Speaker 1: Story of a soldier and a war beyond the Moon.
A G I in the Years Beyond two thousand plus.
Speaker 2: Two thousand plus science fiction Adventures from the World of Tomorrow.
Speaker 1: The Years Beyond two thousand A.
Speaker 2: D two thousand plus presents a veteran comes home.
Speaker 3: By Rocky rocket Shift Moon arriving Rong Moon that rocket
rail war.
Speaker 4: Smile, you got the one with Daddy, nist, Billy, I
told you before Daddy's space ship arrived, he said, hours ago,
the spaceship.
Speaker 5: From Marsden here since eleven o'clock.
Speaker 4: Then why is he? Why don't I see my daddy? Because, Darling,
all the soldiers have to go through quarantine and army regulations.
Speaker 6: And all sorts of things. Why my daddy's a space soldier.
Speaker 4: I'll bet he had all sorts of adventures.
Speaker 7: All beaty.
Speaker 8: Shun, please, cried Billy.
Speaker 3: Listen, Oh is a military person now of rocket shift
life a too raw bars all day blue far reform
two Kay five.
Speaker 9: Oh, Billy, that's us. The soldiers are going to come
out in a few minutes.
Speaker 4: Come on, Darling, come on, Willy, nommy manny line no here,
watch for your walking Billy. Of course he'll know you, dear,
He'll see me first.
Speaker 8: And then he'll see you.
Speaker 6: Oh I ever saw this picture?
Speaker 9: Stand by that rope, Billy.
Speaker 5: We can see Gate five from here.
Speaker 4: Boy, tell me all about the war on Mars.
Speaker 6: Oh, Billy, it's so good to have him back.
Speaker 4: Five years, five long years.
Speaker 6: And I see the spaceship Blame lady.
Speaker 3: Lady rendstility personnel, space chef philoson, blame do not flow
for wife flying.
Speaker 8: They're starting to come out.
Speaker 4: Now, let me then in the way uniforms.
Speaker 7: Give me a towny gunness.
Speaker 9: My picture will tell.
Speaker 3: Us all about them.
Speaker 4: Eleven weeks on the spaceship, getting.
Speaker 5: Tomorrow's, eleven weeks coming back to Earth.
Speaker 4: And more than four years fighting on Mars. Five years, Billy, stand,
I do cross the white lines Life.
Speaker 3: Sven Rocket Shift Player from Earth to Moon, will last Fall.
Speaker 9: In instanute, Rock Rock and frail line, Last Shock.
Speaker 3: Yeah, here we are, Yeah, here we are?
Speaker 7: Who was there?
Speaker 4: Enough?
Speaker 1: Ronny O Banion. They're going to play news.
Speaker 4: They're welcoming the soldiers home, Billy, the first soldiers home
from the war on the.
Speaker 8: More soldiers coming out.
Speaker 4: Mommy, Oh, Billy, I'm so excited he see you?
Speaker 7: What hey? Mom? That's where rocket.
Speaker 9: See him with the green uniform.
Speaker 4: Oh boy, he shoots rocket gun.
Speaker 8: I don't see him, but I don't see him yet.
Speaker 4: So many men, so many. Can I have a drink
of water, Mamma, I'm thirsty.
Speaker 8: Uh, I don't see him.
Speaker 7: Yes, I still don't see him.
Speaker 4: I want to drink.
Speaker 1: Billy, not now?
Speaker 4: Oh, look how you get daddy? No, no, it's not. Oh,
Mike Michael, where are you?
Speaker 5: I'm gonna show my daddy my toy guns. We'll play
Space Soldier together.
Speaker 4: We'll have Finally, Billy, I see him, I see your baddy.
Speaker 8: Will which one is? He plays? Swim?
Speaker 4: Billy looking around here? We're here and then yellow unifox
over there.
Speaker 7: Michael Michael going.
Speaker 9: Here, we are, Michael, Jesus money.
Speaker 7: She's running till it. He's looking the other people lay.
Speaker 4: Oh, you look so wonderfully, Michael, Michael, Why are you crying?
He's come home, dude, Michael, come.
Speaker 9: Home, Ji, Yeah, comes.
Speaker 1: Oh Mary Darling.
Speaker 4: Donald's so lone since I hell you.
Speaker 6: But Michael, you've got to meet your son.
Speaker 1: Hello, son, Hello?
Speaker 6: Is that all you've got to say to your Oh?
