Transcript for:
English Martian Chronicles Book

this is audible [Music] the following is a presentation of the colonial radio theater on brilliance audio [Music] january 2030 rocket summer one minute it was ohio winter with doors closed windows locked the panes blind with frost icicles fringing every roof children skiing on sleeps housewives lumbering like great black bears in their furs along the icy streets and then a long wave of warmth crossed the small town a flooding sea of hot air it seemed as if someone had left a bakery door open the heat pulsed among cottages and bunches of children the icicles dropped shattering to melt the doors flew open the windows flew up the children worked off their wool clothes the housewives shed their bare disguises the snow dissolved and showed last summer's ancient green lawns rocket some rockets rocket summer rocket summer rocket summer rocket summer rocket summer rocket summer rocket summer the words passed among the people in the open airing houses rocket summer the warm desert air changing the frost patterns on the windows erasing the artwork the skis and sleds suddenly useless the snow falling from the cold sky upon the town turned into a hot rain before it touched the ground rocket summer people leaned from their dripping porches and watched the redding sky the rocket lay on the launching field blowing out pink clouds of fire and oven heat the rocket stood in the cold winter morning making summer with every breath of its mighty exhaust the rocket made climates and summer lay for a brief moment upon the land the colonial radio theater on the air presents ray bradbury's the martian chronicles produced by seth adamshere executive producer mark vanderburgh music by jeffrey gage dramatized for audio and directed by jerry robbins from the novel by ray bradbury [Music] february 2030 ella we had a house of crystal pillars on the planet mars by the edge of the empty sea and every morning one could see me eating the golden fruits that grew from the crystal walls or cleaning the house with handfuls of magnetic dust which taking all the dirt with it blew away on the hot wind afternoons when the warm and motionless and the wine tree stood stiff in the yard and the little distant martian bone town was all enclosed and no one drifted out their doors you could see my husband mr k in his room reading from a metal book stroking the pages as the ancient voices sang [Music] oh did you call no i thought i heard you cry out did i i was almost asleep i had a dream in the daytime you don't often do that how strange how very strange the dream oh i dreamed about a man a man a man six feet one inch tall how absurd a giant a misshapen giant somehow he looked all right in spite of being tall and he had well and i know you think it's silly he had blue eyes blue eyes gods what did you dream of next i suppose he had black hair how did you guess i picked the most unlikely color well black it was dee had a very white skin oh he was most unusual he was dressed in a strange uniform he came down out of the sky and spoke pleasantly to me out of the sky what nonsense came in a metal thing that glittered in the sun [Music] i dreamed there was a sky and something sparkled like a coin thrown into the air and suddenly it grew large and fell down softly to a long silver craft round and alien and a door opened on the side of the silver object and this tall man stepped out if you worked harder you wouldn't have any of these silly dreams i rather enjoyed it i never suspected myself of such an imagination black hair blue eyes and white skin what a strange man and yet quite handsome wishful thinking you're unkind i didn't think him up on purpose he just came into my mind while i drowsed it wasn't like a dream it was so unexpected and different he looked at me and he said i've come from the third planet in my ship my name is nathaniel york a stupid name it's no name at all of course it's stupid because it's a dream and he said this is the first trip across space there are only two of us in our ship myself and my friend bert another stupid name and he said we're from a city on earth and that's the name of our planet that's what he said earth was the name he spoke and he used another language somehow i understood him with my mind telepathy i suppose ill do you ever wonder if well if there are people living on the third planet the third planet is incapable of supporting life our scientists have said there's far too much oxygen in their atmosphere but wouldn't it be fascinating if there were people and they traveled through space in some sort of ship oh really you know how i hate this emotional wailing let's get on with our work [Music] drink to me only with his fine eyes and i will pledge with mine [Music] or leave a kiss within the car and i will not ask for wine [Music] i never heard that song before did you compose it no yes no i i don't know really i don't even know what the words are they're another language what language i don't know just a crazy thing i made up i guess i don't know why let's take the flame birds to town tonight to see an entertainment you don't mean it are you feeling well i'm so strange about that but we haven't gone for an entertainment in six months i think it's a good idea suddenly you're so solicitous don't talk that way do you or do you not want to go [Music] i do you good come along now i'm tired some other night here's your scarf we haven't gone anywhere in months except you twice a week to zai city business oh i was thinking that i would call a hool tonight maybe we could spend time in the blue mountains did you hear what i said what you might pay attention i was thinking i never thought you were a nature lover but you're