studying cosmic radiation. Has he made any progress? Well, McLaren is the least excitable person alive. That's why the voluble style of his letter puzzles me. However, the point is, he wants a second opinion on some findings. He suggests that I spend a few weeks there and bring a couple of students to assist. You could make observations, take notes. And I will accept in exchange 7,000 words on radio astronomy. But not one less. Well? I'd love to come, sir. I'm not asking what you would love, Ms. Rider. I wish to know if you feel you would benefit from an insight into field research. I mean, yes, I think it would be very helpful. Good. And what about you, Mr. Boudin? Glad if you'll count me in, too, sir. I was reading about the Skara telescope in the scientific journal. It has a range of five billion light years and can detect the fastest receding galaxy. I'm not unaware of those facts, Mr. Boudin. I wrote that article. Sorry, sir. Well, now, I should be leaving in three days' time. McLaren mentions November Gales and advises thick clothing. I'm purchasing a garment called a duffel coat, in which I don't look quite ridiculous. He does also mention some other work outside the lead-down program. In his own well-chosen words, some wee-back room missing about, which would be right up your street. Well, we shall see. Please meet me at Houston at 8 p.m. on Monday evening. Right. I'll make a traveling arrangement. Thank you, sir. Fine. Now, I really have a great deal of work to do, so good morning to you. We'll be there. Goodbye, sir. Good morning, Dr. Petrie. Good morning. Well, how do you like that? Is that character a sheep in wolf's clothing or the other way around? Now, a man he gets to be almost human, but not belong. He's just a bit shy, that's all. Shy? Oh, sure, and modest, too. Like your Dr. Johnson. Now, come on. We've got a lot to do before Monday. Yes, let's go. The Isle of Scala. A lonely, tilted granite paving stone jutting out of the ocean. Even from the steamer, we could see the radio telescope straddling the highest end like some enormous black crab, two tarring pylons, and between them the reflector, a vast upturned bow. We went ashore at Kirkwish, the only harbor, and the only village. The island's only taxi rattled us up steep lanes, and, of course, windswept moorlands where sheep huddled behind crumbling flint walls. It left us at the very foot of the telescope, and then it scuttled away as if nervous of the brooding monster it had dared to disturb. The furthest gazed up in silence. The wind whined through the two tall lattice towers, slung between them in a cradle of girders. The monstrous hollow eye gazed coldly at the leaden sky, only this steel creature was blind. It saw by listening. It was almost a relief to see the homely white-haired figure of McLaren trotting down towards us in a flapping overcoat. Grand, if you'll again, A-Wood. I saw the steamer put in. That's a big event here. Ah, hello, Campbell. If you were just paying homage to your creation, rather like the popular idea of an invading Martian. Oh, don't be unkind to it. It may look a wee bit unfriendly today, but when the sun's out, it can look quite pretty. It looks as if it might decide to eat us at any moment. Oh, oh, oh, oh, my. Oh, Campbell, may I introduce Mr. Little Rider, Mr. Clifford Bully. How are you? How are you, Little Rider? Mr. Bully. So you're the ones he talked into this. That's right. Glad to have you. Now, let's get inside. It never stops glowing unscathed. I think we may as well go straight up to the signal box. The signal box? Aye, the control room. It's slung up there, just under the ball. It's safer than it looks. There's a lift. A lift. We have a very modern convenience. Now, what you said? These parts are slippery. Right. We will. A lift inside one of these supporting cars word upwards. We crossed a narrow catwalk, where Elizabeth looked down once and didn't try it again. And then we were in a warm, spacious, glass-paneled laboratory. One felt still on the ground up there, until you looked out and saw all the island, the Atlantic below you, or up, where the bowl of the telescope blotted out the whole sky. This is where we work. And this is my assistant, who shares my ex out here, Intel Gallic. How do you do? Pleased to meet you, Dr. Petrie. I've read all your papers on solar physics. Oh, well, I'm glad someone has. And Ms. Roy, Mr. Bourne from the CCS in Kenton. How do you do? I've heard they'll know you. Well, now, you all know the farm, of course. We can either send out impulses ourselves and they'll bounce back from bodies in their path, or we can receive short waves from any source that emits them. Hey, uh, how's that analysis coming on, Peter? Is Alpha Centauri still complaining? Yes, quite a disturbance. It's coming through very steadily. We're tracking one of our celestial neighbors, the star Alpha Centauri, a mere five light years away. He seems to be having a little cosmic indigestion, throwing out masses of white-hot hydrogen. Hey, uh, I'd like to hear him doing it. Mmm, love to. Hey, uh, let's have the audio range, Peter. Right? I'll bring him in. There he is. The sound of a fan is hot enough to shrivel the air, but too far for any ordinary telescope to see. Of course, we're not hearing the physical activity, just the mediations it gives off. Yes, Roger. Hey, uh, swing off to a general bearing, Peter. Let's have the third program for a change. Anything in particular? No, the full orchestra. Right. Oh, look at that. The ball up there is turning, and we're going with it. The whole structure is mounted on a circular track. There are 20 electric motors driving this lot. When we're observing, the whole thing creeps automatically, as it has to, of course, to counteract the ascitation. Yes, sir. This bearing ought to give us a fair selection. Just a moment. There it is, Hayward. The creaking of the universe. The voices of a million galaxies. Some of those signals began their journey before men learned to live in caves and ship prints, and have only just arrived. But all that is dead noise, given out by bodies much like our own son. Hey, there are more things in heaven and death. Campbell, what do you mean? I'm not sure, but I know myself. There you see, it goes on tape, and into these computers for analysis. And these pens scratch it out in graph, for mile after mile of it. Oh, you research people have all the fun. I like one of these in Kensington. Well, tomorrow we'll get down to it in detail. Surely. I'd be glad if you'll advise on one or two problems. Well, shall we go down there? We have our portals and those concrete buildings near the cliff. We live well enough, thanks to Mrs. McWhirter, our resident cook. She's promised us dinner at seven. Peter, at eight, will you go on to Bering C-60? C-60. The lights on? Yes, tonight. Very good. I'd hang on to the handrail when you get outside. The wind seems to be getting up. One of our problems is the rain that connects in the bore. The bad day, the rain that sets the cook with something like C-60. McLaren's living room with its chintz curtains and cheerful fire seemed that night the coziest place on earth. We might have been in the heart of London, save for the wind and the waves pounding on the rocks below. And all the time we were conscious of that vast steel monster towering into the darkness outside. The McLaren himself seemed uneasy and kept glancing at his watch. And at a quarter past eight he said, They would... I've been doing a little work of my own, a sort of sideline. I think it might interest you. We could take a look now if you would hear through. I said I would. The McLaren led me out of their concrete block and we dashed through the rain to another which housed the electric generators. Then down some bare steps into a series of basement rooms. The last and largest was not as elaborately equipped as the signal box. But there were control consoles, a computer in a shiny gray cubicle, and another recording machine, its stylus scratching a jagged red line on a creeping roll of graph paper. As soon as he closed the door I realized that McLaren had only been keeping up his cheery manner with an effort. You're surprised to find another laboratory down here. The universities don't know about this shit. Well I knew you were keen on investigating cosmic radiation, Campbell, but I know this is something else. I know where to begin. Look at that pen he would see the trace it's making. Yes, it seems very regular. Is it something the telescope is picking up? I guess it's onto a certain bearing. What do you mean? I'll put it in a nutshell. A year ago we noticed that a very persistent signal kept breaking in on our other recording. We put it down to meteor showers or the like. Then one day for something to do we focused accurately on them and recorded them for several hours. Gary was curious about the results, so we fed them into the computers. The usual variations emerged, but this time they were in the form of a regular pattern. No, that's impossible. Cosmic emanations are either continuous or intermittent. There could be no system. Unless. Hi. Unless what? Well, unless they were from some artificial source in some way being, well, transmitted. We made more recordings and more. We analyzed, compared sequences, and soon we had no doubts at all. There was form and system. No. There could be only one thing, a means of communication. Soon we confirmed something else, the position of the source and the range. Well, if they're coming from some distant nebula. They're not here, what? They originate somewhere on the edge of our solar system. We place the point of origin at a distance of no more than 500,000 million miles. You mean just beyond the orbit is the farthest planet from the Sun, isn't it? Just so. The edge of outer space. Good. Well, listen to this. Hear it for yourself. Origins behind that sound. And I'll tell you something else. Gary has worked for months on the breakdown graphs, and organized system is emerging. It's a code. And he believes he's on the way to breaking it. It's good, it's good today. Of course, any kind of common word language is out of the question. It could have to be some other way of transmitting ideas. And it could be figures, theorems, atomic numbers, the linear spectrum. Things constant to all matter everywhere. Mathematics, after all, is a universal language. Just so. Good. Help yourself. You know, if we're right, Hayward, this is an event of tremendous importance. Have you made any statements? No. Communication with some other intelligence beyond the Earth. We have, we've got to be very sure. But this is fascinating. I must go over it with a smallest detail. Once we can find the basic key, that's a voice we are hearing, a small voice speaking to us across space. We must learn to understand it. We must. Well, I gave a brief account of the evening's activities to our two young people and let them hear the signals. And then for the next three days that followed, we thought of little else. We spent them either in the underground laboratory or in the high control room beneath the telescope, pouring over the neatly filed rolls of squared paper. On and on went that jagged red line, saying so much, but then meaning so little to us. On the third day, McCarran and I wanted to work alone, so Clifford and Elizabeth took the brief opportunity to look over the island. They explored the harbor at Coquish, took snapshots, and ended up in the evening at the small stone inn near the jetty. Any good thoughts, sir? Heck no, that crazy little board, I can't even hit it. But I'll take you on at ice hockey any time. It's not paid much in pubs, I'm afraid. Good evening, sir. Good evening, my lord. Usual for you, Liz? Yes, please. One tomato juice and a half of draught. One tomato juice and a half of draught. Well, Cliff, we have walked into something. We certainly have. But nobody sane believes that any other planet beyond Mars can possibly support any light beyond a few fungi and mosses. Too far from the sun, no light, no heat, and beyond Pluto, half a billion miles. There's nothing out there, just freezing darkness and nothing. Well, that's what the book says. But let's just hope for the sake of professional dignity that those signals don't turn out to be mixed up dance music from Radio Istanbul or somewhere. Somehow, I don't think they will, Cliff. Neither do I. There's something about that noise that gave me the creeps around the back of my neck. One tomato juice and a half of draught. That will be what it napes, he said. Right, one and nine. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Well, cheers. Cheers. The young lady and yourself will be concerned with the contraption, no doubt. That's right. Hey, just listen to that wind out there. Landlord, are there ever days here when you could keep a hat on? Oh, yes. But this is the third winter, so there will be bad weather. The third winter? What's that? It is the time when the Kirkwish monster visits us. The Kirkwish monster? It is a fisherman's story. It is said that sea monster returns to Skara every third year and swims around it, bringing ill weather and driving off the fish. Have you seen him, or does he only appear when no one's looking? It is a story. They say the place to watch from is Drumeard Point on the north of the island. No, I cannot say that I have seen the monster, but then I cannot say that I haven't. Well, I think it's time we were getting back here. Okay, Liz. Good night, Landlord. Good night, sir. Good night. We'll look after the monster. Aye. Famous. Aye. I have been wondering, are the dead fish being washed in a cave? Yes, I had hair that they wear. Work continued. I saw McLaren's point. There was no hard proof. We might cause a sensation and then have to admit to chasing a theory. But the proof then was closer than any of us imagined. It was nearly a week later on a gray afternoon when Clifford and Elizabeth were following a cliff path on the north side of the island. This is Drumeard Point. Goodness, it's bleak and lonely. Just the rocks and the cold, great pest falling in from the Atlantic. Up here, you could almost stop believing those fishermen's stories. Now, Liz, you really believe that's the scientific approach? Well, it's supposed to be our inquiring minds that got us here. I just happen to have a little imagination as well. Oh, my imagination never works so good with my ears half frozen on. Oh, poor Cliff. Cliff. Yeah? Look there. Where? Look at the sea. Just beyond the last of those rocks, where all the gulls are gathering. With a big circle of foam. Hey, you're right. There is. Must be a couple of hundred yards across. Water's all churned up. Almost looks like it's boiling. Which today, I would say is unlikely. Is it to hear that? Yeah, and I felt it through the rock we're standing on. I'm sure it's coming out there. That's quite some disturbance. Can't be volcanic, not here. Hey, and get a look at those waves coming in. Those gulls, Cliff. Which fish are they diving for? They're snatching them from the surface. And because of that, they'd want it. Oh, they sure do. Hey, Liz. You know, that spot isn't far below the tide line. And the tide's going out. Now I reckon it'll be uncovered in another hour. We could walk out to it. Sure, let's do that. Let's stay around for a while and do it. I guess this was just about the place. But there's not a thing here now. Just firm, wet sand. And the gulls have gone. I've never seen such a lonely place. What could it have been, Cliff? Oh, maybe just an eddy. Some freak local current. But there seemed to be force there. Something pretty powerful. Well, my feet are getting wet, so let's go. Hey, hold it. Can you hear