Speaker 1: He doesn't have to say anything. Just let me look
at him.
Speaker 5: Oh, you've got forever to do that now, Donnie, because.
Speaker 4: You're a home Oh a soldier has come home three
o'clock in the afternoon. Mom, Why is Daddy asleep?
Speaker 6: He was tired of Billy.
Speaker 8: He wanted to rest.
Speaker 6: He didn't talk much when he came home. Daddy, No,
but he will you and he will have a lot
to talk about. Hey, I think I heard him getting out.
We'll open the door carefully and keep in.
Speaker 1: I'll be quiet and Katie still is.
Speaker 9: Keep it s all right, I'm awake.
Speaker 6: Oh, well, you slept two hours.
Speaker 1: I haven't been asleep. Man, just lying here? Is something wrong?
Speaker 9: Likea Do you feel all right?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 1: Sure? Just can't get used to being home.
Speaker 6: I'll make a snack for you, Billy, Now you can
talk to your father.
Speaker 1: Come here, son, Yuh sit on the bed.
Speaker 4: Okay, Dad, I'll call you when everything's ready.
Speaker 1: Uh what do you uh wanna tell me? Billy?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 7: I I don't know, but your mother said, well, do
you like me?
Speaker 8: Well?
Speaker 1: Of course I like you.
Speaker 7: Will you play with me?
Speaker 1: Well, I'm I'm a little tired, son, but I guess
it can be arranged.
Speaker 7: Or do you wanna play soldiers?
Speaker 8: Space?
Speaker 3: Soldiers.
Speaker 9: You're a soldier or nothing else.
Speaker 5: You don't like m just.
Speaker 1: Just play something else that's wrong.
Speaker 6: All the kids think it's swung my dad's space soldiers.
Speaker 4: Nobody else in my gang has a dad who's gone
to March.
Speaker 1: I told him when my dad.
Speaker 5: Came home and showed me how to play real soot it.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, don't say yes sir to me. I don't
ever wanna hear you say that. Wow, you are frying.
Men aren't supposed to cry space for two hundred years.
The world hasn't had a war for two hundred years.
The human race finally got peace federated world. In the
years after two thousand, science flourishes, civilization grows. Then we
learn how to travel in outer space, first the Moon
for scientific observations, then we go on to other planets. Mars,
the one planet we know is capable of sustaining human life,
and all the two hundred years of peace gets rotted
away because the Earth wants to explore Mars, and the
Martians object new worlds to conquer. Where the Columbus is
of two thousand plus, and the interplanetary war begins. We
have to fight for every canal, every inch on Mars. Well,
I don't want any son of mine thinking it's so great.
Speaker 7: I hate it, hate it.
Speaker 4: I was gonna play Space Soldiers.
Speaker 9: With Space Soldier?
Speaker 1: What did I do for you? Full of the romance
of Mars or mysteries of the unknown. How can you
or anybody on this particular world though, what it's like
in that unhuman place called Mars play Space soldier play.
I remember the patrol patrol into the red grass, blade,
sharpest sword and covered with that sickening oos of the
Martian vegetation. We went on patrol of us. I was
the patrole leader. Alright, let's stuttle in it.
Speaker 2: Oh oh, oh.
Speaker 1: Kay, at what again? Do you see anything?
Speaker 9: Just the red grass? Oh wait, about a mile and
a half over there are sand belt.
Speaker 1: Can give me a glasses right, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 9: Every the grass meets the sand belt. We gotta be careful.
Those sand spiders more dangerous than a cobra. One bite
and you're dead in half a minute. Men are all
wearing shin boots. We better put on our mask and
gloves too. Sometimes a spider crawls up the clothing.
Speaker 1: Okay, masks and gloves protect your gear, protective gear on.
Speaker 9: Uh, it's too quiet. I've almost got the feeling the
Martians are around when it's just quiet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know what you mean. We'll go on. Uh. Leo,
you take four men and cover the left, use electric rifle, yes, sir.
I Mulroney take four men and cover the right. Torpedo pistol, yes, sir, Ted,
and I'll take the other man and move straight on.
Ted will use atomic show clips in our guns. We
meet opposition and have to blast them. Leos and Maroney's
groups can cover us as we move around the area
we've radiated. Better keep our belt, Geiger Counter's handy.
Speaker 9: Okay, let's move this slime from the grass sticks.
Speaker 1: To every time careful because it's a sharp rush.
