Original subtitles

evening perhaps you have already heard of the latest in telephone services dial

analysis it has been instituted in places suffering from a shortage of

psychoanalysts or a shortage of money with which to pay them

dial analysis.

When you hear the signal, begin telling dial analysis your problem.

Continue until you hear the second signal.

The recording you will make will be monitored at a later time by one of our

resident psychiatrists.

Dear sir, gentlemen,

mama,

I'm afraid that is the end of today's session.

Please call tomorrow at the same time.

Pleasant dreams.

Any problems or neuroses indicated by the proceeding are my own and do not

reflect those of the sponsor or of the management of the station to which you

are listening.

This evening's tale begins with a nightmare -like experience but that is

prelude. to the terrifying events which follow.

And now, speaking of terrifying events...

I seem to be in a timeless, spaceless void, neither light nor dark.

I have awareness but not senses, mind but no memory.

Then I begin to feel that I am being pulled this way and that.

It seems that rival forces are fighting for me.

Here she comes.

Resuscitation seemed to be retarded this time for some reason. Make a note of

that, nurse.

This is her fourth, isn't it? Yes, doctor.

Strange.

Well, get some fluids into her and ship her out.

After the fourth, it should come easy, Mother. I'll get you a drink of water.

You'll be all right in no time.

Can you walk to the car?

Of course.

What car?

To take you home, naturally.

Drink up, Mother Orcus, and let's get along.

Mother 417 is in trouble. What happened? She just fainted, Doctor, as if she'd

had some kind of shock.

Well, she's been signed out. She can't stay here. We need the room.

Get me a number three sedative.

Who am I?

There's something terribly wrong.

This isn't me. This can't be me.

Tell me, please.

Now, Mother Orcus, it's going to be all right.

Don't you worry about a thing.

We'll have you back home in no time.

That should hold her till you get her home.

You get her ready and call the ambulance.

Welcome, Mother Arthur.

Do you think you can walk, Mother?

What?

Honey, did you have a bad time?

There you are, dear. Safe home again.

Now, you'll be all right after you've rested.

What's the matter with her?

Did she make a mess of it?

Now, there's no call for that tone, Mother Hazel.

Mother Orcus had four beautiful babies, didn't she, dear?

She's just tired after the trip.

Babies?

Where?

Don't be ridiculous, dear. Now try to sleep.

What are you sulking about?

I seem to have lost my memory. I thought that was something.

I suppose you can't even remember if your babies were grade one this time?

They had to be grade one, Hazel. You know that.

Else, Orcus would have been re -raided and sent to Whitley instead of back

You do remember us, Orcus.

I'm sorry, but everything before I... I came to this morning is a blank.

Lord, dear.

Not ready for it yet?

We'll have it later.

I'd rather have something to read.

You're not feeling quite yourself. Now, you try and sleep. I don't want to. I'd

like something to read.

Now, what in the world would a mother want with knowing how to read?

Read and write, too, I suppose.

There's some law against that.

Aren't I supposed to know how to read and write?

Orcas, honey, don't you think you ought to ask to see the doctor?

There's nothing wrong with me. There's something wrong with you. All I asked

for a book, and you act as if I'd gone crazy.

What use is reading for a mother?

That's not going to help her have better babies, dear.

Is that all you think about, having babies?

There are other things in the world besides having babies.

anybody. I'm just a woman who once had a husband who hoped one day she'd have

his babies.

What is a husband?

When a woman loves a man.

What's a man?

Away from me, you little monsters.

Orchis, now what's the trouble? I will not have them pawing me like that. But

Mother, this... I will not have it.

Orchis is off her head. She's been telling us awful stories.

Go and report yourselves.

I suppose that'll make you feel better getting them a beating.

A beating?

Yes, beating.

Look at her, all innocent.

Pretty soon she's going to say that she forgot that servitors get beaten for

upsetting the mothers.

Well?

It's Mother Orcus, Doctor. She's been behaving strangely since she got back

morning.

Addict? No.

What strange behavior?

Well, she's been upsetting the other mothers with some awful talk.

It was disgusting.

And she's got delusions. She thinks she can read and write.

Do you?

That shouldn't be difficult to settle.

Give me some paper and pencil.

What was the awful talk about?

It's horrible.

About two human sexes.

Like animals.

Disgusting.

