Speaker 1: Mm hmm, Calm down for blast offs x minus five
or three two x minus one. Fire from the far
horizons of the unknown come transcribe tales of new dimensions
in time and space. These are stories of the future
adventures in which you'll live in a million, could be years,
on a thousand, maybe worlds. The National Broadcasting Company, in
cooperation with Street and Smith, publishers of Astounding Science Fiction,
presents he.
Speaker 2: He minus minus minus.
Speaker 3: Minus one.
Speaker 4: To Night's story Ray Bradbury's Dwellers in Silence. Twenty years
had passed, twenty years since the last of the giant
Migration ships had crashed to the surface of Mars, bearing
its pitiful handful of survivors of the Earth Wars. Twenty
years of longing, of turning eyes toward the green Earth
as it hung on the horizon like a beckoning light.
And now it was done, and the first new ship
built of shining Martian Chromaton had lifted bravely toward home,
with three men locked in its metal belly. There it is,
I can barely see the top of the Atomic Trades
building in the twilight.
Speaker 3: I never finished.
Speaker 4: Building, Captain, what is it going out of my mind?
Look out that way to the west.
Speaker 3: Could that be heaven?
Speaker 4: It is? Those are lights. Turn the ship full cruising speed.
Speaker 3: They are lights.
Speaker 4: Captain, It's a city, a whole blasted city, lit up
like a Christmas tree. What do you think of your
dead planet? Now? William, decelerate to negative five. We're going
to take her down.
Speaker 2: Wow, unbelievable.
Speaker 4: We've been walking for hours now. Not a soul to
be seen.
Speaker 3: There must be someone. How do you explain the.
Speaker 4: Light unless they've been burning like this for twenty years?
Speaker 3: Impossible?
Speaker 4: I don't know municipal building. We have a look here, sir.
Possibly the records might contain some that's a good idea.
Keep your weapons ready. We'll start right here with the
city clerk's office. Better check radiation again, doctor, Well, not
enough to do any damage.
Speaker 3: Give you the creeps, doesn't it?
Speaker 4: Look at this desk, papers, crumpled inkstand, just as if
somebody came in and worked here every day.
Speaker 3: God licenses hunting perman.
Speaker 4: That's strange. There's ink in that inkstand?
Speaker 3: Well, what of it?
Speaker 4: Well, you'd think standing open for twenty years, it would
have dried up. Good heavens if I hadn't heard it
with my own ears. Heavens did that phone ring? Yes,
well pick it up doctor.
Speaker 3: Hello, Good day doctor. How are you.
Speaker 4: I called to ask some advice about a true panning problem.
Can you tell me if the lateral cut should.
Speaker 3: Be made first?
Speaker 4: Hello? Hello, this is absolutely insane.
Speaker 3: Hello, thank you, doctor. I'll do that.
Speaker 4: By the way, how is your wife Alice and the
girls and your son John?
Speaker 3: Fine?
Speaker 4: Boy John. I'll call again tomorrow. Goodbye, doctor. Hello, Hello, gone,
dare Who was it? I don't know. Strange voys carry
down a conversation about some surgical operation without paying the
slightest attention to anything. I said, Captain, what is it?
Speaker 3: Listen?
Speaker 4: Someone is coming, walking slowly toward the corridor, coming closer,
jumping Jupiter. It's a man, an old man.
Speaker 3: I you is it really someone? You seem to be real?
Speaker 4: I saw the ship come down and I thought perhaps
I was losing my mind. It's been so many years.
I'm Captain John Parsons. These are my assistants, Doctor Evans,
mister Williams. We returned to Earth from Mars. Then maybe
it's happened when we're not alone anymore. Forgive me, gentlemen,
if I if I see moved, I've waited and hoped
for so long. You survived the radiation we did. There
are others my family, we are the only ones. I
answered the phone a moment ago.
Speaker 3: Who was it?
Speaker 4: You heard my voice?
Speaker 3: Doctor yours? Yes?
Speaker 4: To break the loneliness, I've recorded my voice and rigged
up an automatic telephone. It's pleasant to hear the phone ring.
I come here to work. I take it you are
a medical man. My name is Cornelius Hathaway. Hathaway Hathaway,
the brain surgeon.
Speaker 3: You know my name? Who doesn't?
Speaker 4: I watched you on television at college. Why I saw
you twenty twenty three years ago. You performed a difficult
surgery for a cerebral tumor.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I had almost forgotten my mind. You see
I well I'm almost eighty now. Well you look fine, sir.