certainly interested in the sky tonight it's very beautiful i was figuring i thought i'd call hull tonight i'd like to talk to him about us spending some time oh only a week or so in the blue mountains it's just an idea the blue mountains it's just a suggestion where do you want to go i thought we might leave tomorrow morning you know an early start and all that but we never go this early in the year just once i thought do us good to get away some peace and quiet you know you haven't anything else planned we'll go won't we no what no it's settled i won't go oh you've been dreaming again you spoke out and kept me awake i really think you should see a doctor i'll be all right you talked a lot in your sleep did i what was your dream the ship it came from the sky again landed the tall man stepped out and talked with me telling me little jokes laughing and it was pleasant and then this man who said his strange name was nathaniel york told me i was beautiful and he kissed me it's only a dream keep your silly feminine dreams yourself you're acting like a child i thought of some more of a dream well what is it ill you're so bad tempered tell me you can't keep secrets from me i've never seen you this way all that happened was this nathaniel york person told me well he told me that he'd take me back to his planet with him it's really quite ridiculous ridiculous is it you should have heard yourself fawning on him talking to him singing with him oh god all night you should have heard yourself feel when's he landing when's he coming down with his damn ship deal that were your voice oh voice be damned let go of my wrist and in this dream didn't the ship land over in green valley didn't it answer me yes and it landed this afternoon didn't it yes yes i think so yes but only in a dream it's good you're truthful what do you mean because i heard every word you said in your sleep you mentioned the valley and the time ew i'm all right you're sick though just childish forgive me darling too much work lately i'm sorry i think i'll lie down a while you were so excited i'm all right now fine let's forget it say hi i heard a joke about uncle ewell yesterday i meant to tell you what do you say you fix breakfast i'll tell you the joke and let's not talk about all this it was only a dream of course [Music] [Applause] it's so hot look at how the hills shimmer in the light hmm aren't you going to town town this is the day you always go you've been reading that book all morning i thought you'd be ready for your trip into town no it's too hot and it's late oh i'll be back soon wait a minute where are you going over to pals why she invited me today i haven't seen her in a long time it's only a little way over in green valley is it just a walk not far i i thought sorry i'm i'm really sorry it it slipped my mind i invited dr newell out this afternoon newell yes now close the door and come back in but how how can wait hillar we must entertain new for a few minutes no ella no no besides it's a terribly long walk to pause all the way over through green valley then past the big canal and down isn't it and it will be very very hot and dr newell will be delighted to see you well yeah you will be here won't you yes i'll be here all afternoon all afternoon [Music] ill yes the day is almost over where is dr newell he was never coming never ill what was that ill ew why questions we you're wearing the silver mask that expression this mouse gets horrible expressionless i wear this to hide my feelings as you know and that weapon that evil weapon it is a good weapon an effective weapon shooting out thousands of bees that sting with poison that's why it is a good weapon where are you going if dr newell is late i'll be damned if i'll wait i'm going out to hunt a bit i'll be back you be sure to stay right here now won't you yes until dr newell i'll return i'm just hunting how long will you be not long but what if dr newell arrives he will wait [Music] so [Music] what is this this numbness that has taken over me my song hmm [Music] it's coming nearer at any moment it might happen it's like those days when you hear a thunderstorm coming and there's the wading silence and then the faintest pressure of the atmosphere as the climate blows over the land in shifts and shadows and vapors that's how it is now a storm gathers it in the sky are no clouds crazy stop thinking of these wild things with your idle mind what that was not thunder i saw it that gleam it was metal but it's gone i can't see it can't go looking for it the doctor is coming to visit and ill will be angry if i leave but it went behind the hills toward green valley but nothing oh you're being silly need to sit down and vest me and my imagination there's nothing but a bird or a leaf a wind or a fish in the canal that weapon that insect weapon what what were you doing nothing nothing at all but the gun i heard you fire it twice just hunting once in a while you like to hunt did dr newell arrive no wait a minute why i remember now he was supposed to visit us tomorrow afternoon how stupid of me what's wrong i've been trying to remember remember what that song i've forgotten it and somehow i don't want to forget it it's something in it i can't remember i can't remember why are you crying i don't know i don't know but i can't help it i'm sad and i don't know why i cry and i don't know why but i'm crying you'll be all right tomorrow yes i can't look at him i can look only at the empty desert and the bright stars coming out now on the black sky and far away there is the sound of wind rising and canal waters stirring cold in the long canals i'll be all right tomorrow august 2030 the summer night [Music] walks in beauty like the night of cloudless [Music] and