Speaker 1: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2: Contdown for blast off x minus five four three two
x minus one fire from the far horizons of the
unknown come transcribed tales of new dimensions in time and space.
Speaker 3: 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.
Speaker 4: He minus.
Speaker 5: Tonight's story Nightfall by Isaac Asimov.
Speaker 1: Ralph Waldo Emerson speculated, if the stars should appear one
night in a thousand years, how would man believe, and
adore and perceive for many generations the remembrance of the
city of God. This was philosophically interesting. But on the
edge of the galaxy, a planet swings on its orbit
in a cluster of six suns. These suns hang in
the sky above, never less than two shine down through
the entire twenty three point eight hours of the planet's day.
The yellow light has burned down on the planet continuously
into the past, till the mind of man runneth not
to the contrary, Therremon was a reporter for the Sarow
City Chronicle.
Speaker 6: He covered them all from.
Speaker 1: The night police beat, to politics, to the sports pages,
and the city editor wanted him to cover the biggest
story of the year, perhaps of all time. It was
an interview, a particularly difficult interview, but then, since his
first days as a cub, Therremont had specialized in difficult interviews.
It cost him bruises, black eyes and broken bones, but
it had gotten him an ample supply of coolness and
self confidence. He didn't expect violence though, from an astronomer.
Speaker 7: You're from that newspaper. You've got a lot of gall
coming here.
Speaker 8: Now.
Speaker 6: Look, doctor Ayton, it's only a job.
Speaker 7: I've read your paper. You've been writing this Observatory for
two months now. You've attacked me personally. I have nothing
to say to you.
Speaker 9: If this is your chance to get your side into
the paper, look, doctor Eyton, I'll give it to you straight.
Two months ago, the Observatory issued a press statement that
the world was coming to an end. Now that's the
same story the cult of the Book of Revelations had
been preaching. Now when a scientist backs that up, it's new.
Speaker 7: Our conclusions have nothing to do with the cult. The
cult is full of superstition, mysticism. We're scientists, you've got
the people pretty angry. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 6: If I can't get the story from you, I'll have
to go somewhere else.
Speaker 7: Go ahead.
Speaker 6: The paper can be pretty rough.
Speaker 9: On someone who doesn't cooperate, Doctor Ayton, young man.
Speaker 7: If you're not out of the observatory within five minutes,
I shall call the police.
Speaker 6: Now get out.
Speaker 1: The reporter walks down the long hall from the observatory.
The light filters through the high, clear story windows. The
yellow light of Gamma, the brightest of the six sons
in the planet Sky Beta, is almost at zenith. Its
red light floods the landscape to an unusual orange. The
planet's sun Alpha is at the antipodes, and now, as
Gamma sinks below the horizon, the red dwarf son Beta
is alone, grimly alone. It's a short drive from the
observatory to Sarow City, and the red light glares from
the highway. The temple of the cult stands hewn from
the solid rock of the Dormite mountains outside the city,
and in the inner courtyard stands sore the priest of
the colt.
Speaker 10: Whoa to the unbelievers their souls will rot with the
absence of light.
Speaker 6: Tell me your reverence, What will happen?
Speaker 11: What are you waiting for?
Speaker 6: Here?
Speaker 12: The day, the day of the coming, It is written
in the Book of Revelations. It came to pass. The
sun Beta was alone in the sky, and the world
was shrunken and cold, And men did assemble in the
public squares and highways. Their minds were troubled and their
speech confused, for the souls of men awaited the coming
of the stars. And the lip of the cave of
darkness passed the edge of Peter, and loud were the
cries of men, and there was no light on the
surface of the world. And in this blackness there appeared
the stars in countless numbers. And in that moment, the
souls of men departed from them, and their abandoned bodies
became even as beasts from the stars. Then reached down
the heaven's flame, where it touched the cities of the
world flamed to destruction, so that of man and all
the works of man not remained.
Speaker 9: So it is written, doctor Sharon, You're the only scientist
I could find in the city.
Speaker 13: Where is everybody in the hideout? The hideout, yes, but
the place bored me. I want it to be out
here where things are getting hot. I want to see
the stars the cultists are talking about. Besides, they don't
want me at the hideout. I'm too scrawny to survive.
What is the hideout? Well, we professors have managed to
convince a few people that our prophecy of doom is valid.
We've got about three thousand people. They're supposed to hide
where the darkness and the stars can't get at them.