Get her to the sick bay.

Now, let's have it straight.

Who told you this stuff about two human sexes? Oh, please, doctor.

Now, listen here, Orcus. You were normal when you went to the clinic and had

your baby.

Now you've come back with your head full of sickening nonsense about two sexes.

and reading and writing.

I want to know who's responsible.

We can make you talk, you know, even if you are a mother.

I am not a mother. I'm an M .D.

I'm an M .D. in the throes of a nightmare.

You think you're a doctor of medicine?

Well, after two years of internship at Brockton General Hospital, I'm

sure of it.

Mother Daisy was apparently right. You are delusional.

It's seldom we still come across a postpartum breakdown.

Post? part of nothing.

I've never had a baby in my life.

You were brought up and developed to be a mother, Orcus.

You are a mother.

Just look at you. Yes, just look at me.

Nevertheless, I am not a mother.

Now, suppose you tell me what this place is and what's going on around here.

Better, I suggest you first tell me all you remember, all you know, so that we

are not obliged to resort to other measures.

Oh, that has a familiar nightmare ring about it.

Hitler, Stalin.

Mother Orcus.

No!

Waterly Jane Waterly.

Maiden name, Sumner.

I was in the hospital on duty the night that Donald Waterly was brought in for

a... Ruptured appendix.

The house surgeon was scrubbing up for another emergency, so I operated.

You performed an appendectomy?

It was just one of many, but the most important of my life.

I became Donald's wife.

And a year later, he was killed in an accident.

Mother Orcus, where did you get these ideas?

Shall we begin again?

From the beginning.

That was very naughty of you, Mother Orcus.

I'm ashamed of you. Oh, go away.

Mother Orcus, I have orders for your arrest.

Get Mother Orcus ready.

What's this all about?

What are you doing here?

Mother Orcus is under arrest.

A mother under arrest? What's the charge?

Mother Orcus is accused of reactionism. Oh, nonsense. A reactionist mother.

What will you numbskulls think up next? Go on, get out. I said get out.

You've no authority in my section. Out.

I'll need a signed refusal to surrender the mother.

Very well.

What will make you happy?

Now, Mother Orkin.

Let's see if we can find out what's happened to you.

We'll help us all if you're quite frank.

I have nothing to conceal.

I want to find out just as much as you do.

More. You spoke of a man.

Donald Waterly, whom you think you married.

Now, will you tell our director exactly what happened?

Donald died.

He was a test pilot and he was killed in a crash.

We had been married for a year.

Your hallucination sounds very specific.

No, you misunderstand.

This is the hallucination.

This place and you and the shape I'm in and this horror. Tell us more about what

you consider reality.

You had a man and he died.

What then is your reality?

I don't remember very much after Donald was killed.

The days came and went.

And then one day I woke up and I knew that I had to start work again. What

I told you, I'm an M .D. You seem to be consistent in your delusions. Go on.

I went back.

to Brockton General Hospital.

But the work didn't seem the same anymore. Nothing was very important.

And then one day, Dr. Hillier, he was in charge of Brockton General Hospital,

told me about a friend of his who had synthesized a narcotic.

What was the name?

Sonodrin. Do you know it?

I've heard of it.

In its original state...

It comes from the leaves of a tree which grows in Venezuela.

The Indians discovered it.

They chew on the leaves until they go into a trance in which they believe that

their spirits are free to wander anywhere in time or space.

You have actually taken this drug?

The synthesized product.

Why?

I felt it was my chance to be useful.

I had no ties and I didn't care what happened to me.

So I volunteered to test it and see if the reports were true that it produced

powerful, mystical experiences.

It seems to have produced a combination of the absurd and the grotesque.

You are suggesting that we, all this, are merely a product of your narcotic

hallucination?

What else?

Thank you, Mother August.

I shall consider your case and see what steps to take.

Welcome, my dear.

You think it will stand it?

Oh, perhaps you'll be more comfortable on the couch.

Yes, perhaps.

Tea, if you please, Mildred.

You'll have tea, my dear?

Yes.

Thank you.

Oh, I haven't introduced myself, Laura. Not Mrs. or Miss, just Laura.

And you are Otis.

Mother Otis.

No, thank you.

This is so... I'm not insane, am I? The report

from the home expresses the view that you are suffering from schizophrenic

delusions. But the director also considers the possibility that you are a

genuine case of projected perception.