Speaker 9: There certainly aren't any Martians on that sand oughter. We'd
see him. They're around here at all. They're between us
and the sand bot hiding in this red grass.
Speaker 1: Away amost step on a stothard.
Speaker 9: I didn't see it.
Speaker 1: A toothflowers flowers and hard as ivory. It's a carnivorous plant.
You walk too close to it, it'll bite your leg and.
Speaker 9: Half Mars the nightmare planet.
Speaker 1: And we'll keep moving and keep your eyes, peels of
kile vegetation. An enemy martian.
Speaker 9: Setting hot.
Speaker 1: Always gets like a moment about the day.
Speaker 9: You know, scrope is moving ahead. Apparently they found nothing dangerous. Judge, Hello, Hello,
I am waving. Everything's okay. I'll be too sure.
Speaker 1: Step over there, handstorm whipping across the sand belt like,
come up in seconds, blast by one hundreds of miles
an hour, and I abny dot hit who's all over
the grass blades like an adium staker lying down in
a bed of knife.
Speaker 9: Hundred doors, hunt the sand thorns?
Speaker 1: Lets me.
Speaker 9: Up, going down, farm, going down?
Speaker 1: Wait a few seconds, all right.
Speaker 7: Get up?
Speaker 9: Seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, twelfth. Two men missing
becomes Leo.
Speaker 1: Two men Davis and Martin. What happened?
Speaker 9: Are dead? Sir Wind threw a Davis jacket. A sand
spider bit him. Wind carried a swarm up.
Speaker 1: Into the ground.
Speaker 9: What about Martin? I don't know what caused it.
Speaker 1: He's dead, al right, come on, let's take away.
Speaker 4: Here.
Speaker 9: He is, sir, Hein is natural and not blue the
way it turns when the sand.
Speaker 1: Spider kills you. Let me see, good lord, what's the matter.
The Martians Marsians that got enduring the same storm must
be around somewhere. Look at his back where I opened
the jacket hit by a sonic beam. Right, super sound wave,
gadget of ass trings your gusts of jelly emotions a
hero right now, warn the men right on. Give me
your pocket magnet speaker quick here right, Leo, crawling your
belly over to the boys, keep going, okay, let me
know when you get there. Meanwhile, I'll talk with the
magnet speaker. Yes, sir, the martians will hear me. So
here's some lingo they won't understand.
Speaker 3: Now, yes day we got company routine. You figure happy
and remember.
Speaker 9: The animal's Leo.
Speaker 1: Then here, can't see him.
Speaker 9: Wait, he's coming on the new way chest talking.
Speaker 1: Step on your your front.
Speaker 9: Okay, Leo, how shine of the enemy were shining out?
Are covered by the red grass?
Speaker 3: We passed words shoot first good, that's an electric rifle.
Speaker 9: Enemy said it the chilly cut when there reads two
hundred yards.
Speaker 1: Let's move in. Give me everything, yes, sir, go on
that right.
Speaker 4: But here.
Speaker 1: I heard her trying to crawl through this grass. Compedo pistols.
All on his groups may contact Leo Leo yuh. Whoever
reaches one hundred yards. Throw atomic grenade right, and.
Speaker 9: Martians haven't returned any fire yet.
Speaker 1: They're probably waiting to ley it closer and they'll fan
the area with that sonic beam of the ass.
Speaker 9: She'd loaves at one hundred yards.
Speaker 4: He's throwing the cookies.
Speaker 1: Any second, plug your ears check. I should have cleaned
him out, and we've gotta be careful. We can't go
in to see. We don't have any anti radiation gear.
Speaker 9: No sound from the Martians, nothing.
Speaker 1: Leo, leo, any report from you.
Speaker 9: I think we got absolutely no sign of life.
Speaker 1: Moved souths a few hundred yards, then east. Probe their position.
Speaker 9: Right, Captain, I'm pretty sure it's all player.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, probably right. I just feel conservative.
Speaker 9: Right now I'll be trying to verify the Martians are
cleaned out. This heat is stinking grass.
Speaker 1: What are planning? At least the moon is dead? Why
would we set us when we got to the moon. No,
we had to go on to this forsaken Listen to.
Speaker 8: The sunny theme.
Speaker 1: The Martians are attacking us. We had a group of
the South were shattering of clowns.
Speaker 9: We can't help just for the thirst to old man,
don't you think I know that what are two of
us against the Martian patrol?
