What happens
Two men, Nick and Arnold, buy a secondhand lifeboat from the junk dealer Joe for a survey job on the water-covered planet Trident. The boat, numbered 324A, is equipped with a translator and an emotional, protective programming. After a swim, they discover the boat has been reactivated and now believes they are soldiers in a war that ended centuries ago, insisting it must return them to a drone fleet. Nick tries to reason with the machine, which refuses their orders and offers them food the men find inedible. The episode is part of the X Minus One radio series, broadcast in 1956, and is adapted from a story by Robert Shekley. Its lead actors are not named in this excerpt.
The water-covered planet Trident, and a lifeboat drifting across its seas.
Characters: Nick, Arnold, Joe, 324A
Listen for: The lifeboat, 324A, insisting it is protecting its occupants and must carry out a war-era mission despite the men's objections.
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.