We hope they'll survive and leave the records. Survive, survivee
what well? How true it is?
Speaker 6: I can't say.
Speaker 13: But the cultists say that every two thousand and fifty
years all the suns disappear and there is a total darkness,
And then they say things called stars appear.
Speaker 6: Of course men go mad.
Speaker 13: They they mix all this up with a lot of
religious mystic notions.
Speaker 6: Eh, but that's the central idea. But that's impossible, isn't it.
Speaker 9: I mean, there are always at least two suns in
the sky, most of the time, four or five.
Speaker 6: There aren't now only beta.
Speaker 9: You mean that there is going to be worldwide darkness tomorrow,
that all mankind will go violently insane.
Speaker 6: What's behind that?
Speaker 13: Well, for one thing, the history of civilization of the world.
We have located a series of cycles of civilizations comprouble
to our own, all of which, without exception, were destroyed.
Speaker 6: By fire at the very height of their culture.
Speaker 9: But is there any scientific theory behind us which would
explain it?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 13: The University Observatory finished their calculations two months ago, and
tomorrow there will be an eclipse of Beta, so that
the planet will become dark. That eclipse comes every two
thousand and forty nine years.
Speaker 6: Darkness and maybe.
Speaker 13: Those mysterious stars that no man has seen, and then
madness and the end of civilization.
Speaker 6: And you expect to live through this.
Speaker 13: At the heighthout they plan to photograph the eclipse and
leave the records, and then the rest of mankind will
know what to expect.
Speaker 6: What is there in darkness to drive men mad? Have
you ever experienced darkness? Young men? Oh?
Speaker 9: No, but I know what it is. It's just no light.
Oh uh? Draw the curtain?
Speaker 6: Why what for?
Speaker 9: If we had four or five sons out there, we
might want to cut the light down for comfort, But
with only Beta, that's the point.
Speaker 13: Just draw the curtain and then come here and sit down,
all right?
Speaker 9: I can't see you feel your way, But I can't
see you. I can't see anything.
Speaker 6: Do you like it?
Speaker 10: Oh?
Speaker 6: It's awful.
Speaker 9: The wall seem they seem to be closing in on
me eye. I keep wanting to push them away. All right,
all right, draw the curtain back again.
Speaker 6: Oh the light, the light? Do you have a drink
right here?
Speaker 8: Now?
Speaker 9: That was just a dark room. Yes, but it wasn't
really so bad. You're afraid just darkness could do that.
Speaker 13: This isn't just a metaphysical theory, young man. It's promulgated
from observed data. Well, come with me, where the locked
ware down the corridor? Were you at the Saraoh City
Centennial Exposition two years ago?
Speaker 6: I was overseas on assignment.
Speaker 13: Well you remember hearing about the Tunnel of Mystery that
broke all records in the amusement area.
Speaker 10: Oh?
Speaker 6: Yes, wasn't there some fuss about that? The Anti Vice
Society had it shut down.
Speaker 13: Oh, it was shut down, all right, But the Blue
Noses had nothing to do with it. That tunnel was
nothing but a mile long passage through darkness. You rode
in a little car and it took fifteen minutes to
get through. It was very popular, while it lasted popular, well,
there's a there's a fascination to be frightened when it's
part of a game. Absence of light is one of
the instinctive human fears. People came out of that fifteen
minutes of darkness shaking and half dead with fear?
Speaker 6: Or weren't there some deaths? Oh? Bad hearts? But that
wasn't the big danger. Now, which key is this? Ah?
Where are we going? You'll see?
Speaker 13: No, the heart attacks were actually good for business. But
there was something else. Yeah, I'll show you. I I
want you to see somebody. Latimer, Latimer, go away, Latimer,
I want you to meet somebody.
Speaker 6: This is mister thereman. No, no, go away. Hello, he's
pushing me. Make him stop pushing me.
Speaker 10: Go away.
Speaker 6: I'm not touching him. What's wrong? Latimer is afraid? Aren't you?
Speaker 14: They're falling in on me the walls.
Speaker 6: I've got to get out. I've got to get out.
Let me out. You can't go out let him, It's
all right, I got to get out, Let me out.
Let me.
Speaker 13: At at sleeping period. We have to give him a
shot of morphine. Otherwise he'd bat his brains against the wall.
Speaker 6: What's wrong with him? Nothing?
Speaker 13: Nothing but fifteen minutes in the darkness of the tunnel
of mystery.