That is why they sent you to me, for my opinion.

I am a historian.

Projected perception?

Oh, if that were possible... But there's no doubt about the possibility, my

dear. There are three reliably documented cases, and two of them are

with the drug sonodrine.

If that were so...

I think I understand how unreal this must seem to you.

When were you born?

July 5th, 1938.

Ah, the second Roosevelt.

Franklin Delano.

The New Deal.

Pearl Harbor, the Second World War.

Interesting period.

Typical of the male functioning in all his glory.

Cream and sugar?

No, thank you.

Thank you.

Tell me, my dear, what strikes you as the oddest feature in your experience so

far?

I mean, apart from your appearance.

Possibly because you haven't seen a man?

Well, that among other things.

Where are the men?

There aren't any. Not at all. Not anymore.

Oh, do have a cake.

But how is that possible?

I mean, how can you...

Well, I mean... I know it must seem impossible to you, but it is so.

I'm an old woman now, and in all my 80 years, I've never seen a man.

Except in old pictures.

I... I don't doubt you.

And yet... I understand a little how you must feel.

When I was a girl, I used to listen a lot to my grandmother.

She was as old as I am now.

But when she spoke about the young man she was once engaged to...

The tears would roll down her cheeks.

Not just for him, but for the world she'd known as a girl.

Were you perhaps engaged once?

I was married once, for a little while.

Must be very strange to be owned.

Owned? Ruled by a husband.

Oh, but it wasn't that. It wasn't like that at all. It was...

What happened to...

They all died.

They fell sick and died.

Sure you won't have a little cake, a sandwich.

All of them? Everywhere?

In a little more than a year, they were all gone.

All over the world.

How could this possibly happen?

Just an accident. A piece of research that produced unexpected secondary

results.

Did you ever hear of a man named Peregrine?

No, I don't think so.

It's an uncommon name.

It became very commonly known.

Dr. Peregrine was a biologist working on the extermination of the brown rat. He

succeeded remarkably with a selective virus of great virulence.

But somehow Peregrine's virus mutated and the new strain spread with

speed among human beings.

Fortunately, the majority of women were immune.

But men were found to have no immunity.

They, like the rats, were completely wiped out.

But surely, without men...

That would be the end of everything.

Everything would collapse.

It nearly did. There was chaos for a time, and much starvation.

Almost all the large organizations broke down entirely.

You see, although women outnumbered the men, they had only been important as

consumers and spenders of money.

When the crisis came, hardly any of them knew how to do things because they'd

all been owned by men and obliged to live as pets and parasites.

That is simply not so.

But it wasn't their fault, my dear.

At the beginning of the 20th century, women were beginning to have their

to lead a useful and creative life.

But that didn't suit commerce.

It needed women more as mass consumers and as producers.

So romance was adopted to promote consumption.

Women were induced to believe that being owned by some man and set down in a

little brick box to buy all the things manufacturers wanted them to buy would

the highest form of bliss.

I tell you, it wasn't like that at all.

There's such a thing as being too close to make a proper evaluation.

At a distance, we're still able to perceive your society for what it was, a

heartless exploitation of the weaker -willed minority.

That is the most...

Unrecognizable, distorted view of my world I ever heard. Less creative

Women were in all kinds of fields. They were doctors and writers and they had

babies. What makes you think there's anything creative about having babies?

Would you call a pot creative because seeds grow in it?

Is that all the mothers are?

How awful.

They're very happy in their simple function.

How without men?

A species, my dear, even our species, has great will to survive.

As you know, I'm sure, test tube life in simple form has been achieved for years

before the crisis caused by Dr. Perrigan's virus.

And the doctors pursued their research intensively along those lines.

So through all the hunger and chaos, babies somehow continue to be born.

The girl babies lived, and the boy babies died.

This was distressing and wasteful, too. So before long, only girl babies were

born.

None of this is really remarkable, as it seems at first sight.

You know, the locusts will continue to produce female locusts without male

assistance. The aphids, too, is able to go on breeding alone for many

generations. So is it surprising that with our superior intelligence, we're

to match the biological achievements of the insects?

But what have you achieved?

Survival.

You see, man was only a means to an end. We needed him to have babies.

Where are all the babies?

No one will tell me.

Really? I can't think why. It's no secret.