that, Liz? It's a kind of humming. It's underneath the sand. I'm sure it is. Look, it's vibrating the sea water in that pool. What is it? Well, I did more than three guesses. And for something that hums, this is some place for it to be. Hey, this sand is soft enough. It wouldn't take as long to scoop a hole. What with? Hands, girl, hands. The best tools in the world. Only four are better than two. All right. Cliff, you don't suppose we could be teasing an old mine, do you? Ah, mine's rusted up. It could be we're sitting on top of something else. The lair of a cacou-ish monster. Had you thought of that? As fast as we make the hole bigger, it fills up the water. I'm getting soaked. Who needs pain? That can't be down so deep. Try and keep going, Liz. Oh, there goes a nail. Cliff, I broke it on something hard. Hey, I just let the sand settle. Yeah, do you see it? There's some kind of curved edge. Let me get down there. It goes down, quite a way. It looks like a circular metal plate. It's covered with tiny shellfish. Yeah, marine crustaceae, sea deposit. Must have been submerged for years. Now we're getting to it, Liz. You feel that vibration? The thing is going like a dynamo. Cliff, don't touch it anymore. I don't like it. You can see what it is now, can't you? Well, I guess so. The end, it's about three feet across and it runs quite a way under the sand. It's a cylinder, an enormous, great cylinder. That was Orbit 1-0, a play in six episodes, written by Peter Elliott Pays, and produced for the BBC by David Davis. From London, we present Orbit 1-0, a play in six episodes by Peter Elliott Pays. Episode 2, The Cylinder. This is Tom Lambert. You've now heard the first of the tape recordings made by Dr. Haywood Petrie. In it, he described his visit to Scara and the Hebrides, where Professor McLaren was in charge of the giant radio telescope, the strange pattern of signals that were being monitored, and the finding in a lonely cove of a vibrating cylindrical object. Already the thing we would come to fear was taking shape. In this, the second recording, Dr. Petrie continues his notes from that point. Notes, real tool. Oh, where was I? Oh, yes, that blustering day on Scara. McLaren and I were at work in the underground monitoring room when Clifford and Elizabeth returned from Dromed Point. Returned with a curious account of a cylinder buried under a beach. They seemed so impressed that we took McLaren's ancient car and drove around the coast to see for ourselves. Before we left, Clifford insisted on collecting four spades. There was the cold, deserted bay and the beach. We were led down a cliff path and shown a spot where they had scratched out the sand. We each took a spade and dug, and in less than an hour, we had uncovered a most remarkable object. It's a cylindrical shape, all right. Three feet in diameter and about eight feet long, with what it is under all that incrustation. Could it be some kind of natural formation? It's very regularly. It almost looks like part of a pillar, but this is hardly an archaeological site. Clifford, you say you heard a humming sound. Well, yes. I guess it must have stopped while we were away, but Liz heard it too. And there was that disturbance while the sea was still covering it. Yeah. Very curious. Well, for now, the tide will cover this spot again before long. Well, we've enough on our hands, but I suppose this is worth spending a little time on, though what we can do here... Hey, can I make a suggestion? Go ahead. I noticed a crane truck back at the telescope. Yes, the transporter for heavy equipment. Well, the road meets the beach farther along. It does. The crane and maybe some chain tackle. Well, look, I've driven bulldozers back home. I guess I can handle that. Well, it's the only way we'll ever get this thing out. All right with you, Campbell? Yes, of course. Very well. It's your operation, Clifford. I obliged him by not breaking a neck, I believe. No, sir. All that crane, because that's something the college will have to pay for. I'll be careful, sir. I gave no more thought to the object until the following afternoon. Then, looking down from the telescope control room, I saw the transporter pull up by the generator block. Clifford emerged from the cab and supervised the efforts of three resigned islanders he'd pressed into service to haul the cylinder into the building. It seemed his salvage scheme had been successful and that the object was lighter than I had imagined. That same evening, we found Clifford, Elizabeth, and Peter Garrick in one of the basement rooms surveying that trophy with some pride. They had mounted it on trestles, and Garrick was armed with a hammer and a co-chisel. Lying there under the hard white strip lights, the corroded cylinder might well have been the corpse of some hoary seabees. This rarely is interesting. I've been taking measurements. The ends are perfect circles, 34 inches in diameter, and slightly domed. It's 90 inches long. If I can chip away some of these deposits, we can see what it's made of. Well, if it turns out to be solid gold, let us know. We'll be up in the signal box. All right, son. I'd be glad if you'd come and take some notes, Clifford. Yes, sir. And you, Elizabeth. Yes, son. I'll be up shortly. I'll just make a start on this. Leaving young Garrick chipping away, we went up in the lift to the glass wall control room beneath the vast bowl of the telescope. And again, we watched the dancing green traces on the oscilloscopes and listened to those thin insistent signals reaching us, of course, 5,000 million miles of space. It sounds familiar. Who's Garrick's chart? He's taken photographs of all the recurring wave bombs. Yes, this looks like it. It's very similar. We've got this on August 9th last. And before that on May the 3rd, you see, Hayward, it is systematic. There's method, intelligence behind this. Intelligence, but that means life in some form. Life on the outermost edge of the solar system where no life can conceivably exist. Because of the conditions. Unimaginable cold, utter darkness. Poisonous atmosphere of methane and ammonia. Yes, no light as we understand it. I wonder. Another layer underneath, fused metal. Can't make a mark on it. Beats me how a thing like this came to be on the... Yes. They said this happened before. Must be some kind of stored energy inside. What was I going to... I suppose I ought to... What? What's that? How did it get in? It must get through to... Ah! Man! Look at his hand! Garrick, can you hear me? What happened? I don't know, what happened? Oh, I missed you, Doctor. My hand is burning. Has he burnt it? No, cold has done that, extreme cold. I think it's come very now to being frostbitten. Here, take my jacket, wrap his arm up in it. Peter, what was it? Well, I was chipping the crust away and then the humming started. The humming? It came from inside, not loud, but I couldn't think straight. And then suddenly there was a kind of fog everywhere. A fog? It leaned against the cylinder and it was like touching a red hot stove. After that, I don't know. You reached the alarm bell, laddie, and passed out. We saw that people too when we came in. Places like her refrigerator now, but outside it's clear. Well, another mystery for our collection, Campbell. Your cosmic noise and now this. Hello, that's curious. What are you staring at? Well, that's shelf. There were some things on it earlier. A couple of spare transformers, a pair of pliers. Has anyone moved them? I didn't. No one else has been done here. Well, perhaps I'm mistaken that I could have sworn. Well, this is a remarkable find of your quivered. Now we shall have to investigate it because I'm sure of one thing. It's not solid. There is something inside it. Later that night, we held a conference. The cylinder clearly possessed some disturbing properties. At Kirkewisch, there were no facilities for investigating it thoroughly. But in my own modern laboratory at the college, well, with some regret, I proposed that we return to London and somehow take the cylinder with us. McLaren agreed. He was as curious as myself but could spare no more time from his study of the signals. Well, a lot of arranging had to be done. The Clifford and Elizabeth did their share and three days later we left Scarra on the island steamer. The cylinder went with us. Cradled in straw and enclosed inside a stout crate. Even as I watched it being hoisted aboard at Kirkewisch, the case swinging from the derrick had an oddly forbidding appearance. Why I should have thought that then? All the way back to Glasgow, it was just a confoundedly awkward piece of luggage. However, eventually we were relaxing on the express to London with our trophies safely stowed in the luggage van at the rear of the train. Out of sight, but hardly out of mind. Peter Gallick was much better when we left. Yeah, the dark in the island party was lucky not to have lost his fingers. I don't get it, sir. What could have caused a sudden temperature drop like that? I have no idea, Clifford, but we mustn't go leaping to any science fiction conclusion. Possibly some freak condition peculiar to that cellar and the humming from the cylinder well. Certain elements can resonate in magnetic fields. There was a lot of electrical equipment nearby. But there wasn't on that beach. And that mist, something about the way it moved. It's the material that interests me. Under the sea crust that Gallick chipped away, there was another layer, rough and metallic. It reminded me of something that... We're slowing down. Stopping. It can't be called, are you? Well, I see your tickets, please. Thank you. Thanks. Oh, thank you, sir. What have we stopped for, Inspector? All seems they're having a little trouble up front with the locomotive. One of the new diesels, isn't it? Yes, but it hasn't been pulling properly for the last few miles. Yeah, I noticed that. Losing power are a motor, I suppose. If the motorman can't trace it, we'll have to get a relief send-up from Carlisle. We hope the delay won't be too long. I wonder... What is it, Doctor? Anything wrong? I don't know. These last few days, perhaps I'm getting foolish ideas. Anyway, it went too early on to make sure. Will you two come with me? I'm going down to the luggage ham. Sure. Moment, sir. Looking for something? You have a crate of mine in here, Guard. Would you mind if we take a look at it? That'll be all right. That big fella, isn't it? Machinery of some sort. Machinery? What makes you think that? Oh, I had a sort of humming sound noise some way back. Where? Oh, it seemed to be coming from the case. Hope that some electrical gadget had managed to switch itself on. Stopped after a bit, though. Here it is. Hasn't exported anything. Just the same as it was when it came aboard the Glasgow. Of course it isn't. The crate's a different color. Why is the wood white like that? Search me. Funny sort of weather this. Of course, you'd get it all salt up north this time of year. But it turned so gloomy and cold in here about a quarter of an hour ago. Had to put my coat on. And knit my ears, too. Oh, we're off again. Doctor, it seems to be covered in some kind of powder. Ah. Do touch it again later. Come away from it. That's not powder. It's frost. The rest of the journey after that was uneventful. At Euston, the six porters heaved the crate onto a waiting lorry ascent from the college. And we followed to Kensington in a taxi. The college was empty and echoing, as it always is in vacation time. And the smell of dust and age had come back into its own. With the aid of two Boilerman and Simmons, the head caretaker, we took the crate up in the goods lift and dragged it through the silent corridors to my laboratory. It was late in the afternoon. We were tired. But any idea of waiting until the next day to begin work just didn't occur to us. We dismantled the crate and mounted the cylinder on a long work bench, wedging it with wooden blocks and arranged floodlights to work by. The first thing I did was to examine the place where Garrick had flaked away the white coating of sea growth. This was the surface before the authentic started on it, as it was probably when it first became submerged. Gray, hard, and honeycombed with small bubbles. From these streaks, I should say traces of iron, copper, and nickel. It looks almost like a volcanic rock. No, no, this has been fused by a much higher temperature. Now what? Yes, of course. I know where I've seen this before on the surface of meteorites. Meteorites, but they get scorched up. Entering the Earth's atmosphere, yes. Well, the condition is similar. Clifford, get the keys from Simmons and go down to the engineering department. Okay. Find some mallets and chisels, the heavier the better. What I want to know is what is underneath this? I was under those glaring lamps. We chipped away like three sculptors inspired. Only we had no conception of what was taking shape under our tools. Beneath the outer crust was a solid layer, an inch thick of fused mineral matter. When we had cleared one end of the cylinder, we attacked that. And that too we eventually got through to bare metal, bright silver, a metal cylinder. Our basic question was answered. It cannot have formed naturally. Whatever it was, it had been constructed. For a long time, we contemplated that smooth gleaming surface. We had no suggestions, no theories. Then, and seemed the only thing to do, we began to enlarge the area we'd uncovered. Outside, the lamps came on in cromble row in unfear to bone taxes hustled on their way. By eight o'clock, we'd bared one entire end of the cylinder. There it lay, bright under the lights, like the end of a monstrous metal cigar case. At ten past eight, I laid my mallet and chisel on the bench. No point in going on with this all night. It'll take days to cure the whole surface. Then the only way in will be with an oxyacetylene torch. No, it's going to be a long job and not necessarily one for us. How do you mean? Well, I'm beginning to wonder whether we meant be risking blowing ourselves on the college sky high. Some wartime beauty, you mean, but God washed up on scour. Yeah, we thought of that on the beach. It's possible. I think first we ought to have an expert opinion. I suppose the Ministry of Works or the people. But a bomb, a rusty mine, could that cause anything to happen now? I mean, what we saw. I don't know, Elizabeth. It seems about as sinister now as a stick of bright and rock. Look, I think we should all go home. Tomorrow we'll reconsider it. Will you both be here at 11? Certainly. Good. Put those lights out, will you, Elizabeth? Right. Here's a coat, Doctor. Thank you. We can leave everything as it is. You coming, Clifford? Oh, yeah, yeah. Sure. Don't forget your briefcase, please. No, thanks for the money. We went down in the lift across the dark entrance hall with its spreading dome and enormous crystal chandelier. And I said goodnight to my students on the steps outside. Then I held a taxi to take me to my house in Eaton Square. Clifford and Elizabeth walked away towards South Kensington Tube Station. It began to rain. Ten minutes later, I understand, they were sitting in a coffee bar in the Fulham Row. Not as sculptors keep at it. My chisel arm stiffening up already. Well, what now? Half past eight. You could dip to the pictures if you like. A movie at this time? Liz, you surely can throw off the cares of the working day. No point in brooding over this. We have some unexplained phenomena, an unidentified object. It just means experimenting until we find the answers. Just like that. And I'm the one without imagination. Me, I keep thinking of that enormous, great thing sitting up there like an overturned idol. Almost as if it's watching us. Hustling. Just