all that's best [Music] [Applause] [Music] what words are those what song is that what language is that and when she got there the cupboard was bare and so the poor little what was that rhyme where did you learn it i just thought of it all of a sudden it's just words we don't understand ah there there sleep what's wrong a dream something terrible will happen in the morning nothing can happen all is well with us it's coming nearer and nearer and nearer nothing can happen to us what could sleep now sleep august 2030 the earth men i'm coming well you speak english i speak what i speak it's wonderful english what do the four of you want you're a martian the word's not familiar to you certainly it's it's an earth expression that we're from earth i'm captain williams that we've landed on mars within the hour and here we are the second expedition there was a first expedition but we don't know what happened to it but here we are anyway and you're the first martian we've met martian what i mean to say is that you're the fourth planet from the sun correct elementary and we are from earth right man right this is a planet tear if you want to use the proper name tear tear a fine name but my good woman how is it you speak perfect english i'm not speaking i'm thinking telepathy good day [Music] now what i don't think you understand what we're from earth i haven't time i i've a lot of cooking today and there's cleaning and sewing and all you evidently wish to see mr t and he is upstairs in his study yes by all means let us see mr t is busy [Music] see here this is no way to treat visitors all over my clean floor mud get out if you come in my house wash your boots first this is no time for trivialities i think we should be celebrating if you've made my crystal buns fall in the oven i'll hit you with a piece of wood wait here i'll see if i can let you have a moment with mr t what's your business tell him we're from earth and it hasn't been done before what hasn't oh never mind strange you ain't kidding look at that desert broiling looks like a prehistoric mud pot hmm cigarette not me sure thanks sir it's been an hour captain i hope we didn't cause any trouble where you going i just want to see if is it in the living room just around the corner it's mrs t huh i knew i'd forgotten something i'm sorry mr t is much too busy here take this anyway it's not mr t you want to see mr a take that paper i gave you to the next farm by the blue canal and mr ale advise you of whatever it is you want to know we don't want to know anything we already know it you have the paper what more do you want well well come on man [Music] and mr t sent you to see me yes mr a we have come why did he do that because he was busy well it's a shame does he think i have nothing else to do but entertain people he's too busy to bother with well that's not the important thing sir well it is to me i have much reading to do mr t is inconsiderate this is not the first time he has been thoughtless of me stop waving your hand sir until i am finished mr a pay attention people usually listen to me when i talk and you'll listen courteously or i won't talk at all now do you think it's fair of mr t to be so ill-mannered we're from earth i think it's very ungentlemanly of him a rocket ship we came in it over there on a hillside not the first time t has been unreasonable you know all the way from earth for half a minute i'd call him up and tell him off just the four of us myself and these three men my crew i'll call him up yes that's what i'll do earth rocket man trip space call him up and give him a good lashing challenge him to a duel by the gods a duel mr a i'll shoot him dead do you hear mr a i'd like to tell you we came 60 million miles where did you say you were from we traveled 60 million miles from earth that's only 50 million miles this time of year what's that he just picked up some kind of weapon well i have to go now just take that silly note though i don't know what good it'll do you and go over that hill into the little town of iopa and tell mr i all about it he's the man you want to see not mr t he's an idiot i'm going to kill him not me because you're not in my line of work line of work line of work do you have to be in a certain line of work to welcome athman don't be silly everyone knows that goodbye find someone yet who'll listen to us maybe we could go out and come in again maybe we should take off and land again give them time to organize a party we'll head into town [Music] this must be eyeopener busy little place the martians why are so many wearing masks look golden masks blue red some of the masks look happy others sad what do you think captain not sure maybe that's how they show their dispositions there's a little girl sitting on the bench she doesn't have a mask look at the size of that spider crawling up her leg it's as big as a baseball look closer it's mechanical it's a toy see she just shut it off some toy well let me try to talk to her hello hello could you tell me where mr eyes house is over there thank you may i talk with you what about well six months ago another rocket came to mars there was a man named york in it and his assistant whatever happened to them we don't know maybe they crashed they came to rockets so did we so we're the second expedition falling up the first and we came all the way from a earth she put she put a mask on we're earth men do you believe me yes fine we build our own rocket ship do you believe that yes never before in history has anyone come across space in a big rocket ship wonderful how did you know telepathy aren't you glad you better go see mr eye right away mr i will like talking to you the toy spider is following her i'm on my way to a lecture