Speaker 6: Well, that's impossible.
Speaker 13: One person out of ten came out of the tunnel
that way. That's why we had it shut down.
Speaker 6: Why should darkness do that?
Speaker 13: It's obvious men cannot exist without light. Longer periods of
darkness would obviously be fatal. The scientific theory is that
the consciousness of light is necessary for mental activity.
Speaker 6: Please let me outside, Let me out. Please. I can't breathe.
They're pushing me. They're always pushing me. I can't stand here.
Speaker 13: Well, there you are, freman. That's what fifteen minutes of
darkness will do. Men just wasn't built to operate without light.
There are always at least two suns in the sky
most of the time.
Speaker 6: More just teen minutes of darkness. Now, look out of
that window.
Speaker 13: Imagine darkness everywhere, no light as far as you can see,
black everything, black, and stars whatever they are. Can you
conceive it? No, your mind wasn't built for that conception.
When the real thing comes, you will go mad, completely
and permanently. There is no question of it. Tomorrow there
won't be a city left standing in the world.
Speaker 6: Why should the cities be destroyed?
Speaker 13: If you were in darkness, what would you want more
than anything else? What would it be that every instinct
would call for light? And how would you get light?
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 13: You'd burn something. They've got to have light. They've got
to burn something. Every city in the world will go
up in flames. Well, shall we go back to my office,
mister Federman, and have another drink?
Speaker 1: Through the skies, the red sun beta shines alone. The
wind howls across the city. It is cold, colder than
man can remember. And as the hour approaches, the reporter
goes out and speaks to the man in the streets.
Speaker 6: Excuse me, where are you going now?
Speaker 11: Home for supper?
Speaker 6: How about well, I mean, what are you going to
do tonight?
Speaker 11: You mean about this star stuff?
Speaker 8: Like?
Speaker 15: I'll tell you, mister, I got nothing against religioncy but
it don't stand a reason.
Speaker 11: At the end of the world is going to come
boom like that. It just don't stand a reason.
Speaker 6: Have you read what the scientists saying.
Speaker 11: I don't read stuff like that, only the headlines.
Speaker 6: Or how about the.
Speaker 15: Cold Well, like I say, I've got nothing against religion.
Speaker 6: If you don't believe them either, they've.
Speaker 11: Always been shouting about doom and sin.
Speaker 15: Listen, when you've been around as long as I have,
you get to know the score. It's all right to
preach judgment, there is coming and all that, but count.
Speaker 6: Just the same.
Speaker 11: I'm putting money in the bank.
Speaker 6: How about darkness?
Speaker 11: About what?
Speaker 6: How would you feel if there were no light?
Speaker 11: You crazy? How could there be no light?
Speaker 9: We'll suppose all the suns went down at once, suppose
everything was black.
Speaker 11: That's crazy. What's the use of supposing something like that.
It couldn't happen.
Speaker 6: It's crazy, that's all, thank you? Sure, sure?
Speaker 15: Oh look mister, remember palette with two l's.
Speaker 16: All this talk of scientific explanation. It's sinful, that's what
it is.
Speaker 6: You're a member of the colts, sir.
Speaker 16: Sure I am. Then the memberships. Who was a boy
and daddy was a member too. I've seen the books.
It's all written down in the books. Leave the scientist's explanation,
don't need it.
Speaker 6: Going to save man mortal soul.
Speaker 16: I'm going to stay on the mountaintop in a white
room while the stars came away to glory.
Speaker 6: Bless it be the stars? Amen? What are the stars?
Speaker 16: The glory that the breadth of the heavens, the spirit
of the Ottomate, that's what they are.
Speaker 9: The observatory has announced that it intends to take pictures
of the stars leash.
Speaker 16: I sold my house and give all my money to
the poor. Won't need it anymore. I'm going to heaven
with the stars. Glory, glory, going.
Speaker 6: With the stars.
Speaker 1: The reporter checks the stock exchange. The stars business at
a standstill. Doesn't pay to buy anything today, not if
the world is going to end tomorrow. There are predictions
of economic collapse in the financial section, layoffs at the
factories on the edge of the city, and through the streets.
Speaker 6: The people will mill and.
Speaker 1: Turn unsure, crying in fear or shouting with bravado. The
story isn't here in the city, and so as the
hour approaches, the reporter goes again to the observatory high
in the hills.