Speaker 4: We've had the best of everything, an entire city to choose,
from cold storage, the best equipment. But come, come, come,
there's a fine dinner waiting for you. And you want
to meet my family. When I saw the ship come down,
I told Alice, my wife, you know.
Speaker 3: To prepare a feast.
Speaker 4: This this is a great day for me, gentlemen, A great,
great day. Alice Alice, come out to the porch and
see who we have here. Alice, you're here, Come out
my wife. Gentlemen, Alice, Captain Parsons, doctor Evans, mister.
Speaker 3: William, how do you do?
Speaker 5: How do you do?
Speaker 4: And now if you will follow me, and gentlemen, we'll
meet my children. Lord, what a beautiful woman. She looks
no more than thirty five? Dispose the radiation could have
done that to her?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: And these are my daughters, Susan and Marguerite, and my
son John.
Speaker 3: How do you do?
Speaker 6: So?
Speaker 4: Sit down, gentlemen, sit down, we'll have a feast in
hour of this occasion. Susan, Marguerite get the best silverware
in the damask napkins, and John fetch the champagne.
Speaker 3: Yes, excuse me moment, John, sir? How old are you?
Twenty three? Sir? Thank you? What is it? Captain? Something wrong? Oh?
Speaker 4: Nothing except that it's impossible. You see, Doctor Hathaway's son
was already in college when I started. That would make
him at least forty five. That was a wonderful meal,
missus Hathaway. Doctor, your wife is an exceptional woman.
Speaker 3: Thank you, sir.
Speaker 7: How would you, gentlemen like some fresh gingerbread with your coffee. Hmm,
I've faked it this morning.
Speaker 3: Oh wonderful one.
Speaker 4: Hmm.
Speaker 3: Smell that doctor.
Speaker 4: It's like coming home, Missus Hathaway. It's like home having
you here, Missus Hathaway. May I compliment you on having
preserved your youth and beauty so well?
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 7: We have no worries here, no competition, all the things
we need for material comfort.
Speaker 4: Parsons and I were wondering, Doctor Hathaway, if the radioactivity
had any effect in preserving tissue. Your children all look
so young too. It is possible, gentlemen. Of course, radiation
does strange things to living tissue. Alice, could we have
some champagne?
Speaker 3: Alice? Oh, I'm sorry, what John, some champagne? Please?
Speaker 5: Champagne? Oh?
Speaker 4: Yes, of course, an amazing woman. Did you ever see
such grace such that's complete relaxation. It doesn't seem quite natural.
Speaker 3: I beg your pardon, gentlemen.
Speaker 4: Captain Parsons was just about to ask how you and
your family managed to escape, Doctor Hathaway. We were very fortunate.
You see, my home was in the Sierra Mountains at
the time. I had a lead line laboratory in the basement,
where I did X ray research, my hobby. You know,
I chose this house because it was on a hill
where I could watch the sky. The loneliness of those
first years, but at least you had your wife and children.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, I had my family.
Speaker 4: If it were not for them, gentlemen, I assure you
I would long ago have put a bullet in my head.
Oh thank you, miss Hathaway. I propose a toast. So
let me, gentlemen, to Earth, to Earth, may she never
be stranger to men? And that well, what is it? You?
Speaker 6: All right, it's nothing. It's nothing really, just rather sharp
pain in the chest. Why don't you, gentlemen, go out
on the porch and enjoy the air. You've had a
long and tiring journey. Alice will show you the way.
Speaker 5: Will you be all right?
Speaker 3: Yes, don't trouble yourself. I'll see you all in the morning.
Good night, doctor, good night, Come John, Yes, father.
Speaker 2: Well what do you think of old Mother Earth?
Speaker 3: Now, Williams?
Speaker 4: A smell that summer breeze. Look at that view of
the city, light it up against the sky. It has
a certain quality. Well, score one point for the back
to Earth proponts. I didn't say that you're beginning to
feel it, though, Williams. I can tell if you don't mind, gentlemen,
I'm quite tired.
Speaker 3: I think i'll turn in.
Speaker 4: Excuse me, well, Captain, Well, what what do you make
of all this?
Speaker 3: I don't know what you mean?
Speaker 4: This Hathaway and his family. There's something strange and unnatural
going on here. I can sense it.
Speaker 3: I think you're reading things into it. Doctor.
Speaker 4: Perhaps, well, I'll turn into coming.
Speaker 3: In a moment. I want to smoke a cigarette.
Speaker 5: It's a very beautiful view, is it not?
Speaker 3: Why I didn't hear you come out? How is he resting?
Speaker 5: I've never seen him this bad?