a slab of metal. Yeah. You know, Pete, we didn't notice it. Could be just a scratch. On the other hand, if there is a way in. What do you mean? Well, I guess I should have mentioned at the prof. I'm never going to sleep with this on my mind. And it won't take long to check. You coming? Where to? Back to the college. What, now? Yeah. Simmons will open up for me. Just a question of whether it's a line or a crack. A line or a crack? Yeah. I swing my lamp a bit this way, will you? All right. Do you see here? A thin line running right around the end of the cylinder. Ah, this wire is too thick. Cigarette paper. That's it. Yeah, it slides in. It is a crack and deep. In the end, this whole section must be. Do think alike. There you are. Coming back. And I'm going to die until I've got home and try to forget all this. What an odd thing curiosity is. For some reason I felt this shouldn't wait. You do, I imagine. Well, not exactly, sir. I noticed this earlier on. What? This hairline around the circumference. I've tested it and it's a crack. A crack? Yeah. So this whole end section could be kind of a plug. It could come off. Well done, Clifford. This is important. You see, it won't move or turn. But there's something else here on the end phase. Two holes about a foot apart. Yes. Sockets for a key. We can find something to fit them. The engineering floor. Of course. They have every kind of plate key down there. I'll be right back. All right, good man. If this end is removable, it's been made so for a purpose. And that, Elizabeth, can only be. Because? Because there is something inside. Yes. It seemed an age before Clifford returned with an assortment of burnt steel keys. We found one that fitted the sockets exactly. Even as I felt its grip, I hesitated. Should we go on? Should we take a calculated risk? Looking back on that night, I can understand why none of us seriously considered doing anything else. We understood so little. Then Clifford and I, hauled on the key. After a few seconds, the whole end of the cylinder began to turn. A few inches, and then it stuck. We threw our weight on it, and then it was turning freely. A fine polished thread crept slowly into sight. The gap between the plug and the casing steadily widened. I think we're nearly there. Better be ready to catch this when it comes clear. Yes, turn slowly. Yes, turn slowly. Elizabeth, stand back please. I'm going to stop in a moment. Something wrong? I want to listen to escaping gas. Anything? Nothing. All right. Go on. It is slowly. Coming. Not only, don't let it drop. I've got it. Now let it down. Elizabeth, quickly. Can you see anything? Hollow? There's a cavity. But it seems to be empty. What? Yes, a hollow barrel, about 18 inches across. Hey, look at the thickness of that casing. Nine inches of solid metal, at least. This doesn't go in very far. There's something blocking it. Elizabeth, bring that lamp down here. That's it. Now. Yes, the hole goes in for about a foot, and then just a shiny surface. It looks like glass, green. There it is. There it is. But humming. Is that what you heard before? Yes, but much louder. Don't understand it. This enormous thing and nothing inside. But unless bring a lamp nearer, nearer, nearer. Yes, it must be. Well, what else can there be? There's no other way in. Don't you see that green substance? It's solid, and it isn't attached to the casing. It must run the full length inside. The cylinder is just a shell, a container to protect some kind of inner core, something green and hard. All this to a perfect fit that could be slid in. And in the casing, kept and sealed, and that would keep it intact for, well, any sort of journey. If it went in like that. It should come out the same way. Doctor, you said a journey. How long a journey? Where does this thing come from? I don't know, Elizabeth, and at the moment we'd better not speculate. We can't turn back now. We must know the truth for, well, for better or worse. But how can we drag it out? There's nothing to get a grip on. There might be a way. Here, look, that roof span up there, some chain and a pulley. Yeah, up in the casing and lift it off. It's the only way. Come on. We worked feverishly into the early hours. Again, we raided the engineering department, dragging up hooks, chains, and pulley blocks. We rigged the tackle over the cylinder, attaching the block to the steel span which crossed overhead, and shackled the lifting chain securely around and closed the end. And all the time, the thing on the bench continued to hum, softly and insistently. The chains swung and tightened. Slowly, the massive cylinder reared upright on the bench. There was a terrifying moment when it rocked and almost toppled, but then it settled firmly on its open end. There was a sliver and a thud. The core had shifted. We went on dragging at the chain, the pulley clattered and our hands became slippery with grease. With nerve-wracking slowness, the casing rose, exposing inch by inch the thing it contained in dark. It was a rod, an enormous green rod. It was solid and transparent, but embedded in it was a fantastic tracery of fine silvery wires, a glittering spider's will, strange branching patterns, and every gleaming vein converged to one point, a hollow cavity in the heart of the crystalline mess, a round bubble containing something gray and bulbous, something that looked like a fine sponge, something which expended and contracted rhythmically, pulsing with fierce, vital energy. That was Orbit 1-0, a play in six episodes written by Peter Elliott Hayes and produced for the BBC by David Davis. From London, we present Orbit 1-0, a play in six episodes by Peter Elliott Hayes. Episode 3. This is Tom Lambert again. You have now heard two of the type recordings made by Dr. Petrie. His account of bringing the strange corroded cylinder found beneath the Hebridean beach to London, how it was found to be hollow, and the way in which Petrie and his two students lifted off the outer casing to discover, well, perhaps I may repeat the doctor's own words, a transparent green rod, solid, but embedded in it a fantastic tracery of fine silvery wires, and every gleaming vein converging to a hollow cavity, a bubble containing something like a sponge, something that pulsed with vital energy. There now we rejoin them in the college laboratory, three in the morning, their eyes fixed, fascinated on the thing on the bench. Here is the third recording. Notes, reel three. So now we knew. This was what had lain under the sand all those years, with the gray Atlantic washing two and fro above it. It was an incredible object we stared at, but it had beauty too, that limpid green pillar with its gossamer tracery of metal threads. We stayed there talking for a while. I made a mental note to get in touch in the morning with the head of the college, Sir Edward Bancroft. He was a physicist. I thought it would interest him. Then I locked the double laboratory doors, we walked to the lift, and once again we descended to the darkened entrance hall. There was no sound in the whole of the sprawling empty building. And yet, as we reached the doors, there was something else. Elizabeth heard it first. That didn't sound. Seems to be coming from somewhere overhead. Yes, it's in the double, I think. I can feel something too, a kind of vibration. Good heavens, look, it's the chandelier. The whole thing's quivering. It started to swing. Something shaking the whole building. There's dust, it's looking down. Oh no, it's dropping. We raced back to the laboratory. There, a scene from a nightmare met us. The whole room had changed. The floors, the walls, every piece of apparatus, everything was furred with crisp vinting frost. A bitter cold pricked our faces. But the frost was not white. It was a livid green, colored by the light that glared from the rod on the bench. Then, nearer suddenly, something swirled, gray and curling. It was a swathe of mist, appearing from nowhere. Then another, and another. It was twisting, thickening between us. Across the laboratory on the far wall, a black line suddenly snaked and forked, a crack. It opened steadily, gaped. And then, the oak workbench beneath the rod seemed to crumble and dissolve. The rod lurched, toppled, and, as it fell, the entire laboratory floor sagged and collapsed, leaving a vast yawning abyss. The rod, still flaring, plunged through. It was to pass just all this time, though I wish your department could find other ways of bringing its work to my notice. There was a bomb through the roof in the wall. It didn't make half this mess. 40-foot hole up there, that's for the lecture theatre here. No, I can't say how sorry I am, Edward. To say now, I don't know what happened. Well, it's the truth. I've told you what little we know. What that cylinder is, how it functions, I confess I've no clear idea. As for all this mess, well, we've seen it can resonate properly and set up severe vibrations. Somehow, I suppose, they found structural weaknesses in the building, crack started. We saw them opening, and then the floor gave way. Now, wait, Edward. This isn't a barn full of dry rot. These floors are reinforced concrete. I know that. That exhibit of yours came through like a 16-inch shelf. Look at those girders sheared through like so many cucumbers. The bench it was standing on, we haven't found a trace of it. But a lot of gray dust. It's a strange business, Edward. And the rot itself, not even cracked. When we get it out, we must arrange precautions and close it somehow, in its cylinder for the time being, and then, well, I don't know. Yes. Well, we can't afford too many experiments on this scale. No, but we must go systematically. They take reading samples and above all, watch. Yes. Well, I want to know the answers to this, Hayward. How we're disturbing, they may be. I think you understand. Yes, yes. Excuse me, gentlemen. Mm-hmm. Good morning. May I have a word? Well, I believe, sir, you're Dr. Petrie. Yes. And who young man might you be? I don't care for the look of that notebook. Oh, it's pretty harmless if you don't tease it. Tom Lambert, here's my press card. Huh? We had a report. There had been an explosion here. There has been no explosion. Oh, what's all this then? Deathwatch Beetle? An experiment. Got out of control. A flaw gave way. That is all, Mr. Lambert. A flaw gave way. Oh. And the chandelier in the entrance hall? Another experiment? Yes, it fell. The chain was rusted away. The vibration. The vibration. Yes, I see. Oh, that's great. And that green object sticking out of the wreckage. A part of the experiment? I, I don't wish to say any more about it at the moment. You're doing secret work here while the students are away. I didn't say that. Look, Doctor, I write a popular science column. I was on the phone yesterday to Professor Campbell McLaren on the island of Skara. What for? I wanted to do an article about the radio telescope. He mentioned in passing an interesting thing. That you had made a rather curious find up there and brought it back to London. Now, that green thing, I suppose that wouldn't be it. You can suppose just what you like, Mr. Lambert. OK, perhaps you won't mind if I clamber over and just take a quick deco. If you do, young man, I shall not hesitate to take my walking stick to your back. Furthermore, unless you remove yourself from these premises in two minutes flat, I'll have you thrown out. Do I make myself clear? OK, if that's how you feel about it. But we appreciate cooperation. And we appreciate privacy. All right, all right. But you know, gentlemen, newspapers are like elephants. They don't forget. Every news item is filed. We have quite a system. Useful for looking up odd things. If you ever want me on that way to find me, good morning. Well, I'm glad. By late afternoon, we succeeded in replacing the green rod in its casing and screwing home the plug. So dull and harmless now, it seemed impossible that... However, that evening I invited Elizabeth and Clifford to dinner at my house. For three hours we discussed the problem and were no wiser when we'd finished. Then I remembered a note my housekeeper said had been delivered by messenger earlier. I opened it. Inside was a column cut from a newspaper and a visiting card. The name Thomas Lambert. A date was typed on the clipping January 1952. And it made curious reading. I handed it over to Clifford. Ah, more disturbance and disused pit. Families living near the abandoned Lannwifflin Cauldering in the Rhonda Valley. Again wondering what's happening a mile below their back gardens. The third time in five years, unaccountable rumbling sounds have been heard inside the old workings. Which were discontinued in 1945. Coldboard experts say subsidences are to be expected, but veteran miners shake their heads. Lannwifflin, they say, has always been a wicked pit. They have not forgotten the disastrous collapses that occurred in 1907, 1917, and again in 1927. And there are other sounds that puzzle even the experts. Rumbling sounds. Ah, so an old coal mine is caving in. What does Lambert expect us to do about that? I imagine do connect them with some slight similarity to these things we've observed. But nothing significant. Why should them, but suppose there could be? I suppose I'd better telephone him in the morning if only to get rid of him. Now Clifford, what I propose is this. A new laminated plastic has recently been developed. It's called denselite. It's light, almost transparent, and it effectively screens most known forms of metal. Well, I intend to have a cabinet made, a cubicle to house the rod, made entirely of denselite. Good idea. I know a firm will do it. Then we can study it in safety. It will be harmless enough inside two inches of denselite. Well, let's hope so. I think we'd better make a sketch of what we need. If it will find some paper on the desk there. No, I'll get it, sir. The next morning was bright and frosty. We spent it at the small factory in Wembley, which manufactured the voluntary apparatus. We were promised a lot of money. We were promised a denselite cubicle to my exact requirements in three days. I left Clifford and Elizabeth at Hyde Park and went home. Then I remembered about telephoning Thomas Lambert, reluctantly I did. And another part of the weird pattern began to fall into place. Thought you might be interested though. I started digging through our foils again. Again? I've been doing a little research of my own. I've some notes I'd like you to see. But the first thing is, when shall we go? Go? Go where? In South Wales. There are two buses a day from Swansea. Now look Lambert, I'm not rushing off on wild goose chases on the strength of some bumps in a Welsh coal mine. Doctor Petrie, I went down that pit in 1952. I heard those bumps. They started again recently. I have a feeling you wouldn't be wasting your time. Anyway, look. I'll be at Paddington Station at 7.30 tomorrow. There's a Cardiff train at 7.55 if you're not there. Well, I'll go home and write about chemical fertilizers. Goodbye. Lambert! Well, I've met some irritating young men. But... Oh, I was annoyed with myself but of course I was at Paddington the next morning. So was Lambert. Cheerful and unapologetic. In the dining car he opened a briefcase and showed me a pile of press cuttings. Some of them already turning yellow. They were certainly... They were certainly of some interest. All reports of vague phenomena similar to the one that he'd sent me. Lincolnshire, North Devon, West Millen, Kent. Conflicting, contradictory, inconsistent. A scrapbook of boomers, tall stories and sensation hunting. That being so, why... Why was I beginning to feel so curiously uneasy? And for a couple of years I've been thinking And four o'clock we