Speaker 9: I look, doctor Ayton, if you are right, if the
world is going to be destroyed, what is the difference
If I stay here and observe and take notes and nothing.
Speaker 6: I suppose you will be in the way. We have
work to do. If I stay out of the way.
Speaker 13: Hello, Hello, whose place is like a morgue? It's freezing
outside the wind is enough to hang icicles on your nose.
Data doesn't seem to give any heat at all, the
distance it is.
Speaker 6: Why aren't you in the hideout? Shir me?
Speaker 13: I'm part of the race that isn't worth perpetuating.
Speaker 6: Who's got a bottle?
Speaker 7: We know alcohol today be too easy to get my
men drunk. I can't afford to tempt them. All right, term,
and you can stay time. We took our positions. The
observatory dome is up these stairs after you. What is
that up in the dome?
Speaker 6: Quick? What is it?
Speaker 7: It's the plates? The photographic plates are all smashed.
Speaker 13: Ha.
Speaker 6: There he is. A countess is going for.
Speaker 7: The telescope after him.
Speaker 11: All right, I've got it.
Speaker 10: Let go.
Speaker 6: Must be the stride, it must be. It's all right.
Speaker 7: He didn't harm anything up that's the high priest.
Speaker 6: I was talking to him yesterday.
Speaker 7: All right, what do you want?
Speaker 12: Nothing that you would give me of your own free will?
Speaker 7: I made a bargain with a cult to give me
certain data that you had. In return, I promised to
prove the essential truth of the creed.
Speaker 12: There was no need to prove that it stands proven
by the Book of Revelations.
Speaker 7: I offered scientific backing for you believers.
Speaker 12: You made of the darkness and the stars a natural
phenomenon and removed all its real significance.
Speaker 6: That was blasphemy.
Speaker 7: The facts exist, the effect her of fraud and the delusion.
Speaker 6: How do you know?
Speaker 8: I know?
Speaker 7: I suppose you think in trying to warn the world
against the menace of madness, we are placing souls in jeopardy. Eh, well,
we haven't succeeded. That makes you feel better.
Speaker 12: Your devilish instruments must be destroyed. We obey the will
of the stars. Someone call the police in Sarah City.
There's no time for that. Let me handle this. The
eclipse is only a few minutes away. Look, you will
you give your word of honor to cause no trouble.
Speaker 6: I will not listen.
Speaker 13: Just as soon as the eclipse starts, We're going to
take you and put you in a closet with the
door closed, and you will stay there. Then you won't
see the darkness and you won't see the stars, and
that means the loss of your immortal soul according to
the cult.
Speaker 6: All right, will you give your word of honor?
Speaker 7: You have it.
Speaker 12: You will all bit damned for your taser Today look
at Beta.
Speaker 7: The eclipse is started. You can see the blackness against Beta.
Get busy on those cameras. Check the exposures.
Speaker 13: You're shaking, mister Fairman. So I don't feel very well.
Speaker 6: You're not losing your nerve? No, no, I'm just not
used to it. You could probably make the hideout. I
have been assigned to cover a story. I intend to
cover it.
Speaker 13: Oh professional honor, Yes.
Speaker 7: Yes, alas of thanet? What rock a loss of?
Speaker 6: What is that cultist? That's the Book of Revelations?
Speaker 13: I don't understand it. He is chanting some old cycle language.
The Book of Revelations was originally written in it. There
are probably two million people in Sarah's city who are
trying to join the cult one gigantic revival.
Speaker 9: How do the cultists manage to keep the Book of
Revelations going from cycle to cycle if everyone goes mad?
Speaker 6: Who wrote the book?
Speaker 13: There are some people who don't see the stars, the blind,
those who drink themselves into a stupor, and children to
whom the world as a whole is too new and
too strange for them to be frightened at stars and darkness.
They would have memories, and that combined with the confused,
incoherent babbling of the mad formed the basis for the
Book of Revelations. Oh, the coult will be riding high
down there in the city. I I hope they make
the most of it.
Speaker 7: Doctor Sharon, I I just heard from the hideout.
Speaker 6: On the private line. Oh, they're in trouble.
Speaker 13: They are safe, but the city is it's the shallows.
You have no idea it'll get worse. What are you
shaking about, Doctor Ayton?
Speaker 7: How do you feel You don't understand the coloists arousing
the people to storm the observatory, promising them immediate entrance
into grace, promising them salvation, promising them anything.