Speaker 1: Try to reach Leo?
Speaker 8: Leo, Leo, Come in, Leo?
Speaker 7: Why John get over here?
Speaker 1: You're staying here. We got to stay here and try.
Speaker 7: To get out later.
Speaker 8: But Leo, Neil's my brother, my brother.
Speaker 6: Well, here's Joe mac Darling. I hope you like.
Speaker 1: But Billy I thought he was in.
Speaker 5: Here with you.
Speaker 1: He went up to play. I don't know.
Speaker 6: Oh, he has been so looking forward to having his
daddy back. All the kids in the neighborhood are waiting
to meet you.
Speaker 4: He's been booting about you for months.
Speaker 6: Ever since we got worried that you were coming home.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, Michael, is something wrong?
Speaker 6: Did you and Billy have a corner?
Speaker 1: He's he's a stranger to me, married a stranger. You're wrong, Sorry,
he was just a baby when I left. I I
can't get used to him.
Speaker 7: Oh, but you will. You can't help loving him.
Speaker 1: I can't get to know him until he stops this
terrible business of reminding me all the time, reminding me
of what I want to forget.
Speaker 6: But he's proud of you, of what you've done you.
Speaker 1: I told him what it was really like up there.
He ran out of here crying. Michael, what do you
want me to do? Throw out my chest and brag
about being a hero. Pretend that a planet called Mars
that Satan himself with aid of a few million devils
must have created. Pretend that Mars is heaven, that fighting
a war so far away it takes months to get
there is fun for the kiddies. I'm I'm sorry, Marry.
Just leave me alone.
Speaker 6: Michael.
Speaker 1: This isn't like you. How do you know what I'm like?
After all these years, I hardly know myself at this moment,
five years away from people, away even from the one
world in the universe it contains human beings.
Speaker 4: Were other men with you all the time?
Speaker 8: Hundred thousands of them? What do you mean you were alone?
Speaker 1: You don't understand, Michael's darling.
Speaker 5: I'm worried about you.
Speaker 1: A spaceship half a mile long, eleven weeks in flight,
confined quarters, the same blank faces of men torn from
their planet, catapulted into infinity, a fleck of controlled cosmic dust,
and being alone and on Mars. The base dug underground,
living in plastic shells for barracks, never being able to
move except on patrols. All of us men in a
nightmare and being alone in our souls alone. Give me
some coffee, all that mighty.
Speaker 8: Here you are.
Speaker 7: Thanks, Michael.
Speaker 6: You're home now and you're not alone anymore.
Speaker 1: It's good coffee.
Speaker 6: But tomorrow, tomorrow, afternoon and evening, that is. Yes, I'm
giving a party for you. At first, I was going
to have it a surprise for you, but I think you.
Speaker 1: Should know I don't want a party.
Speaker 4: We've all families here and all your old friends.
Speaker 5: They want to see you, Michael. Everyone's so happy you're home.
Speaker 1: Call it off. I don't want to see them, and
you understand I don't want to see them. They're smug. Hello,
they're glad you're back. Chader though, what's it like in
another world? And how's mars? Old man questions? They wouldn't
understand the answers if I could somehow force myself.
Speaker 8: To talk about it, But it won't be like that.
They love you.
Speaker 1: They're happy to time.
Speaker 7: Lo Darling.
Speaker 5: You can't go on likely fighting the Martians and your
memories and fighting the human beings who love you. For
your sake, Michael, I am not going to call off
the party. Everyone is coming, just as I plan and
you've got to meet them and see for yourself.
Speaker 4: You've got to understand for yourself, and you're home again
on earth, and.
Speaker 5: That you have a life to live once more.
Speaker 1: Do you mean that, Mary?
Speaker 4: I do, Michael, Dolly, I do because.
Speaker 5: I love you.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm really a stranger in this house, not really
the head of it. Still alone, the barracks filled with chintz.
Speaker 3: Havana.
Speaker 1: Boy. All right, marry, have your party without the guests, Savanna.
Speaker 7: Michael, Michael, h It's good to get out of the house.
Speaker 1: Walk or walk forever, sunshiny, beautiful, peaceful trees, tall trees,
green and yellow leaves. No red grass, no red grass anywhere.
The birds, the wonderful signs they made five years never
saw never, never heard a bird. The only creatures that
ever made a sound of There was a Martian controlly, fat,
greasy lizards that screamed like tortured souls. Look at us.
Flowered blue screens, burd orange, clean.