are lighted from a country bus at Lanetle. A bitter wind slanted down the bleak mining valley across the slate-wolf terraces and earth-tips. Giant conical molehills overgrown with weed. The spidery wheel of the man-whetlin pit-head was still. No steam came from the black chimney of the winch-house. Lambert and I had picked our way among oily puddles deeper in the old Flint storehouse where once the miners had collected their helmets and safety lamps. We explained who we were and what we'd come for. Mr Morgan did not see him over impressed. Noises again, is it? Don't the old pit will be famous if this keeps up in need. Gentlemen from the callboard with black suits and bowler hats. Lovely they were. And reporters. And even a lady from the BBC talked beautiful just like the way she did. Well, she's been quiet today. The old pit, you know. I'm quiet. She was yesterday. Yes. Yes, it's about now. She will start if she's going to. Mr Morgan took us to the pit-head through an iron door in the brick wall that had been built around it. Then we were gazing down into the shaft square and narrow dropping away into echoing darkness. For over an hour Mr Morgan rolled stringy looking cigarettes, smoked them and threw them into the pit as if it were his own private ashtray. Well, then I'd had enough and said so. Lambert shrugged. We were just turning away. There has she goes. Never quiet now for more than a few days. See? Don't stand too near the edge, man. The shake will be coming in a minute. Here it is. Feel it, Doctor. The vibration. That's coming from at least for a mile down. Well, does it remind you anything? What you expect me to say, Lambert, that's what it could be anything. Could it? And that? Listen carefully. Yes. There is another son. Some resemblance, I suppose, to what your students heard on the Isle of Scarra. Doctor, is it the same? The call for gentlemen think it's water in the old world, King. Flooding, bringing down the galleries. But are you not so sure? Well, if it happens down there, you can feel. Hey, hold it! Here's that. I take it once. Another crack in the shaft. Wall. I shall have to report that. Three copies. What are you staring at, Doctor? I thought you weren't impressed. That cracked. The way it suddenly opened. That's something I have seen before. Well, seems to be over. Yes. Oh, if we move, maybe we can get the same bus back to Swansea. Oh, then they lock up. Oh, some tales are told of a slumbering pit. For years I worked here on the core face, my little lad. And my old dad, he cut all his legs down there. Look, Mr. Morgan. I could tell you things, man. Perhaps another time. My old dad, you see, he was one of the first to get a real look at the light. Mr. Morgan, the bus. Oh. Oh, the bus. Yes, yes. Yes, you must be going. Lambert, wait. Light, Mr. Morgan, in the mine, what sort of light? Well, man, I don't know whether it was his eyesight or the four-ail bar of the mine at rest, but he used to swear, solemn, that the core seam in the east working used to light up sometimes with a creepy green light. That hurt you to look at it. Creepy green light. My first action next day after parting from Lambert at Parrington was to go and look at the cylinder now lying in the college basement in Kensington. Still silent. It seemed harmless enough. I went up to my study and sat there alone for some time. I had much food for thought. Then I made one telephone call to an old colleague of mine, Dr. Trevor Hughes of Cardiff University. He promised if he could find the time to make certain inquiries for me. Then the growing jungle of papers on my desk brought me back to Earth, so I forced recent events from my mind to it. But it wasn't easy with the sounds of the workmen a few rooms away repairing my shattered laboratory. It was a week later that our examination of the cylinder began in earnest. By that time the denser light cubicle had arrived. Something between a massive telephone kiosk and an upended greenhouse, thick slabs of denser light riveted together, one hinged to form a door that could be secured on the outside with a steel bar. The cylinders were hauled up from the basement, the rod again extracted, and installed upright in the cabinet. When we at last dropped the securing bar into place, the whole thing looked exactly like some odd museum exhibit in a glass case. We arranged instruments to detect and record sound, temperature and radio activity. The days passed. The recording pens drew only monotonous straight red lines on the creeping graph paper. The meter needles didn't as much as flicker. We sketched and photographed the embedded wiring system from every angle and poured over it for hours. I even entered the cubicle and attempted to break away a fragment of the rod for analysis, but my mallet glanced off the gleaming surface without leaving a scratch. Oh, it's no good. It's quite incredibly hard. Close the cubicle, Clifford. Okay. I tried a surface analysis. I couldn't get any sort of the action. An unknown substance. An unknown function. Well, all we can do now is watch and keep on watching. Yeah, we could take it in shifts. Keep up observation all around the clock. Yes. The moment anything starts to happen, someone must be on hand to report it. Apart from the denser light, the rod is in the open again, unshielded by its cylinder. Will you help out a little bit? Yes, of course. We'll make my study our headquarters just in case of emergency. Good. Then we'll work out a duty rotor and keep an instrument reading log. Got a combined operation. Well, we've seen once what can happen. We must be ready. Our only chance of understanding more about this is to see it in operation. And hope the dense light is all it's claim to be. Yes. That's something we must take a chance on. And from now on, no one is to go into the cubicle. That bar is not to be lifted for any reason. I had a camp bed put in my study and took up permanent residence there. The three of us kept our vigil in six-hour shifts. Living on flasks of hot coffee and sandwiches, it was a thankless routine, but it had to be done. The next entry in my notes is for Thursday, the 19th of November. Yes. That Thursday night. It was round about 11 o'clock. Clifford was on his way at 11 o'clock. Clifford was on duty in the laboratory, nearing the end of his watch. Elizabeth Ryder and I were working together in my study. She'd come off duty earlier in the evening, but had declined to go home. Outside, it was raining steadily. The lamps in Cromwell Road had damp halos around them. I was going over my notes and Elizabeth, as I recall, was browsing through a ponderous textbook she had elicitly removed from the college library. How's it going, Doctor? Well, I've been cataloging all the data we've collected so far about the cylinder. Not a lot, but have a look at it. Read it out. Right. A. It is extraordinarily hard. Yes. A composition we might say unknown. B. It clearly requires energy to operate and to find it. It is no visible source of power. Hmm. Right. C. It can emit light. It can indeed and very popular. D. It can produce drastic temperature changes. But always, as we've seen, in sudden drops to many degrees below freezing point. Right. Next. E. It can vibrate ranging from a mild hum to a very violent palatation. There's one more. The vapor or mist. Yes. The most mysterious characteristic. Is it caused by the other functions or is it in some way given out by the cylinder? That seems out of the question there are no vents or holes in the surface to release it. And when it comes, it forms so rapidly. Quite so. Well, that's a lot. Data? No. A string of unanswered questions. Elizabeth. Are we chasing shadows? Are we dealing in fact or a fiction of our own making? How do you mean? Well, we need a theory. All right. That rod is an electronic device. Possibly a component of something bigger. Medical apparatus, perhaps. It fell overboard from some vessel. In time, it was washed ashore on scara. The action of the tide buried it. It's nothing we recognize or understand, but do we know of every scientific advance made in other countries? No. Without a grain of evidence, we promptly start indulging in all manner of sinister forebodings. And we call ourselves scientists. I suppose, looking at it like that, but there was something else. What's that? It's not on your list. I didn't think I left anything out. Why do you look like that? That night, when we went in there and found everything white with frost, just before the floor fell in, I don't know if it happened to you or Clifford. What? For a few moments, my mind went quite blank. Gone? I knew where I was, but I couldn't say or do anything. And there was something about that dreadful noise I wanted to listen to. Some part of it seemed to mean something. Yes, I saw you. You were staring right into that green glare, but your eyes were not seeing it. I can't explain it. But there's not much we can explain, is there? You were nearest to it. What's that book you've been looking at? Oh, Webber's The Human Machine. Physiology. A little out of our field. Is that organism in type of rod that puzzled me? I thought perhaps that this will take me a year to read. No, wait a minute. Don't close it. That plate. That illustration. What chapter is that? The brain and central nervous system. Elizabeth, look at it. The formation. The structure. Even the color. It can't be. This is a specimen. Doctor, the buzzer's from the lab. There must be Clifford. This can wait. Come on. The 30 yards to the laboratory seemed a mile. We heard the noise before we got there. And when we burst in the same cold bittered our faces of the same flaring green light stabbed our eyes. Clifford was leaning against a bench, one hand shielding his face, the other pointing urgently at the cubicle. Inside, the rod had come alive once more, a mass of shimmering green luminescence. But there was a change. Now it glowed like the heart of a furnace through swirling gray vapor that choked the cabinet pressing thickly against the denser light slabs. And inside that green inferno, something moved. It only started up a minute ago. No warning. It was just a flip on the meters. Well, look at that vapor. The denser light's containing a tank, Kevin, keeping it in. We should be safe enough. But what is that moving inside? It's a lamp. A lamp? Yeah, one of those jointed steel jobs off the bench. I said the cubicle was not to be opened. Yeah, well, I... I skipped the order. I'd put it in. Just trying out a screwy idea there. The rod seems to have some effect on solids. And I thought, well, maybe this would be some kind of test. That lamp must weigh all of 15 pounds. It's been world about like a feather. It's hard to see properly, but... am I imagining it? Or is it getting smaller? Oh, it's most likely you're right. It is! Fascinated. Disbelieving we watched. And we saw a miracle. The heavy metal lamp, shaved, bowed, stand and base dwindled and dwindled in size as it whirled like a straw in the wind. Weightless, in the grave vapor, it shrank to a half-size model, keeping it shaped perfectly into a tiny piece of doll's house furniture. And at last, to a black speck that danced for a few seconds and then vanished against the glowing surface of the rod. Here was our answer. To the boiling sea on Skara, to the missing objects on the shelf, to the bench that became nothing, and the steel and concrete floor that suddenly opened. Here was the truth beyond science, beyond understanding. The rod had won monstrous, unimaginable power. Utterly and completely, it could absorb solid matter. That was Orbit 1-0. A play in six episodes written by Peter Elliott Hayes. From London, we present Orbit 1-0. A play in six episodes by Peter Elliott Hayes. Episode 4, The Voices. This is Tom Lambert again. You've now heard three of the six tape recordings made by Dr. Haywood Petrie. But on that November night in the college laboratory, when the green rod went into action for the second time, we were very far from halfway to the truth. Even if the three of them watched a solid steel lamp dwindle in the cylinder, they could not dream of what was yet to come. But Dr. Petrie must take up the story for himself. Here is the fourth recording. Continuation of notes, real four. If I had watched it alone, I would have disbelieved my own eyes. But we all saw it. That heavy, jointed lamp shrink to a speck, and they're literally sucked into the glowing core of the rod. Almost at once the disturbance, light vibrations began to subside. Do you see? The light's dimming. When the mist and the cubicle is carrying. But there's no way for it to get out. It doesn't need a way out. It's being reabsorbed into the rod where it came from. There's nothing else in there. The lamp's gone completely. And we wondered what power that thing possessed. Now we know. It can absorb solid matter. No. Those objects missing from the shelf are curcuit-ish. Of course. The way the workbench that thing was standing on seemed to vanish. The dust that was left there, well, they went. The same way as that lamp. But it's impossible. Solids, gases can't pass through each other. It's a question of densities. It's a law of physics. One of our laws, perhaps. But must they apply everywhere? Under sufficient pressure, water can be bought through a steel plate. A solid can pass through a gas. But a splinter of super-frozen hydrogen can be driven into a wooden board. It's all a question of applied forces. We only understand these things in our own terms. Yes, sir. But physical and chemical changes always leave something. Some deposit. Yes. Look at the rod now. It's gone quite well. You can see through it again. They can. Just the wires. The gray thing in the center. Nothing else. No. Nothing else. But that lamp just can't disappear off the face of the earth. Can't it? After tonight, who are we to say what's impossible? Thank heavens we had that cabinet made if this had happened in the open. Yes. It seems to work more powerfully this time. Now listen, Birkeville. I repeat what I said three days ago. And this time I mean it. After this, we must never open that cubicle. Not for any reason. All right. If solid matter can be drawn in, it could be, well, extremely dangerous. Doctor. Yes. The book I was looking at before Clef Sander the buzzer. That illustration, I think you're right. Yes, that organism in the center. It has all the same characteristics, only on a much larger scale. The resemblance is perfect. And the photograph was a human mad cell. Yes, each one, perhaps one ten thousandth of an inch in diameter. But the cell that thing is made up of must be a quarter of an inch across. If that material comes from some kind of living being, for some reason, in some way enclosed, sealed in, well, the mind staggers at the possibilities. Don't you realize it's simply a question of scale. A human, if he were composed of cells that size, would be he'd be almost three miles high. Later that night, leaving Clifford and Elizabeth on watch, I went alone to my study. I wanted to think. This had suddenly become something far larger than a laboratory problem. This powerful, ruthless mechanism lying buried for years beneath a Hebridean beach with the sea washing indifferently over it. How would it got there and more vital where it began its existence? At last, I picked up the telephone and called Sir Edward Bancroft at his home in Kent. Edward made no comment as I told him the fact. When I'd finished, he told me to come down to Westrom at once and bring my students with me. I wonder now if either of us realized that it was three in the morning. I shall always remember that drive through the wet, empty suburbs and later through the black, sully lanes. And at 4.30 we were sitting