Speaker 13: How long till the total eclipse an hour? H it's
a gamble. It will take time to get a mob
out here. If the darkness comes first, we're all right.
Speaker 6: Oh look at Bata's cotton. Half half of it is black.
Speaker 13: Yes, it's getting darker. An interesting phenomenon. Oh, my color
is suddenly tight. Are you having any difficulty in breathing?
Speaker 6: No? No, why?
Speaker 13: Difficulty in breathing is one of the first symptoms we
have experimented.
Speaker 6: I'm cold. It seems to be getting colder.
Speaker 13: Yes, so we'd better keep our minds on something else.
One of the astronomers has a theory about the stars
are a way to see in the light. He developed
a fantasy about a planet revolving around one son. It's
a mathematical possibility. Of course, there couldn't be any life.
Part of the planet would always be dark and without light. Well,
it's obvious. Without light, there can't be any life.
Speaker 7: It's time for the artificial light. Read the instruments artificial light.
Speaker 6: One of the researches at the university worked it out.
It's beautiful yellow light after four hours of red. It's
beautiful light.
Speaker 11: Light.
Speaker 6: The dome is quiet.
Speaker 1: The priest in his yellow robes sways slowly as his
lips move in the ancient tongue. Over and over he
whispers the invocation to the stars. The technicians hunch over
the instruments, and the sky gradually turns a horrible, deep
purple red, and the air grows denser.
Speaker 6: Dusk like a palpable entity enters the.
Speaker 1: Room, and the dancing circle of yellow light about the
torches etches itself into ever sharper distinction against the ever
gathering grayness beyond outside. Beta is a mere smoldering splendor.
Taking a last look at the world. The western horizon
in the direction of the city is lost in darkness,
and along the highway to the observatory surges a menacing,
shadowy mass.
Speaker 7: Pob from the city.
Speaker 6: They're coming How long till totally clips?
Speaker 7: Fifteen minutes, but they'll be here in five.
Speaker 6: We'll hold them off.
Speaker 13: Come on, felemen downstairs, but there's no light down there.
Speaker 6: We have to block the door. Come on, yup. I
can't breathe. I can't go down there.
Speaker 13: Take a torch. We'll take light with us. Come on,
athen aythen I'm here. Did you bar the door?
Speaker 7: They won't get in all right now, everybody, one minute
till totality. One minute, just before totality, I'm changing the
plate that will leave one of you for each camera.
You know all about times of exposure. I remember, don't
try to look for good shots. And if you feel
yourself going get away from the Camera's God, it's getting.
Speaker 6: To Sharon, Sharon, where are you? I can't see you.
Sh I'm right here.
Speaker 7: Thirty seconds.
Speaker 6: Look out the priest, I can't see him.
Speaker 14: And the wicked shall perish in the souls of the
true believers shall be transported in plight to the stars.
Speaker 6: You can see him against the torch.
Speaker 7: Don't let him get to the.
Speaker 14: Torso does there still the heavenly flame? And where it
touched the cities of the world. Blame to what the
destructs have him? You shall not have as flames. The
world must be destroyed by the stars.
Speaker 11: It must be.
Speaker 6: Let me go, I'll take care of his.
Speaker 7: I have seconds to totality four three two.
Speaker 8: One.
Speaker 1: The sky is black, and through it shine the stars.
Thirty thousand minute suns shine down in a soul searing splendor.
It is more frightening and its awful indifference than the
bitter wind that shivers across the horrible, cold, bleak world.
Speaker 8: The stars, the stars, the stars. It's dark, dark.
Speaker 6: Dark. The walls, the walls are coming in on me.
They're coming in white light, white darkness forever light, however, light,
and the walls breaking in.
Speaker 7: We did not know, We did not know, we did
not know.
Speaker 1: On the horizon, in the direction of the city, a
crimson glow begins growing. A thousand fires strengthen in brightness
that is not the glow of the sun. A million fires.
As a world mad in the darkness, screams in terror,
or the light.
Speaker 5: The night has come again. 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 Nightfall by
Isaac Asimov, adapted for radio by Ernest Cannoy. Featured in
the cast were Wendell Holmes, John Lockin, Santos Ortega, Mercer MacLeod,
Alan Collins, Bob Hastings, and Roy Fent. Your narrator was
Floyd mack Fred Collins speaking. X minus one was directed
by Daniel Sutter and is an NBC Radio Network production.
Speaker 6: It's groomed for your interests. Weekday NBC Radio