The procedure is very simple.

After the delivery, the doctors examine the babies and allocate them suitably to

different classes.

After that, of course, it's just a matter of seeing to their specialized

feeding, glandular control, and proper training in our rearing centers.

The mothers never see them again, of course.

They're much too busy having others.

In any case, they're quite uncomfortable to rear a child, even if they have the

desire, which I assure you they don't.

We have evolved a four -class system, offering security and fulfillment on all

levels. The doctors, the educated class in command, the mothers, the servitors,

and the worker.

Ants! The ant nest!

You've taken that for your model!

And why not?

It's one of the most enduring patterns that nature has evolved.

Do you know the selection of the system was inspired by a book which at that

time was not yet prohibited?

The Bible.

There was a proverb that went something like, Go to the ant thou sluggard,

consider her ways.

Why are you crying, my dear?

I'm crying for all you've lost.

This is true.

You present us with a problem, Orcus.

I can imagine.

The other mothers are unlikely to be infected with your reactionism.

Though you have disgusted and bewildered them considerably.

Though others less stable than the mothers, your influence might be more

serious. We do not blame you, Orcus.

We recognize that you could never adapt to the placid acceptance expected of a

mother. I'd rather die.

That, in a sense, is what we propose.

Nothing painful or violent.

But what?

An hypnotic treatment in depth that will remove all memory.

Nothing painful.

A slight case of suicide, that's what you're asking me to do. Commit suicide.

My mind is my memory. They are one. They're me.

Exactly.

And they are alien and hostile to our society. They must go.

Why don't you just kill me?

Without my memories, I'd be as dead as if you did kill me.

We prefer this method. You're a good mother.

Therefore, you're valuable to society.

Don't you understand what I'm trying to say?

Do you think I want to go on like this?

Look, Orcus.

The hypnotic treatment would take your complete cooperation.

But we are prepared to use other methods if we have to.

Drug -induced amnesia would simplify matters for us all.

It's for the best, Orcus.

Now, Doctor? Yes.

It's only reaction.

You'll shake it off in a minute.

Or that it will happen.

Now, how about filling me in so I can organize my notes?

Get a clearer picture of the hallucination?

I want to forget it.

I don't think I ever will.

I'll never forget it as long as I live.

Well, the best way to get it out of your system is to verbalize it.

Now, can you relate any aspects of the experience to actual events?

It was a nightmare.

Yes, apparently very well organized, as nightmares go.

Yes.

Very well organized.

Well, can you place the experience in time and space, you know, geography and

periods? No, no, no.

Laura could have told me.

Laura? The historian, the old woman. She was the one who told me about Dr.

Perrigan.

Perrigan? Wait a minute. Hey, you mentioned him.

Do you know him?

No, I never heard of him until you mumbled his name a few times while you

on there.

Suppose there really were a biologist by the name of Perrigan.

Well? Then it would prove that it wasn't just an hallucination.

Do you have a directory of American scientists?

Yes, right there on the desk.

But you don't think you...

Perot,

Perrier, Perrigan.

Robert J., Ph .D., DSC, Northwestern 35.

Research professor of biology.

Rochester School of Medicine, Associate Professor of Bacteriology and Public

Health, Kansas University School of Medicine, Research Professor of

Northwestern. Author, Pest Control and Public Health, New Aspects of Virology

Pest Control.

My babies, seventh generation.

What I'm doing is evolving new strains of myxomatosis.

It's a tricky and unstable bug, but very effective if you can control it.

I'm planning a group that will attack rats, specifically the brown rat.

Pretty serious problem one way and another. The brown rat does a lot of

You know, they outnumber humans in most cities of any size.

Suppose that in a ridding society of a pest that it has got along with for

centuries, you also destroyed society.

Sort of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, hmm?

Or the operation was successful, but the patient died might also apply.

Destroyed society?

Where did you get an outlandish idea like that, young lady?

Just how stable and selective is your group of myxomatosis, Dr. Perrigan?

Precisely what I'm working on, Doctor.

That's what this is all about.

Producing a strain stable and selective enough for worldwide public health use.

Now,

What exactly is your interest in this project?

To have you abandon it.

I can go along with the joke as well as the next man, Dr. Waterly, but I'm busy,

very busy.

No joke, doctor. Please believe me.