Speaker 3: Yes, he he's an old man.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, But what the difference in your ages is
so apparent? You must have been married very young.
Speaker 5: You don't know about us there, No, Perhaps it is
better that way.
Speaker 4: I don't follow you. Is it something about your husband?
He acts very strangely.
Speaker 5: My husband is a very great man, Captain. It is
too bad there was no one to appreciate him.
Speaker 7: Once he wired the whole city with sound speakers, and
when he pressed a button, the whole town lit up
and made noises as if ten thousand people.
Speaker 4: Will He must have been very lonesome, although with a
woman such as you, I don't understand.
Speaker 5: Perhaps one day you will understand.
Speaker 3: I hope you will come to trust me as a friend.
Speaker 5: I can trust no one but he.
Speaker 4: Good Night, Captain, good night, Missus Hathaway, Captain, Captain, possums.
Speaker 3: What are you to do? Who's there? Doctor Evan? What's wrong?
What time is it? Anyway to a m what's wrong?
I couldn't sleep. A few minutes ago.
Speaker 4: I heard someone slip out the front door, and the
moonlight I saw it was the old man.
Speaker 3: He was headed toward the ship.
Speaker 4: What are you suggesting, doctor, Nothing except that it's fairly
unnatural for an old man with a bad heart to
go wandering off at two in the morning. Very well,
we're following.
Speaker 3: This is far enough. What do you suppose he's doing? One?
Are those on the ground? Good lord? Those those are
grave markers, four of them. You're right. He seems to
be praying over them. Listen, do you forgive me for
what I had done? I had to do it.
Speaker 4: I was so lone, so terribly lone. You don't mind
too much? You do forgive me, don't you?
Speaker 3: Yes? Yes, I feel you doo.
Speaker 4: I'm glad. I think perhaps I can rest now. I think, well,
he's having another attack, Hathaway. Dr Hathaway, can you hear me?
Brace his head happens? Dr Hathaway, his lips are moving?
Speaker 3: What is it? Doctor? Closer? Lean closer.
Speaker 6: I'm sorry I had to spoil all of this.
Speaker 3: I've expected it for some time. We'll fix you up. No, no,
I'm an excellent diagnostician. It really doesn't matter except for them.
What about them? Hathaway? You suspected, didn't you? Yes? I suspected.
I couldn't believe it until now. Do they know? No? No,
they wouldn't understand. I wouldn't want them to know. Ever. Oh, doctor,
he's dead.
Speaker 4: Captain, What was it he meant about your suspecting light
a match? Doctor Evans, Look on those four grave markers
and tell me.
Speaker 3: What you see.
Speaker 4: Good Heaven Well, Alice Hathaway, Marguerite Hathaway, Susan Hathaway. John
Hathaway died j Line nineteen eighty seven. But that's twenty
years ago. It's impossible. If these markers are correct, then
who are those others?
Speaker 3: Can't you guess? Doctor?
Speaker 4: Can't you guess? I'm sorry? Missus Hathenway He didn't want
us to feel badly. He told us it would happen
one day, and that he didn't want us to cry.
He didn't teach us how, you know. He said it
was the worst thing that could happen, to know how
to be lonely and unhappy. We want to know.
Speaker 5: What that is.
Speaker 4: Perhaps it's just as well you know about us, don't you.
Speaker 3: Yes, I know. I didn't think you knew yourself.
Speaker 5: The children don't. I've been aware for a long while.
Speaker 4: No one would have guessed you're so perfect.
Speaker 7: He would have liked to hear you say that. He
was so very proud of us. After a while he
came to love us, and at the end he took
us as his real wife and children. He even forgot
sometimes that he had made us.
Speaker 3: You gave him a great deal of comfort.
Speaker 7: Yes, over the years we sat and talked. He loved
so much to talk.
Speaker 4: I was first, you know.
Speaker 7: Then he became lonesome for the children, and so he
made them. There was only one thing, one floor, and
that he couldn't make us grow old, and so he
had to watch himself become an old old man while
we stayed young.
Speaker 5: It was a great.
Speaker 4: Blow to me we'll bury him on the hill side
where the other four crosses are. I think you would
like that, yes, he would missus Hathaway, Alice, I think
that you are a a great and wonderful woman, and
so we commend the body of this man, John Hathaway
to his maker. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, returneth Amen.
Speaker 5: Come John, Yes, mother, Susan.
Speaker 4: Margury Evans, Williams, stay here a moment, please, what is it?
Let them go back to the house. I want to
speak to you. I know what you're gonna tell us, Captain.
I saw the names on the grave markers. Well, it's
a mockery.