and only have a minute to tell me what you desire a little attention we're from earth we have a rocket there are four of us we're hungry we'd like a place to sleep we'd like someone to give us the keys to the city or something like that and we'd like somebody to shake our hands and say hooray and congratulations old man that about sums it up hmm well i haven't the forms with me here i don't think now where did i put those forms somewhere somewhere oh here we are now you'll have to sign these papers of course do we have to go through this rigmarole will you say you're from earth don't you well there's nothing for it but you sign let me have the pen certainly there do you want my crew to sign also [Laughter] them sign marvelous them oh them sign them what's funny oh them signs are very funny i'll have to tell mr x about this [Music] let me see the form everything seems to be in order even the agreement for euthanasia if a final decision on such a step is necessary agreement for war don't talk i have something for you here take this key oh it's a great honor now it's not the key to the city you fool it's just a key to the house now go down that corridor unlock the big door and go inside and shut the door tight you can spend the night there in the morning i'll send mr x to see you what's wrong what are you waiting for what do you want out with it you i don't suppose you could even i mean that is try to or think about we've worked hard we've come a long way and maybe you could just shake our hands and say well done congratulations congratulations i must go now should we go back to the ship well let's see the room maybe there's someone we can talk to this must be the door there's a lot of martians in here looks like they're in groups sitting at those tables i missed you i am captain jonathan williams of new york city on earth hey this is more like it this is the life boy [Applause] hey thank you thank you it's good it's good tell us about yourselves it's good to see another man from earth also how's that again there are many of us here from earth you from earth but is that possible did you come by rocket what country are you from i came by the spirit of my body years ago triol i don't know that country and what's this about spirit of body and miser over here she's from earth too aren't you miss r and so is mr w and q and mr v i'm from jupiter i'm from saturn jupiter saturn look at the tables pretty empty for banquet tables no windows one door where on earth is this turial is it near america what is america you've never heard of america you say you're from earth and yet you don't know earth is a place of seas and nothing but seas there is no land i am from earth and i know wait a minute you look like a regular martian yellow eyes brown skin earth is a place of all jungle i'm from ori on earth a civilization built of silver captain look at their eyes waxing and waning in the light focusing and unfocusing this is no celebration this is no banquet these aren't government representatives this is no surprise party look at their eyes listen to them now i understand why everyone gave us notes and passed on one from the other until we met mr i who sent us down the corridor with the key to open a door and shut a door here we are where are we sir in an insane asylum [Music] nothing doing sir we're locked in proper they think we're really insane sir quite that's why there was no hullabaloo to welcome us they merely tolerated what to them must be a constantly recurring psychotic condition look at them sleeping paranoid every single one what a welcome they gave us for a moment there i thought we were getting a true reception all the yelling and singing and speeches pretty nice wasn't it while it lasted how long will they keep us here sir till we prove we're not psychotic that should be easy i hope so you don't sound very certain sir i'm not look in that corner see that man squatting in the darkness watch look at that out of his mouth comes blue flame and it turns into the round shape of a naked woman look it flourishes on the air and vapors whispering inside amazing and over there look that woman in the corner first she's embedded in a crystal pillar then she melts into a golden statue then back into a woman when your men were asleep i was watching them all of them juggle thin violet flames shifting changing magicians sorcerers known hallucination they pass their insanity over into us so that we see their hallucinations too telepathy auto suggestion and telepathy is that what worries you sir yes if hallucinations can appear this real to us to anyone if hallucinations are catching and almost believable it's no wonder they took us for psychotics if that man can produce little blue fire women and that woman over there melt into a pillar how natural if normal marshals think we produce our rocket ship with our minds all around us sleep blue flames they flare and evaporate little demons of red sand run between the teeth of sleeping man women become oily snakes the smells of reptiles and animals [Applause] good morning captain that must be mr x must be look at the mask he's wearing three smiles painted onto it now what seems to be the trouble you think we're insane and we're not oh contrarily i do not think all of you are insane oh no just you sir the others are secondary hallucinations so that's it that's why mr i laughed when i suggested my men sign the papers too yes mr eye told me good joke where was i as secondary hallucinations yes women come to me with snakes crawling from their ears when i cure them the snakes vanish we'll be glad to be cured go right ahead unusual not many people want to be cured the cure is drastic you know cure ahead i'm confident you'll find we're