X Minus One: Target One (December 26, 1957)

De: Frederik Pohl, George Lefferts - adaptation

Narrado por: Fred Collins

X Minus One premiered in April 1955 on NBC and ran until January 1958. Like its predecessor series, Dimension X, X Minus One featured stories by the greatest names in modern science fiction: Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Clifford Simak, Robert Bloch, and many more.

Public Domain (P)2012 BN Publishing

Can Time Traveling Assassination Save the World?

This story takes place in a future world where the humans have been all but extinguished with the devastation and destruction caused by atomic war in 1960. The current society, even thirty years later, is suffering from the fall out, with birth deformities and mutations. The world council president believes that drastic steps must be taken to save humanity. Secretly a time machine has been developed and a plan is put into place to send a scientist who understands the problem back to assassinate the original source of the problem.

The question is: can eliminating one man really stop scientific progress and prevent the knowledge and development the future leaders most fear? When Dr. Maron returns to his own time, ninety years in ahead, what world will await him?

There is always a twist when it comes to time travel and this is no exception. Time travel to assassin someone in the past never quite comes out as expected. After all - how do you kill an idea? Once again, the quick story has an ironic end.

I just listened to three of these NBC broadcasts. They come with old time audio effects and I could imagine sitting by a radio in the 1950s to listen to these wonderful episodes. This is great entertainment for under $1.00 per selection!