Speaker 8: A blasphemy of everything we believe in for a man
to do something, so we had to imagine what he faced.
Speaker 4: Can't you imagine what it must have been like to
have watched his wife and children die slowly of radiation burns,
to know that he was the last man on the
face of the earth, alone, eternally and unalterably alone. Good
lord man, what would you have done if you'd had
his medical and technical genius? I'll tell you have come
back to your laboratory just as he did, and try
to recapture all the wonderful things that they had been
to you.
Speaker 3: You'd use all.
Speaker 4: The power of your memory, all the accuracy of your fingers,
and you'd try to put together, bit by bit all
those things that were wife, sim and daughter.
Speaker 3: It's incredible.
Speaker 4: So you suggest that we take them back, Captain, I
don't know. We have enough space in the ship for that.
Every ounce counts still. To leave them here like that alone,
I think I have an answer. Cold blooded as it
may seem, go on. I suggested we turn them off.
Do you think I could do that?
Speaker 8: No, but I think I could. After all, we aren't human.
They're worse than robuts. They're ghoulish.
Speaker 3: I suggest you go back to the ship, Captain, and
leave me to deal with I will not permit it.
You've no choice in the matter. I assure you. It'll
be quick and entirely painless.
Speaker 4: I hate to admit it, but he's right, Captain. We
can't take them with us, and it would be less
than human to leave them here without Hathaway, created by
him for himself. They have no other feelings, no other purpose.
If you leave them, they'll go on year after year,
night after night, talking, laughing, baking strawberry biscuits for no reason,
not knowing who they are, why they exist.
Speaker 3: Could you do it, doctor, I don't know. I've already
offered to do it now. Now I wouldn't want it
to be you. Williams.
Speaker 4: You're you're sick, you have no feelings. If doctor Evans
here can do it, well so be it. It's a
difficult thing, Captain. Still as you say, they aren't, they aren't.
Human logic is on your side. It isn't as if
you were murdering someone. Well give me the blast gun.
William will wait in the ship. Take off in half
an hour, half an hour, six twenty five. He should
be back soon. Yes, he's doing the only humane thing, Captain.
A less than humor, are they? Well it's done now,
no one has heard. That's the airlock.
Speaker 3: He's back. Well, here's your gun. Did you do it?
Speaker 4: When I entered the house, one of the daughters looked
up at me, and she smiled. The others smiled. He
taught them there, taught them to make him feel welcome
when he came home at night. I knew that, and yet,
well I should have done it then I might have.
But she came in the wife. She said something about
sitting down for a cup of tea. She looked at
me with those fine, intelligent eyes.
Speaker 3: I couldn't do it.
Speaker 4: It would be murder, cold blooded murder.
Speaker 3: I prayed you wouldn't be able to do it.
Speaker 4: There will never be anything as fine as they are,
you know, built to last one hundred, two hundred, perhaps
one thousand years. Well, get the course and the integrator.
Williams will take off in twenty minutes. I should be
back by then. You're going answer. I'm going to say goodbye.
You've come back only to say goodbye.
Speaker 5: It was nice of you.
Speaker 3: I wanted you to know that I'm coming.
Speaker 4: Back here to us, here to you.
Speaker 5: I I believe you.
Speaker 3: I never meant anything more.
Speaker 5: When will you come?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: It'll take many years to prepare fuel for another trip,
six seven peraps, ten years.
Speaker 5: I will watch the sky at night, just as heat.
Speaker 4: I'm not a young man.
Speaker 5: Time is nothing to me. I was born out of time.
Speaker 3: I'm afraid I must go now.
Speaker 5: I understand strange.
Speaker 9: I have a new feeling, one which he didn't teach us,
A feeling of of lorney sadness that one is not taught.
Speaker 4: It comes of being alive.
Speaker 5: Yes, I am alive. Even though he created me. I'm
a person now.
Speaker 4: Goodbye Alice Hathaway, Goodbye John Pass. You have just heard
X minus one, Presented by the National Broadcasting Company in
cooperation with Street and Smith, publishers of Astounding science fiction.
Tonight by transcription, X minus one has brought you Dwellers
in Silence, Written by Ray Bradbury and adapted for radio
by George Leffards. Featured in the cast were Anne Seymour,
Carl Weber, Theodore Osborne, Richard Hamilton, Edwin Jerome and Stannerley.
You're announcer Fred Collins. X minus one was directed by
Daniel Sutter and is an NBC Radio Network production. Don't
Forget Next Week X minus one will be heard on
Wednesday at eight p m.
Speaker 3: Eastern Standard Time.