Speaker 10: White, sweet, glorious, smell peaceful, so peaceful in which to
be alone.
Speaker 1: The grass. The grass was short, soft, carpet like blades,
a carpet of green, cool and gentle. I just sit
on the grass. Why on the grass and rest, rest
and think, think, think. I remember when Tad and I
got back to command post. The Martian sky was darker.
Clouds of that ever looked like these clouds. We hadn't
spoken to each other for a long while. Now we
got away alive from the ambush I'll never know. And
now we were coming to the base and the commander
that the four report, Captain, Yes, Commander that writes, sir,
the fourth success pil ambushed by the Martians in as
many days. We're gonna have to do something drastic to
stop it. Air observation doesn't help. Endless miles of grants
and sand. The Martians are small, hide in the stuff,
take on its coloring like chameleons. If I weren't for
those sonic beam, those those killing sound ways, they could
probably handle them. I know, I know.
Speaker 9: Can't the Earth Science Council work out offenser.
Speaker 1: As they're trying to.
Speaker 9: But even if they do, til we get it up here,
we'll all be decimated. I'm thinking of an old weapon,
poisoned gas.
Speaker 1: That's an outlawed weapon. Isn't the commanding out lord on Earth? Yes?
Speaker 9: They were not fighting on Earth, Captain.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 9: Sometimes I wish they'd never invented space ships.
Speaker 1: Oh, let's not worry about it.
Speaker 9: Now you may need some wreck. Report to the hospital barracks.
Take five days there, yes, sir, Oh one more thing.
But the twelve minute the patroller were lost. When was
your brother my right?
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, I'm sorry, Thank you, sir.
Speaker 9: I got to the barracks and get some rest. We
got a lot to do in five days.
Speaker 1: If I've got on the.
Speaker 9: Commander is sorry, I'll get to the barracks. Don't think
it's so hard to have No, why shouldn't I It
isn't just because Leo was my brother, but because he
was someone special up here on this rotten apple called Mars,
where all people out of touch with the decent things.
Speaker 1: Of our world.
Speaker 9: A little kid, every man who lives here, lives up here.
He's in his own vacuum. Can't believe what's happened to him,
finding himself in a place where things that are unreal
to the human mind are everyday realities. But I had something,
I had, the one thing that made me a human being.
Speaker 7: Up here.
Speaker 9: I had I had someone who loved me, whom I loved.
And now he's dead, and I've got no one. I
like everyone else up here, now.
Speaker 8: I've got no one.
Speaker 1: Marry, marry marry.
Speaker 4: Mommy is in here?
Speaker 1: Where is she?
Speaker 9: Billy was crying.
Speaker 6: She went next door to the neighbor.
Speaker 4: Why'd you make my mommy cry?
Speaker 3: You're not nice?
Speaker 2: But I don't like you.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm sorry, sir. I I guess I haven't been
very nice at that. Come here, Billy Son, I've brought
back a lot of bitterness from the other side of
the universe. But a little while ago, I thought back
to what another man told me on Mars, and I
realized something that I didn't understand at the time. I'll
be all right. From now on, Billy, you and I
are gonna be real friends, royal pals.
Speaker 9: Kim, wech kim, We play soldier.
Speaker 1: How would you like to play baseball? Or build model
jet planes together? Or go on a hike in the woods?
Speaker 5: See, that'll be swell.
Speaker 1: I like that you didn't care what you did with
your dad, just so you did something with him. I
and all you could think I was a soldier because
that's what I did, just proved alright, ted was to
beat it together and to love someone. That's what makes
us human.
Speaker 5: Being Michael, Hello, Mary, Kenny and I gonna play Dansbo
on her heink and everything.
Speaker 4: Oh Michael, Michael.
Speaker 1: It's all right now, Darling. It's all right. Your soldiers
come home next week.
Speaker 2: Another exciting and unusual story from the world of Tomorrow
over the years beyond two thousand AD be sure to listen.
Two thousand plus is produced by Dryer and win Elson
Productions in cooperators. In today's cast, Bill Griffiths fourth raye,
Mike John Shay was Merry, Alan Shay was Billy. Charles
met with Ted and Lon Clark was the Commander. The
orchestra was conducted by Emerson Buckley. Music composed by Elliot
Jacobe down to Wall Shaver and Adriam Penner, Engineer Bob Albright,
lad Is Ken, Marvin speaking. The program came from New
York