in Edward's panel drawing room around the ashes of a dead fire with the first gray of dawn coming over the Kent Hill. Two of the dramas and dressing gown, weren't you? Thank you to receive guests like this. But guests usually come at a respectable hour. My wife's making coffee to be here in a minute. Perhaps I should have waited until the morning. No, you did quite right, Hayward. Well, at least you didn't write off the college completely. Not quite. Well, these are the readings you collected. Yes, sir. Radiation level reached 5 runchins. Temperature down to minus 11 in 80 seconds. Vibrations up to 12,000 cycles. Mmm, quite a lively little gadget, isn't it? And we lost a lamp. Yes. Look, Hayward, it's no good our thinking up glib explanations and sticking our heads in the sand. I'm in touch with technological advances pretty well everywhere. And I can tell you that no one has produced anything like this. So, we're forced to consider the possible alternative. That the cylinder did not originate on this planet. Not a new idea to you, perhaps. No, it's not. We've shot up teen satellites into space. Some of them have stayed up. Some of them haven't. But what do we know about what comes into our own planetary back garden practically nothing? I agree. This could be our first contact with some other intelligent niche. The thing probably isn't meant to do any harm. It may be just a complex instrument hopelessly out of its element running wild. Imagine Sputnik 99 pumping down on Venus and discording sparks, radio signals, and guinea break. Inhabitants, if any, and be quite justified in taking a sledgehammer to it and asking questions afterwards. This could be something like that. Yes, but where in the solar system could it have come from? The composition of the planets is well known. None of them can support the kind of life to bring off an achievement like this. And I think, sir, our cylinder can bite a little harder than the average guinea pig. It can. And it'll take more than a sledgehammer to even chip it. Yes, sir, you'll see. We have indeed. Well, none of us is qualified to make decisions on this. In the morning I shall give Charles a ring. Lord Hellerton, the Minister of Science. Oh, boy, lives in Whitehall somewhere. We're getting a little out of our depth, Heywood. I'm afraid officialdom must take over. Whatever happens, I must have facilities to continue studying that, Rod. I can't stop now. I know, Charles, you have every facility. And the cylinder for the moment seems safe enough where it is. Oh. Don't look so glum, all of you. You may have made the most important discovery in the history of our world. I hope so, Edward, but... Oh, I don't know. I just wish there wasn't something about that thing that makes me want to throw it back into the sea. That's not like you, Heywood. You're tired. You've been going at it too hard. Perhaps. We must take this one careful step at a time. Ah, here's that copy. There's for old Hellerton. Cambridge, he was just rockin' the tile, man. I reached home as my housekeeper was laying breakfast. If my unshaven, disheveled appearance was a shock for her, there was one waiting for me too. Almost at once, the telephone rang. Oh, quite of university. Yes, this is Dr. Petrie. Thank you. Hello. Good morning, Heywood. Good morning. Have our hues here. Did I get you out of bed? No, you didn't. Good, good. How is Wales Wales this morning? Old and damp. Better than London any day. Heywood. Yes. You asked me to have a look at that colliery in the Rhomber. Yes, of course. Now, have I wasted your time? I got it over with my students doing some detecting, ones who come from that part. Hold on. I have a good mind to advise the Dean to send them down, every mother son of them. Why, what have they done? A couple of them were keen pothollers. They thought this was too good to miss. Worse, one of them had worked in a pit. Well, they went to Stan Westlin, but everything seemed quiet enough, including the pitkeeper who was having a sleep. Of course, there was no way of getting down the path, but did that discourage them? The idiots went down their way. Potholing gear, ropes, lamps, and all the rest. They ought to be shot. Believe it or not, they got down to the level of the first working and went half a mile into the galleries. Good for them. Good for... Sorry, I need a very, uh, cool, hearty offer. Mad as happens. Luckily, the pit is still in quite good shape. Except for a few small collapses and a little flooding. But at the very end of the east working, heywood, they say they found a kind of cavern. It must have formed since the pit was closed and then, clampering about with their lamps, they found something else. What? What did they find? An object covered in mineral deposits sticking out of the debris. A tubular, seven or eight feet long, they described it as some sort of cylinder. Oh. So it's not the only one. They didn't, uh, try to move it. No, the air was foul. They had to come up. Thank heaven for that. Trevor, I can't explain it all now, but they must not go down again. We have a similar object here in the college. What? Yes, and we don't know what it may be. Have you been climbing down coal mines at your age? No. No, this was found on an island in the Hebrides. Now, we know of two. What happens? I'll call you later, Trevor. All right, yes, yes. And, uh, those students of yours, be strict with them. Get them sent down definitely. Yes, I should, of course. What are you laughing at? Oh, nine. Thanks for your help. Goodbye. Shortly afterwards, the telephone rang again. It was Sir Edward Bancroft. He told me he'd arranged an appointment for me with the Minister of Science, four o'clock that afternoon in Whitehall. A cloud of uncertainty was gathering in my mind a dark, forbidding cloud, and I knew then where the answer lay. I went to Fleet Street to Tom Lambert. Well, Doctor, are we in business? Or aren't we? Yes. Lambert, I owe you an apology. You were right to drag me down to Landwetland. After this, I'll respect journalistic intuition. There is another cylinder in that pit. There is? Yes. It was found yesterday. Well, it was a shot in the dark, but I've had my eye on this longer than you have, Doctor. You know, years ago, I began noticing the way similar reports kept turning up. Well, I hadn't a ghost of a theory for them, but what's a journal that smells a mystery? Oh, I know. Well, anyway, I started a private news library. Just so, and that's why I came. You shed me some cuttings on the train to Wales, the one about seven, I remember. Yeah, but they were only a few of them. A few? How many more are there? You'd better see the file. All of it. It should be in here. And I've only been a bit for a few years. There we are. Oh, it's very thick. Uh-huh. One cutting dated 1907. Mystery Earth Tremors in Lincolnshire. 1919. Strike at Kent Qualley. Narrow Escapes of Spissure Opens. 1929. Frostbite in Midsummer. Strain Sons on X1. And plenty more going back for 50 years. Forty accounts in all. Forty? And they all have a familiar ring, don't they, Doctor? Maybe even this isn't the whole story. Look, 10th of a last sheet. One I came across by accident when I was in Jordan last year. Syrian village devastated humming, herd as ground subsides, green light, vibration fencing the mask of sport. Yeah. And early this year, a half-finished block of flats and bell grade collapsed without warning. Again, the ground just caved in, and again, workmen talked about a green light. Does that mean anything? Yes. Of course you will. You don't know, the cylinder in our laboratory emits a green light when it functions. Good, yeah. Yes. Syria, Yugoslavia, there could be others, perhaps. All over the world. Remember, this is vitally important. All such reports everywhere can be get hold of them. It's all order. The world's a fair-sized place, you know. Yeah, but the press association starts a little. If I can get my editor on our side and the foreign news agencies would play, we can try. I think I can get you official backing for it. I'm seeing Lord Heaveth on this afternoon. The minister, is it that high already? Yes. Look, may I borrow this file of yours? I think you ought to see it. Yeah, it's all yours. And I just hope that one day that lot might make a new story. Right now, yeah. Looks like something pretty big, doesn't it, doctor? Bigger, perhaps, than we can even imagine. So, at four o'clock, I was sitting in a long, high room behind Whitehall. A log crackled in an edible fireplace, its flames reflecting darkly on the disdainful portraits on the walls. Beyond the tall window a tug hooted on the gray curve of the tents. Lord Heavethon seemed a quiet, mild-looking man, until his blue eyes suddenly sharpened, and then you felt a powerful mental microscope focusing on him. Interesting, doctor, briefly there. Disturbing that. But would you say conclusive, any of it? Well, there's no actual proof of what we suspect. Right. Then you're not a crank. No, sir. Well, now, you've given me the technical data, your notes, methodical, as I expected they would be. And I've talked with Bancroft, and he takes it seriously. Now, tell me what you think, doctor. Just what you consider we are up against. Well, I can summarize it. We know of the certain existence of two cylinders. They can cause violent physical disturbances. They can also assimilate mineral and metallic substances. Probably any solid matter. How do they do it? I want your theory. Possibly by some means of compressing molecular structures. This could account for the extraordinary shrinking process we have observed. When the object is sufficiently condensed, it passes into the interior of the rod and is absorbed. You might say it's digested without traits. But this is not limited to single-objects. No. Beneath the ground, the cylinders absorb quantities, whatever straighters around them, soil, rocks, sand, submerged, I believe, they even take in seawater. They seem to have quite an appetite. And some curious taste. But this would require energy, a great deal. Where do they obtain it? It may well be that they can absorb that, too, from any nearby source. Dynamos, electric lines, possibly even heat. There was an occasion when an express diesel engine became drained of power. And at the college, since we've had the thing in the laboratory, the lights often grow dim, and the electric rips work sluggishly. You mean they can recharge themselves at will through solid walls across distances? It's the only answer. And when they're replenished, they can operate again. That's when the dangerous freezings occur. I see. There are these news reports. Do you seriously believe that each one means another cylinder? Not in every case, perhaps, but I think we must accept the existence of, well, a considerable number. Middle East. A network of them. Where does one begin the grasp of things like this? And you are trying to trace all reports that fit the known pattern. Yes. It may take some time. It must be done quickly. I will talk to the Press Association myself until we know how far this goes. If the results are significant, some of the sites will have to be excavated until then carry on with your work, doctor. You will have my ministry's full support. Thank you, sir. And money if you need it. It's not meter readings I want. I want to know why, what their purpose is. And now, what is nowadays known as the $64,000 question, where have they come from, doctor? You tell me. Very well. I believe they've traveled here from some source in space. They've been guided, directed to bury themselves in out-of-the-way places. They're part of a plan and operation devised by an extremely advanced intelligence. They've been falling on Earth for at least 50 years, possibly for very much longer. It seems safe to assume, therefore, that they're still arriving. It was coming nearer. At last we were beginning to glimpse the vast outline which only too soon was to become dreadfully clear. And things were not only happening in London. Since our return we'd had too much to occupy us to give much thought to where it had all begun, the radio telescope on the Isle of Skara. But on that desolate headland in the control room beneath the huge brooding bow, McCraven and Garrick were making discoveries of their own. Still a long way from breaking down the signals themselves, but you check the calculations of sources. What conclusion would you come to? The signals faded steadily for six months. Now they're growing stronger again. The source moving away from us and coming back. Yes. And these progressions are regular. Yes. That means the motion of the point of origin is curved. An arc. And an arc is part of a circle. Or an ellipse. An ellipse. And that can only mean one thing. An orbit. Yes. These transmissions are coming from a solid body orbiting around the sun like a planet. Somewhere beyond Pluto. Nine planets and... Peter, do you realize what this could be? Yes, whatever astronomer has been wondering since Pluto was discovered in 1930. Yes. Well, the universities must see these figures and... No, I must discuss this with Petrie first. We need his opinion. I'll send him the telegram and go down to London for a few days. Right, sir. I'd rather want to see what he's making of that resouvenir he took home with him. Late the next afternoon, I sent Pipit and Elizabeth away from the laboratory. I wanted to study my notes alone, and there now seemed no purpose in watching the silent cylinder all the time. Also, Elizabeth seemed to be growing more depressed each day as if something were weighing on her mind. She and Clifford retired rather discouraged, probably to spend the evening at their usual coffee bar, and I went home. At about 11 o'clock that night in my study in Eaton Square, I was examining a thick folder of calculations and diagrams. Professor McCarran, who had arrived with it an hour before, watched me curiously. Is it all or isn't it? Campbell, I want to be the first to congratulate you. These figures are confusive. A large orbiting body within the solar system. There can be only one explanation. A new 10th planet orbit 1-0. That's it. It's been suspected for years. A planet so distant, so dark that no telescope, even yours, can detect it. No. No, we would never have known without those seagulls. But that's where they're coming from hereward. Signals from the 10th planet. It must be enormous, possibly even larger than Jupiter. A vast frozen giant. And its journey around the sun must take something like 700 years. I wonder, Campbell. Yes? Well, suppose those cylinders of mine scattered over the Earth have some connection with it. They take in solid matter and it vanishes completely. It's a fantastic process, and it must have a purpose. Is it possible that they absorb substances in order to transmit them elsewhere, to send them perhaps back to where the cylinders themselves came from, back across space, back to the 10th planet itself? If so, oh, we're up against something so big we don't realize it's staring us in the face. Oh, no thanks. I'm not hungry. I only said, oh, excuse me. The Martians are on the way. They surely have a lulu of the technique. Nerve warfare. And we're the first victims. Any time now we'll be at one another's throats. Oh, Cliff, don't. Don't say things like that even in fun. I'm sorry. Should we talk about the weather? I'm tired. I think I'll go and... oh, I left my file of notes in the lab and I want to write them up at home. I'd better slip back and get them. Not alone, you don't. Peter, he won't be there. I'll walk up to the college with you. No. I'd rather be on my own. I'll ring you tomorrow. Okay. I'll stay here a bit. Thank you. Oh, forget it. Good night. Night. Elizabeth left the coffee