Then maybe you'd care to explain.

Briefly. Has it ever occurred to you what might happen if your highly

virus mutated?

It occurs with other viruses all the time. Why not with this one?

You yourself admit that the virus is tricky and virulent.

I am not on the stand, Dr. Waterly.

And that was not an admission. It was a statement of scientific fact.

I'm sorry, Doctor.

My point was that you recognize the virulence of myxomatosis.

I don't see how you could ignore it after the way it killed the entire

population of Australia and England and then spread to wildlife all over Europe.

I repeat, suppose... Suppose your highly selective strain mutated and spread to

man.

Suppose the men at Los Salomos had quit for fear the chain reaction went out of

control. It might have been better.

What kind of nonsense is that?

If you'll excuse me, Doctor, I have work to do. Good day. Are you sure you won't

consider abandoning your work with this virus?

I certainly will not.

You must be out of your mind. Now get out.

Wiley. Hello, Doctor. I'm sorry I'm late. I had some deposition. How's Jane

bearing up? Oh, very well, as you will see.

Too well, as a matter of fact, for my taste.

Has she agreed to plead insanity?

No. That's why I asked you to come today.

If anybody could persuade her, it was you. And believe me, Doctor, it was our

only chance.

I did my best already, but she wouldn't listen, as you know.

The trial date is closer.

She's been in jail two months since you last saw her.

Martyrdom, the prospect of spending the rest of her life in a penitentiary, may

look quite different. She will get life.

I'd be glad to get her off with a life sentence if she refuses an insanity

This is first -degree murder, Doctor.

Hello, Doctor.

How are you, Jane?

No complaints.

Thank you, Doctor.

I have a feeling that I'm being ganged up on.

You might say that, Doctor Waterly. It's for your own good, Jane.

You want me to plead insanity?

Yes.

I can't do it.

I've thought about it, but I cannot do it.

You understand that, don't you?

But all I've got now is... All that really matters to me is a... A sort

of integrity.

The knowledge that what I did was right. That it had to be done.

Had to be done only if your hallucination was reality.

Not just what I hoped to convince the jury it was.

An insane delusion caused by the injection of a powerful experimental

I don't wish you to convince the jury of any such things, Mr. Wilding.

If what I related to Dr. Hellyer was only a delusion, then I am insane.

Because I am still convinced it was real.

Real in the sense that I actually lived through what I described.

I know it.

I know it as well as I'm standing in this room with you. The proof is Dr.

Perrigan.

Is that the transcript of Dr. Hillier's notes? That's right. Well, check it.

You'll see that the name of Dr. Perrigan was mentioned to me by the old lady, by

Laura. And a description of his work.

I had never heard his name before in my life. And I knew nothing of his work. It

was completely outside my field.

As Dr.

Hillier will confirm.

Are you saying what you experienced under that drug was not an

Some sort of preview of an inevitable predestined future?

Inevitable?

Oh, no, obviously not, Mr. Wilding.

Otherwise, nothing I nor anyone else did could change it.

What do you think your dream or hallucination or whatever while you were

the influence of the drug represented, Jane?

I believe that what has happened, that what is happening now, determined our

future.

Therefore, there must be a number of possible futures, each one as possible

consequence of what is being done now.

I believe that under sonadrine, I saw one of those futures, had a warning of

what might happen unless it was prevented.

I prevented it, Mr. Wilding, and I'm glad I knew what I was doing. In killing

Dr. Peregrine, I achieved a purpose.

And I'm prepared to pay for it with my life.

A small price to pay for avoiding that future world I saw.

Dr. Waterly, I don't doubt that you believe what you did,

but I have some doubt as to whether you achieved your purpose.

What does that mean?

Your Dr. Perrigan had a son.

And according to my information, he was very interested in his father's work and

actually collaborated on the myxomatosis research project.

He has announced his determination that the achieved results shall not be

wasted. And he is going to carry on with a few specimens saved from the fire.

The son is a DSC, a biologist.

And his name, of course, Miss Perrigan. Dr.

Perrigan.

I hope you have not been disturbed by our playlet. It is obviously just

the hallucinations of some overenthusiastic feminists.

He keeps getting farther away.

Congratulations.

You are our one millionth customer and have been chosen for special analysis

experimentation under the direction of our own Dr. Farragut.

Until another week or longer, good night.