bar at exactly 11.35. She walked into Cromwell Road, entered the deserted college, and took the lift up to the third floor. Reaching the laboratory and switching on the lights, the first thing she did was look quickly at the rod standing in the denser-like cubicle. It was dull and silent. Elizabeth could see her own pale face reflected distorted in its polished green surface. Automatically, she ran her eye over the recording instruments. The meter needles were all quite still. Near the cubicle, there was a cylinder, a huge empty shell. She smiled. Already, dust was gathering on it. She collected her folder of papers from the bench and walked back towards the door. Then she stopped even before she looked round. She knew by the air becoming colder each second, chilling, biting, and by the slow cloud of unearthly green light which paved the wall, confronting her with her own black rearing shadow. As she spun round, her breath made a white cloud and something crackled under her feet, frost, forming rapidly white and glinting. The green glare from the rod, growing fiercer, hurt her eyes. Then the vibration, rattling the benches and apparatus, dealing in her ears and dulling her mind. She found herself walking against her will towards the cubicle, her aching eyes fixed on the growing core of the rod. Something seemed to be drawing her towards it. She bumped something. It clicked as she put out a hand that she went on. She cried out, but her voice seemed not to belong to her and came from a vast distance. Seconds passed. There was no thought in her mind. And then something seemed to burn her fingers. Forcing her eyes down, she saw it was the locked bar of the cabinet, white with ice. She'd lifted it and the door was swinging open. Now she was very close to the blazing rod and softly, silently, a gray vapor was beginning to seep from its surface. With a frantic effort, she forced herself to think, to move, to step back. But the noise wouldn't let her think. Something somewhere was calling, demanding, willing her to obey. Her eyes fell on the laboratory telephone. One clear thought, one hope came and she'd come to it. Telephone. Cliff. Coffee bar. Phone number. Steal it so often. Phone number on the menus. Think number on the menus. Sloan. Yes. The frozen steel of the telephone dialed bit at her fingers. It seemed to take all her strength to turn it, release it, its word back. Her mind was blurring, slipping away again. Another one. And another. And another. Yes, he is here. I tell him. Hey, Mr. Clifford. Your young lady is on the phone for you. Okay. Cliff here, is that you, Liz? Hello? Hey, Liz. What's wrong? Well, Liz, what is it? Are you in the lab? Honey, hang on. Whatever it is, hang on. I'll be right with you. Say, can you hear me? Clifford had reached the college, the doors of the laboratory. They weren't open. Somebody had fallen across them, jamming them on the inside. Peering helplessly through the glass panels, he saw gray, swirling paper. The room was choked with it. And everywhere, a wintry whiteness of frost and ice. He saw dimly the open cubicle and the rod glowing a dull green. The telephone and its receiver just clear of the floor, swinging slowly on its cord. But there was no sign of Elizabeth. But the voluntary seemed... Right. That was orbit 1-0. A play in six episodes, written by Peter Elliot Faze. And produced for the BBC by David Davis. From London, we present Orbit 1-0. A play in six episodes by Peter Elliot Faze. Episode 5, The Frozen World. Tom Lambert here again. A strange cylinder buried beneath a northern causing solid matter to vanish from the face of the Earth. Possibly even transmitting it across the vastnesses of space. In the fourth recording, you heard how Elizabeth returned alone to the laboratory. How the cylinder began to operate with a new intensity. Now, we were very near to understanding the whole unbelievable truth. Here is the fifth recording. If I had known that night the terrible risk Elizabeth had taken. But I was a mile away sitting by my study far with McCann. Clifford knew, though, he could see the writhing mist, the white fur of frost smothering everything, the telephone swinging mutely on its cord. But not Elizabeth Ryder. In there! Looks like heaven's taking you here me. Not to get these doors open. Clifford moved across the passage and hurled himself bodily at the doors. They burst in, sending something rasping across the floor, a filing cabinet that had toppled across them on the inside. Dreadful, paralyzing cold closed about him. This was nothing we had seen before. The whole laboratory was an arctic landscape. The apparatus, the benches, no more than humped shapes beneath the coating of ice, grotesque, glittering icebergs. The densilide cubicle had become a nightmare refrigerator, a hollow case of ice containing the only thing unchanged, the rod, its green flickering growing duller each second. Clifford tottered and fell heavily. The floor itself was a gleaming sheet of ice. He dragged himself up, and then he gasped with relief. Live! Oh, heaven, not maybe you. Oh, no. Hidden from the doors, Elizabeth was lying between the benches, and she was very still. Her clothing, her hair were white with frost. Her face was white and pinched, and her eyes were closed. Clifford crawled to her side, tried to lift her, but her coat, stiff as a board, was frozen past to the floor. Oh, no good. I have to get some help. He tried the telephone, but the dial wouldn't turn. The instrument was frozen solid. He staggered from the laboratory, and dialed 999. Some hours later, in the quiet of a hospital ward, Clifford McClaren and myself stood at the bedside of a white-faced, shaken, but still-living Elizabeth, waiting till she could tell us her story. I live. You should have stayed for that other coffee. How are you feeling? Cold. Very cold. Sorry to be such a nuisance. Oh, my dear child. Well, you weren't to know, and I don't talk if you don't want to, my dear. I do want to, but... Can you tell us what happened? It was so cold. Ice was just going on everything. I knew I had to telephone. I tried to remember the coffee bar number. Did I? Sure you did. You got through. When I arrived up there, the whole darn place was turning into a glacier. But before that, Miss Raider, how did it begin? Why did you not just come out? I don't know. I was leaving when it started. I remember seeing my own shadow on the wall. Then the noise. That awful noise. I couldn't think. Because of the other sound. What other sound? A strange sound. I couldn't understand. Elizabeth, try to remember. I can't. My mind wouldn't work. Elizabeth, what other sounds did you hear? Like... Like voices. Quiet, gentle voices. Whispering. I tried to understand them. They wanted to be understood. And I knew I could if only. But it was so cold. Go on, go on. I wanted to go nearer. To hear them better. Nearer? To the cubicle? Yes. They wanted me to. And I was talking. I don't know what I said. I couldn't take my eyes off the world. Like green light. I wanted to be close to it. To be warm. And then? Elizabeth, stay awake. Sorry. Then I suddenly felt frightened. I knew I mustn't. I had to keep the voices out of my head. I just kept on thinking of the telephone. I thought, if I could just get to the telephone, it should have been black but it had turned white. It hurt my hand. And then, oh, why, they make this room warm. He would leave it alone. Yes, I can. Thank you, my dear. Have a good rest. You've more than landed. I think we should go now. So long, Liz. The doctor says you should be fit enough to come out tomorrow. Thanks, Claire. I keep on getting I mustn't let her come ahead of me. She's almost asleep. Come along. We went back to the college, to the laboratory. The ice had all disappeared but the place looked as if a flood had swept through it. It was late. We were all exhausted. There seemed nothing more we could do. We stood there aimlessly, helplessly, while the water dripped dismally around us. Voices whisper. Wanting to be understood. Doctor, was she just a bit lightheaded, or did she really hear something? Yes, Clifford. I believe she did. That's why she stayed. She had to. Hey, Wood, are you telling us that that object spoke that a voice came from it? Not a voice, but something that was able to reach her mind that wanted to communicate with it. Aye. And the signals reaching the telescope. Again, an intent at communication. Exactly. Must fit together two forms, perhaps, of the same thing. Hey, Doctor, look at this. What is it? The tape recorder. It's running. And the tape half used. It switched to record. It wasn't operating when I bust in here, but it is now. And the microphone is still connected. Clifford, you said Elizabeth fell about here. Yeah, that's right. Well, suppose she stumbled against it, pressed her hand down on it. And switched it on. It would have started recording. It wouldn't cruise the motor to a standstill. And it's only just stored and started up again. Clifford, take the tape off. I will record it at home. We can try it there. This place is still uncomfortably chilly. And before we go, make quite certain the cubicle is properly secured. After this, no one is to be alone in here, not for one minute. I've got the tape placed up, sir. Let's hear it then. I doubt if it picked up much under those conditions. Here she goes, then. Nothing. Listen. Hey, that's it. The rod going flat out. She did start it going. I've seen it so often. No number on the menus. Think. She was trying to get me at the coffee bar. I was sitting down there feeling so sorry for myself if I didn't know what she was doing. Cliff, please come. Please. I can't fight it much longer. Yes. Cliff, help me. I mustn't go back. She dropped the receiver. Yes. Now, those vital four minutes before you got to the monetary, if we can hear what happened in that time, oh, we must. Hey, listen to that. I've never made that noise before. Now she's walking towards it, getting near the cubicle. Who are you? I can hear, but you are so far away. Try to understand. The cylinders come from your world. Maybe you're right. They come from your world. Many were lost on the journey, but many have landed safe. Tend us no harm. The cylinders are your way of exploring our planet, which you believe may be inhabited. Yes. They collect samples, solids, and gases. Transmit them back for analysis. Yes. This way you are surveying our world without leaving your own time or any possible barriers. Hey, what? Do you hear? This is weight. Now you are trying to communicate with us directly. And that's all we shall hear, I suppose. That was when the recorder finally froze up and stopped. It's a wonder it kept going as long as it did. Well, Heywood, you were right. The voice is from the 10th planet. Yes. An inhabited planet, Campbell, though by what inconceivable form of life. I what? What is the purpose of the cylinders? What incredible technology. No clumsy rockets, no people attempt to land on a planet where conditions might be dangerous to them. No. First a systematic remote controlled survey. 50 years. By now they must have built up a complete knowledge of the Earth's composition. Its geology, its atmosphere, its lands, its oceans. And we fondly imagine that we are far advanced in science. If one waits up our minds, they're not hostile. They're still only seeking knowledge. Thank heaven there's no danger after all. No, no danger. They seem anxious to reassure us on that. Obviously they have no way of coming here even if they wanted to. That distance, it's out of the question. Maybe just as well. What manner of creatures can exist there? A frozen planet 100 times the size of Earth, 1000 million miles away. It could be no biochemical life as we understand it. Yeah. But what's that they said? Time and space are not impassable barriers. They said that. Well, you must act on this as you think best. I must get back. I've been too long away from the telescope already. When I left, young Gary was working like a maniac. On the signals you mean? Yes. He's pretty sure the breakthrough or we must know if they're part of the same project. We can suppose now that they are. But it's strange that they were not mentioned in the message that Elizabeth understood. Aye, that's odd. But once we can find the basic key to those transmissions, we'll know. And I must see Lord Heverton again tomorrow. He must hear this recording. Perhaps there is no real urgency now if one keeps a safe distance from the cylinders, but all the same. There's just one thing on my mind, sir. We didn't get the end of that message. The tape stopped too soon. It did. Liz did, but she can't remember. We were not to be afraid if they used the rods to take the next step. Now that's what gets me. What else could they be used for? What next step? The next day was sunny and I felt easier in my mind than I had for a long while. But a shadowy doubt still lurked. We had made a momentum discovery. We'd seen the glass to have reached the truth. Then why did I feel that the pieces had dropped into place too conveniently? Was there still something we had overlooked? I was just leaving for Whitehall when Tom Lambert arrived. He had been busy since I last saw him and he wasted no time. He slapped a thick sheaf of papers on my desk. The neat teleprinter type, page after page of it, told a disturbing story. That's the first installment. They're coming in thick and fast. The Ministry teamed up with the Foreign Office. They've got every foreign news service working overtime. And these are all accounts of the same kind of phenomena? Yeah, dug out of newspaper files all over the known world. And like ours, they go back for 50 years and more. Let's have a look. Yes, everywhere. Australia, Alaska, Norway, South America, and in every case, the same symptoms. Earth tremors, vibration, violent drops in temperature. In a few places, the things were seen to land. A streak of blue-white light, a quick concussion and just a small hole in the ground. They would arrive Whitehall after passing through the atmosphere. In many cases, they were assumed to be meteorites. But they go down so deep they're impossible to dig out. They must strike the earth at tremendous speed. The one we found under that beach must somehow have been slowed down. The two colliding with the real meteor shower. And how many of these are there? Well, so far, 208. 208. And the reports are still coming in. The minister must see these two. Distributed over the entire surface of the globe. So many. Just for a survey. What was that, doctor? Oh, I was just thinking aloud. Well, thank you, Mr. Lambert. By the way, we've come to the conclusion that there's no serious danger from these things. Oh? Provided they're kept at a respectful distance. Let's hope you're right, doctor, because I've got a news flash, too. Our South Wales correspondent tells me that troops have moved in. Moved in where? Land weapon. Yeah, they're mounting a guard on the old pit. Seems the official view is a little less confident than yours. Oh, I didn't know that. Well, I must be going. I have a small theory of my own. I think we may be comparing notes again before long. Half an hour later, I was again in that quiet, high room behind Whitehall. Lord Heverton's face was more serious than it had been before. He listened to the tape recording and examined the bundle of reports. Well, this is really only what we expected, isn't it, doctor? Except bigger, over 200 cylinders. So many and so evenly distributed. No country, no corner of the world overlooked. Oh, they're like some enormous spy system. As you say, why should they need so many? And that recording, we're dealing with something quite outside our knowledge. But if their intentions really are peaceful, is there any way we can reply? Well, according to Professor McCarran, none are present. In time, a signaling apparatus might be built and it might be powerful enough to send short waves to the 10th planet. A lot of mites, doctor. Anyway, I'll tell you what we are doing about this. Plotting every suspected site in this country, guarding each one we confirm with an army unit. Yes, I heard. The public must be protected. Our delegate is addressing the United Nations Scientific Commission today. Then I hope the same will happen abroad. Detecting, plotting and observation of sites. And here in this red folder is another scheme I've drawn up. I can't tell you the details yet, but they are also being put before the commission. What sort of scheme? Just certain emergency measures. Should they, for any reason, become necessary? Yes, but I do. I know what you're going to say. This is knowledge, vital knowledge. We must be on our guard against any instinctive hostility. I agree. But better safe than sorry, doctor. I see. But what do we do immediately? A famous politician once said a famous saying, wait and see. Carry on with your work for another week. If no new developments occur, then I shall arrange for several other cylinders to be excavated. And then? Already there are some high-level proposals and international authority to decide how best to develop this interplanetary contact and research centers will be needed and international fund coordination. Yes, of course. Another week. Then it'll be out of my hands. Not entirely. There will be work as part of a team for all the specialists we have. Your lecturing on cosmic science will be valuable. My lecturing? This is a big event in the history of our small world, doctor. We must be big enough each in our own way to meet it. Yes, I understand. Now perhaps you would excuse me. I have rather a lot to do. I have to report to Parliament this afternoon. But I rather think all the honorable members will stay awake a little to me today. Outside, Whitehall was grey and cold. The sun had gone. A steady drizzle was falling. The cars and buses elbowed each other. The passers-by huddled into their coats and went on their million and one different errands. Everything was as it should be on a dismal November London afternoon. So solid, so normal. What I found myself saying can possibly change any of this. The few slabs of coloured plastic we were making such a to-do about. It suddenly seemed absurd. How little we knew then. I drove back to the college. I went up to the laboratory and stood looking at the rod. Dark and silent in the cubicle. Would we ever know? And anyway, in a few days it would be taken away. I hardly heard the doors open behind me. We thought you might see her. Hello, Doctor. Hello, Doctor. Elizabeth, Clifford. Oh, I was daydreaming. How are you, my dear? Quite all right now. Good. They let me out this morning. Cliff told me about the recording I seem to have made. I still don't remember. He didn't want me to come here again, but I wanted to see that. He told me something. More than was on the tape. And I repeated it. But it's gone. We'll come back to you. In any case, our work's nearly over. Special authorities, international funds. There'll be no place for us. Oh, well, it had to happen. What I can possibly do in one week, I hear. I could try again. I think I can turn it. No, I won't hear of it. You've done your share, Elizabeth. Another time, that terrible freezing, you might not be so lucky. Now we can only wait. The next morning, Saturday, the newspapers exploded. Theories, speculations, accusations, advice. Plenty of advice. The story had broken at last. By 11, my house was besieged by reporters. Every reporter in London had seen it, except Tom Lambert. My front doorbell and telephone rang furiously until I disconnected them both. I saw no one all day, and I spoke to no one. I slept badly that night. I kept hearing the sound of a cylinder. And once, I think it was three in the morning, I got up and rang the college. But the disgruntled voice of Simmons assured me that all was quiet in the laboratory. The next day was the same. Now the tireless gentleman of the press resorted to the door knocker. I couldn't do much about that. Then three solid policemen appeared outside and peace returned. Late in the afternoon, Clifford and Elizabeth called. I was glad to see them and asked them to save the dinner. It was a silent meal. The winds seemed very strong outside, rattling the windows behind the curtains and scurrying round the deserted square. We were not to know it then, but elsewhere the night was even wilder. Far away, a bitter gale was lashing the Isle of Scala and howling through the girders of the radio telescope high above Curcuit. You're sure about this? You can't tell me the mistake. I broke the code this afternoon. I was on it almost by accident. Once I confirmed the ten basic groups, the rest just fell into place. I got this clear transcription from the first long sequence I tried. But it's English. Oh, it is now, but it could be any language. The signals don't convey a letter alphabet. There are a series of numerical progressions representing shades of meaning, a sort of mathematical grammar. And this is what you've translated so far. Work through the rest as fast as I can. This is enough. Goodness gracious, Peter. If this is true, I must talk to Peter. He must know about this at once. We were sitting round the fire when the telephone rang. At first we ignored it. But it wouldn't stop. At last I asked Clifford to answer it. That's easier. Hold on, will you? Doctor, it's Professor McLaren calling from Scala. Oh, I wouldn't like his phone, Bill. Hello, Campbell. Hey, work? Yes. Hey, work. Garrick has broken the signal code. What? When? A few hours ago. He's translated a passage. I've got the paper here. What? What does it say? I'd better read it. It's short enough. Are you listening? Yes, yes. If the cylinders speak, do not believe what they say. Your planet is in great danger. Destroy them. Good. That's repeated three times. Then, when great cold comes, it will be too late. The great cold? Is that all? Aye. Garrick should work on the rest. I'll be down tomorrow. I'll get a plane. Good. Let's hope it doesn't as bad as I think it is. Yes. Well, thank you, Campbell. Goodbye. Goodbye. Well, did you hear that, Clifford? If the cylinders speak, do not believe them. Then all that about peaceful intentions and seeking knowledge. Well, it's to throw us off our guard to save the cylinders. Perhaps so that... what a monumental idiot I've been. The tenth planet in some way, it must be divided. That's why signals have been coming from two directions. And if the cylinders transmit matter, well, of course. We must go to the laboratory. There's no knowing how much time we have. The rod is still off. Oh, it's half-expecting. Quiet now. It's only waiting. Don't you see, either of you? This marvel of creation we've come close to worshipping, it can be matter across space. We've known that for weeks, but we've been blind. If it can transmit in one direction, it can do it in the other. From Earth to the tenth orbit. Oh. From there to here. Precisely. But what would they need to send through? Oh. Themselves. Whatever they are, themselves. We've heard their voices. Next time, we shall see them. But the next step, we were not to be afraid, we were to wait to help them. Doctor, look. The rod. It's starting to flicker. The green light. It's beginning. It must be. And the cold. Can you feel it? We must choose now, knowledge or survival. Here. The builders left the stage hammer. In the passage. Get it. Get it, I say. Okay. What are you going to do? Do what primitive man did when he saw danger of fight. Here it is. No hammer. Must weigh 30 pounds. Elizabeth, open the cabinet. Do as I say quickly. All right. Now, tip the rod over. Pull it. It won't hurt you yet. I'll help you. All right. Right. There it is. Now, use those Canadian muscles of yours. Smash it. Yeah, but we can't just. Smash it. I tell you, if you won't, I shall have to. Okay. Stand back. Here goes then. It won't break. Harder. Harder. All your space, but it must break. It must. Oh, hopeless. Won't. Won't even. Here. It's no good. They knew it would come to this. They planned. They made sure. Nothing can destroy this thing. Nothing. Orbit 1-0. A play in six episodes. Written by Peter Elliott Hayes. And produced for the BBC by David Davis. From London, we present Orbit 1-0. A play in six episodes by Peter Elliott Hayes. Episode 6. The Unseen. Lambert here. This is the last time I shall be speaking to you. I've done what I intended. And now only those last unforgettable days remain to be told. A tenth planet. 5,000 million miles distant. And yet on that windy November night, no farther than the flickering green rod in a Kensington building. This was the link. A frail door separating our world from a frozen giant on the rim of space. Now it was opening. And what would cross the threshold? Here is Dr. Petrie's sixth and last recording. Final notes on tenth planet. We had had our warning. The signals had told us the true purpose of this scattered network of cylinders. And now the hour of the rods had come. Not now to absorb another telltale specimen of our earth, but to send something through. But our understanding had come too slowly. Even as Clifford's hammer rang on the unbreakable green surface, I knew we were too late. I felt as he did. Nothing could destroy this thing, nothing. We hurried to my study. Then telephone calls to Bancroft, head of the college, to the Ministry of Science, to the police. I felt we were going to need their help. Meanwhile the terrible freezing went on. Some hours later, the whole corridor passing the laboratory for full 30 yards each way had become one shining low-tunnel of solid ice. Out of it swept gusts of bitterly cold air. It was like looking into the dead, green-lit heart of an iceberg. And somewhere in the dim frozen cavern that had been the laboratory, the rods still throbbed angrily. The night passed. The freezing continued, but nothing more. With the dawn of Sunday morning came fog, a blanket of good, honest fog beneath which all London peered and coughed, and which shrouded the Victorian spires and turrets of the college. Ten o'clock we were back at my house for welcome coffee and buttered toast, and the telephone bell I was beginning to dread. It was Elizabeth who saw the black and silver limousine stop outside, and the short overcoated figure who hurried up the steps. It was Lord Heverton, and the Minister, it appeared, had set many wheels in motion. The college told me I'd find you here. Well, Doctor, I had my own forebodings, but nothing as alarming as this. Perhaps we shall get a clearer picture when McLaren deciphered the rest of those signals. He's on his way here now. He's flying down from Scotland. We should know something soon. I hope so. Meantime, that rod is turning your college into one huge refrigerator. It certainly is. Creating the conditions they are used to. Undoubtedly. Well, the police are watching from every possible vantage point. Yes. If any other phenomena develop, we shall hear. Good. And the other cylinders, this may be the first of many. You'll recall that red file. Yes, I do. We're putting the emergency measures into effect at once. So long as the plotted cylinders are passive, they will be left for the time being. But wherever activity is seen, I'm afraid it is going to be dealt with. After that warning, we can take no chances in how dealt with, sir. The Army bulldozers and excavating parties first, then troops with mortars and demolition charges. If that is not enough, there are tanks and heavy artillery standing by. Oh, my word. And if necessary, there is bomber command. Explosives. I wonder. I think we can cope. That specimen in the college is the one we must watch. I quite agree, sir. That is our guide to what to expect later from all the rest. If that turns out to be a damp squib, there may be nothing to worry about. Let's go. Well, I must get back to Whitehall. Reports from the War Office should be coming in any time now. If there is any news, let me know at once. Certainly. Yes, of course. Lord Heverton's car stood away into the fog. A few minutes later, a taxi chugged out of it and deposited McCallan and Peter Garrick on the pavement. With the future of the world in the balance, I observed Campbell still found three minutes to wrangle with the driver over the fair. When he was pacing my study, gripping a bundle of papers, there were grim lines around his mouth and his eyes were without hope. He decoded the rest. The last section on the plane coming down. We chartered a private one at Renfield. It's all here he would guess an intelligent lucid history. Successes and setbacks on a world we can't even begin to imagine. And a disaster. Disaster? Look, it'll save time if Garrick just gives you the gist of it. Tell them, Peter. The 10th planet is inhabited. Not by one dominant species as here, but by two. By two? Yes, two races have always kept to their respective sides of the planet. Alien, hostile, endlessly at what we would call a cold war. No to a world in those temperatures. The inhabitants of the site receiving what little light and heat there is are highly advanced technologically. 50 years ago in our time they perfected the system of sending the surveying cylinders across space to Earth, which they considered the planet most likely to support organic life. I see. The method we know now are the cylinders of simulated samples, dismantled them into individual molecules and beamed them back. At the other end there are special receivers, and they're reintegrated for examination. Well, so far so good. And this originally was the only purpose of the cylinders. Then the blow fell. What blow? Well, they were suddenly and ruthlessly overrun by the inferior beings from the other face of the planet. The signals refer to them as the dark ones. The dark ones. The dark ones. They took control of the system and soon discovered that the samples coming back were rich in chemicals and minerals. Substances were to them. Yes, we became a desirable base, an ideal potential mining column. Gosh, gravity free water and plenty of solar heat. Yes, I see. And the means were already here, planted in a thousand different spots. So the plan took shape. First, communication. To assure us of the harmlessness of the rods. Yes, and then themselves. To explore Earth at first hand. The dark ones. They're very confident in themselves, Heywood, because they've done it once already. What? Our moon. The moon, chosen for a pilot experiment. No. They landed cylinders and sent a number of their creatures through. It worked and they got back. Now they're ready for the full-scale operation. Us. The next step. Yes, the next step. What the dark ones did not discover was a high-frequency radio transmitter. Another part of the original survey. It had been beaming signals for a long time in the hope of making semantic contact with us. And it was continuing to operate in secret. But now it sent out warnings. Endless repeated warnings. There was just a chance we might understand and be ready. And that's all? No, not quite. There's another short sequence, but it's very distorted. I'm still working on it. I think the dark ones have detected the signals and I think they're jamming them. And nothing to tell us what these beings, these dark ones, are like. Nothing at all. What could evolve out there? Gravity to make a human weigh 500 tons. Perpetual near darkness with temperatures close to absolute zero. Incredible. Incredible. Those cells, a human, would be three miles high. We can't begin to imagine Campbell. No, indeed. And we can't wait and wait until that ghastly thing up there. Maybe the waiting's over. Yes, speaking. I see. When was this? Yes, I'll come at once. The college. Something's happened. The rod has stopped. Stopped? Yes, but there are still noises. New noises. We'd better go. It seems to be over the freezing, the vibration, but now there's something else. It comes and goes. Listen, you hear? Not in the laboratory, but it's on that side of the building. Lower down. And it seems to be moving a boat. We must go up. If we can get close enough to see. Wrap yourselves up. No one take their gloves off. The cold up there is terrible. We climbed the six flights again. Frost on the stairs. Our feet left prints in it. Now almost the entire third floor was a nightmare, arctic landscape of ice. But it was dripping, thawing. We picked our way along white tunnels that had been corridors and reached the laboratory. There was a mound of solid ice. The denser-like cubicle entombed. It was silent. And then we followed the sun, stumbling and slithering along the ice-encrusted passages. It was a strange, unwheeled hunt. Our breath making white clouds in the freezing air. We reached the landing with the lift and stopped. Hey, well, look. Those lift gates are still trellis, ripped to pieces. And the sliding doors, like a car's been driven through. This lift stuck on the floor above. Don't go too near the edge. It's a long drop. You hear it? It's coming from the shaft. I must go. No, sir. Once weapon you've had it. Just kneel down. I'll hold onto your coat. Can you? Yes, again. The stunt came down there. It filled the bottom of the shaft. Gray, but not solid. It's more like a crowd, but it has a kind of outline. A shape. One of them has come through. The police took matters into their own hands. In ten minutes, Cromwell Road was empty and closed to traffic. Surrounding buildings were emptied, and there were willed occupants escorted out of the area. Still, the fog pressed down. It was soon clear that the gray vapor was seeping out of the lift shaft into the basement. The rumbling grew more frequent and more violent. Now things were happening in Simmons' domain, and he led us down to a storeroom where there was a ventilating grill through which the basement could be seen. We peered through. And there it was. Vapor. A gray shifting pool. Shapeless, yet keeping a compact mass with a dull, billowing surface. Still for long minutes, then flattening and rolling silently as if seeking a way out. Incredible. And that's it. A living, solid thing. Living but not solid. Well, it's logical, of course. A planet as massive, as cold as that. Beings with very loose molecular structure. Not affected by the tremendous gravity. Little more to our eyes than a gas. Able to expand or contract themselves at will. And cold. Cold as the place we came from. We went up again to meet Tom Lambert hurrying across the hall. You say I told you so? I think this is no surprise to you. The cylinders operating in reverse, you mean? It struck me as a possibility. Oh, it struck you as a possibility. Not worth mentioning, of course. Sorry, Doctor, but it was only a guess. When I assumed they could be knocked out if they got troublesome, seems I was wrong. Mr. Lambert, we are not your admiring reedos. You needn't dramatize it. Sorry. But listen, the reports coming into the war office, they're not good. Several of the cylinders have had the full treatment shot out and blown up. The casings have split, but the rods haven't even cracked. Oh, great heavens. They tried tanks on X-Mall, but the engines froze before they could get near. What? The Air Ministry are ready to try pinpoint bombing where they can, but if armor-piercing shells won't even scratch them. I was afraid of this. Has, uh... has anything else been reported? Yeah. Several of them are operating violently. You know, green light, intense cold. Aye, that's the pattern. Fourteen hours of freezing. The energy build up. And then the breakthrough. This one is ahead of the others. Excuse me, Dr. Police here. Yes, Superintendent. Oh, Doctor, we've got some asbestos suits from the fire service. Two of my men have got into the basement. What? Oh, by heaven's sake, they... Oh, they needn't have worried. Apart from about ten tons of ice, it's empty. What? The doors out of the car park have been torn off their hinges. Whatever it is that was in there, it's gone. And then, in the fog, the real hunt began. By now, his ability was down to a few yards. One heard things. Footsteps. A car engine starting. A voice calling. But they seemed on the other side of a soft white wall. Constables groped about with flashlights keeping in touch by blowing their whistles. The police cars crawling cautiously, their headlights glowing like pairs of yellow eyes, fanned out, and others convert to join them from all over London. We stationed ourselves on the pavement outside the college by the superintendent's car. Its radio, in constant touch with the Scotland Yard control room, chattered continually, and its operators scribbled on their pads and handed the messages out to us. But we knew we were helpless. Yes, it's fog. The thing couldn't have a better camouflage. The black cat in the coal cell had nothing on this. And the thing is, what will it do? Well, everything here is strange to it, but it must explore. I think it will be cautious at first. And anyone meeting it? The only warning may be the code after that. By the way, where is Peter Gannick? Well, he stayed behind at your house. Yeah, I guess he wanted to keep working on the last sequence of signals. This is from 7-0-7, junction of Brompton Road and both of the gardens. Right. Here's something. I seen Brompton Road. Continuous trail. So it went that way, moving northeast. Something grey is seen on the road. They tried to shadow it, then the car engine packed up. So it can absorb energy on its own. Thank goodness it's Sunday. That road, any other day, and the shop's all open. 7-2 through again, sir. They've abandoned their car. Let me see. A bus coming down Night's Bridge is changing in Stop 2. Ice began to form all over it. Only a few passengers, they got off all right. Wilkins, is it? Tell them I want cars patrolling square. Night's Bridge, Kensington Road and Sloan Street. Right, sir. Report the moment they have engine trouble. Yes, sir. That seems the best indication. I think it is. If we could only confine it to one area. But how do you try to stop a drifting patch of vapor? It's hopeless, Hayward. It can go where it likes, do what it likes. There is no way of stopping it. Another nerve-wracking hour past. Things were found. An abandoned frozen bus, a pouring trail of ice, 15 feet wide, ending abruptly. Then more scraps of information. A frozen tree in Montpelier Square a bent lamppost in Rutland Gate. A greenhouse collapsing under a coating of ice in Ennismore Gardens. It seemed to be moving north now through the squares and back streets south of Hyde Park. The strangest thing was that although it was traversing a thickly populated area nothing had been seen. We were completely baffled. Until... Dear couple, this message. Prince's garden with a chimney stack collapsed went clean through the roof occupants of House of Way. That was lucky. Nothing seen except a thick layer of ice on the roof. Then that's the answer, why nobody's seen it. It can move about clear of the ground. Whenever it encounters an obstacle it just goes over it. Encouraging having you around, doctor. So it's moving west now. If only it would settle for a short while. Perhaps we could do something. For another anxious 40 minutes nothing. The trail seemed completely lost. And then a voice suddenly crackled from the dashboard radio a report short and urgent from a police car patrolling Kensington Gore on the south edge of Hyde Park. A report so strange and ominous that the superintendent could contain himself no longer. We bundled into his car and the one behind and swept away into the fog. 15 minutes later we were standing on steps that were slippery with ice. Behind us reared the tall ornamented spire of the Albert Memorial and beyond the empty wastes of Hyde Park. Across the road loomed the immense domed roundness of the Albert Hall. We knew then where the trail had ended. Covered in frost from the steps to the roof. It's in there in the Albert Hall. Some of the doors were found smashed in. One of the caretakers went to investigate. There was the gravestops seeping everywhere along the passages pouring over the galleries in the arena. He nearly collapsed with colds. Then it's expanding, growing. I'm afraid it is, but at least we know where it is. Doctor. If this goes on it will shake the whole building down. It's getting out of control, Petrie. There's another car. It's Peter Gannick. Looking as if his life depended on that piece of paper. Peter, what is it? I couldn't find you. That lost passage. I've got it. It may be some help. It's in fragments, but there are some figures or formula, I think. But the rest, this is the point. The rods require energy to function. We know that. But it must be in controlled amounts. They cannot tolerate too much at one time. It can damage them. They're one weakness. An excess of energy or power. Or what we could only... Oh, it's attacking that thing in the laboratory. It's not going to affect that, not now. I'm not so sure. That information was not sent without reason. In some way, the organism may still depend on the rod. There might be a way. The cyclotron. And the atomic energy department at college. It gets tremendous voltages. Yeah, from the diesel electric generator. Yes. They can be started up in a few minutes. They're on the ground floor, though. I have an idea, but it'll mean hard work. And enough fans to do it. I guess we can raise those, sir. Then let's go back. Fog or no fog, superintendent. Your men have got to drive. There's just a small chance, but every second is going to come. It was a thin thread of hope that we had to cut it. At the college, Clifford checked the fuel tanks. They were full. With six willing constables, we raided the electrical engineering floor for tools and a heavy drum of high tension cable. The massive bank of generators was in a wing on the ground floor. The cable was run out. Clifford and McLaren were left to bear the end and connect up the steel and copper core. The rest of us set to work manhandling the cumbersome wooden drum up six flights of stairs, un-reeling the tired cable as we went. It was easier to reach the laboratory now, though much ice still remained. With hammers and wrenches, we chipped and levered until we'd freed the rod and toppled it from the cubicle. With numb hands, we rolled in the cable drum and unwound some more turns. I wanted a contact as close as possible. Four slithering policemen straining on an iron bar raised one end of the silent rod, and the rest of us struggled with the leathery serpent until we'd passed three loops around it. The telephone now working again ran. It was Clifford. The cable was connected up. We should soon know now. I made everyone stand back and gave the signal to run up the generators. It was Elizabeth who remembered that the Albert Hall could be seen from the college roof. Tearing Clifford to increase the current steadily, we hurried to the iron staircase and were soon standing among the chimney stacks and skylights, peering across the jumbled Kensington rooftops. The fog seemed thinner up there. We could just make out the domed mass of the Albert Hall a quarter of a mile away. It had a strange white luminous appearance. Ice! The whole place is smothered in it. The power should be building up, I know. And whose been those generators producing up to supply all London twice over? And more than enough to burn out that cable. What are we doing, Edward? Fighting something we haven't a chance against. We're so small, so weak against that. It doesn't matter what I was thinking. Wait. Listen. But if we can hear it from here, it's going stronger. The strength, the unimaginable strength. Doctor, the rod is going again. Getting right was the current increases. Then it is absorbing the power. But, Edward, don't you see? We're not attacking it, we're helping it. Feeding it with energy. This is just what it wants. I can't help it. Those signals can't be wrong. It's a chance we must take. It may be our only hope. If this goes on, that thing's growing. If it shatters the building and bursts out, Peter, you must stop this. I can't, Edward, those voices. I believe them. I believe they want it to save us. What can we believe? There's no truth anymore. Do you want to unleash that? But it is safe. Tell Bo and to cut off the generators. No! If you don't, you may be responsible for this. You hear that? It must have been in the laboratory. Come on. When we all stood staring at it, it had changed. It was dull and crowded. It had cracked in a thousand places. The tracery of silver wires was black and fused. It had seemed too much to hope, but it had happened. We clung to our hope as we raced to the other core, and when 15 minutes later we were standing in the ice-cold amphitheater, we knew the threat had passed. Water dripped everywhere, but it was empty. But in minutes of the fusing of the rod, the vapor had become still, thin, and disappear. It was too much for it. Bunt it out. And this thing couldn't survive without it. And if that rod couldn't take it, no can any of the others. They can all be treated in the same way. Yeah. Any powerful electric circuit run near them. Well, I guess all over the world, a lot of electricians would better get busy. It must be done as soon as possible. It came a long way, and this was the end of the journey. Did it hate us? Did it only want to conquer and destroy? Or at the end, was it just cracked and alone? Could we have understood it? Oh, then tragedy is we shall never know. But there is a lesson, perhaps, for us. If we ever go out into space, as we shall, we must leave our differences, our quarrels behind. If we carry them with us to other worlds, as these did, we shall be condemned from the start, as they were. And that, I suppose, ends my notes. The rest that has become history, the burning out of the cylinders wherever they were found, the fading away of the signals, which have never been detected since. Whether because they had served their purpose, or because the senders were themselves overrun, we can only guess. But the link with the 10th planet was broken. Perhaps for all time. That was all years ago. As I sit here and dusk falls over the Green Countryside, I wonder, is it a law of the universe that each race be bound to the surface of its own world, that we belong where we begin? A law that will eventually punish all who flout it? I do not know. But, as I say, I wonder. That was Felix Felton as Dr. Petrie in the final episode of Orbit 10, written by Peter Elliott Hayes. The music was taken from the ritual dances from a Midsummer marriage by Michael Tippett, and the play was produced for the BBC by David Davies. Thanks for listening to this week's Retro Radio, old time radio in the dark. If you haven't done so yet, be sure to subscribe or follow the podcast so you don't miss future episodes. And if you like the show, share it with someone you know who also loves old time radio and pulp audio. If you want to hear even more, drop an email to weirddarknessatradiorchives.com and get an instant reply with links to download full length pulp audio books, pulp ebooks and old time radio shows absolutely free. That's weirddarknessatradiorchives.com. I'm Darren Marlar. I'll see you next time for Retro Radio, old time radio in the dark.