all seen let me see your papers to be sure they're in order for a cure [Music] yes you know such cases as yours need special curing and the people here are simpler forms but once you've gone this far i must point out with primary secondary auditory olfactory and labial hallucinations as well as tactile and optical fantasies it is pretty bad business we have to resort to euthanasia look here we've stood quite enough test us tap our knees check our hearts exercises ask questions you're free to speak we come from planet earth on a rocket ship we were looking for an expedition that arrived here before but we never had any contact from them incredible most detailed dream fantasy i've ever heard god damn it we'll show you our rocket ship i'd like to see it can you manifest it in this room oh certainly it's in that file of yours under our why did you tell me to look the rocket isn't there of course not you idiot i was joking it doesn't insane man joke you find some odd senses of humor now take me out to your rocket i wish to see it [Music] so your rocket may i go inside you may of all the silly exasperating things for two cents i'd go back home and tell people not to bother with mars what a suspicious bunch of lights i bet a good number of their population are insane sir that seems to be their main reason for doubting nevertheless this is also damned irritating he's coming out now do you believe this is the most incredible example of sensual hallucination and hypnotic suggestion i've ever encountered i went through your rocket as you call it i hear it auditory fantasy i smell it olfactory hallucination induced by sensual telepathy and keeping the hallucinations from becoming sensually weaker is almost impossible those people in the house usually concentrate on visuals or at the most visuals and auditory fantasies combined you have balanced the whole conglomeration your insanity is beautifully complete my insanity yes yes what a lovely insanity metal rubber gravitizers foods clothing fuel weapons ladders nuts both spoons 10 000 separate items i checked on your vessel never have i seen such complexity there were even shadows under the bunks and everything such concentration of will and everything no matter how or when tested had a smell a solidity a taste a sound let me embrace you i'll write this into my greatest monograph i'll speak of it at the martian academy next month look at you why you've even changed your eye color from yellow to blue your skin to pink from brown and those clothes and your hands having five fingers instead of six biological metamorphosis through psychological imbalance and your three friends put that gun down your friends are incurable of course you poor wonderful man you will be happy or dead have you any last words captain grab him don't move mr x please put the gun down and we'll talk i can explain oh no stop forgot sick don't shoot you sad creature i shall put you out of this misery which has driven you to imagine this rocket in these three men it will be most engrossing to watch your friends and your rocket vanish once i have killed you i will write a neat paper on the dissolvement of neurotic images from what i have perceived here today i'm from earth my name is jonathan williams and these are my yes i know you killed him what did you do you idiot coward you're all idiots what you continue to exist this is superb hallucinations with time and spatial persistence no put that gun down i'll scare you into dissolving it no an auditory appeal even with the patient dead but it persists hey persist you must be dead you hallucinations taste sight smell sound feeling they are still there lying there go away go away i touch them i touch the ship my hands are contaminated carried over into me telepathy hypnosis now i'm insane now i'm contaminated hallucinations in all their sensual forms only one cure only one way to make them go away vanish we found the bodies at sunset four bodies lay where they fell and mr x they where he fell we saw this large silver object and we wondered what it was nobody knew so it was sold to a junk man and hauled off for scrap metal that night it rained all night the next day was fair and warm listen to me i'm a taxpayer how many times do i have to tell you i'm a taxpayer t-minus one hour and counting one hour to lift off i've got a right to go to mars all right listen to me listen mister stop making all this noise if you want to watch the launch go to the viewing area don't want to watch it i want to be on it spectators are not allowed here even on that side of the fence move along i was born right here in ohio i'm a good citizen why can't i go just go home mister there's gonna be an atomic war here on earth yeah when in two years an atomic war in two years yes and i don't want to be here when it happens if the people on this planet had any sense they would want to get away from earth too get away from wars censorship and statism and conscription and government control of everything you can have earth look hal what's going on here sir this man was creating a disturbance the crew has arrived we're about to drive them to the rocket rejoice i have to go with them what i'm offering my good right hand my heart my head for the opportunity to go to mars it's impossible what do i have to do what do i have to sign what do i have to know together now listen you don't want to go to mars don't you know that the first and second expeditions have failed and vanished men are probably dead you can't prove that you don't know that for sure maybe maybe it's a land of milk and honey up there maybe captain york and captain williams just never bothered to come back now are you gonna open the gate and let me on that rock i don't want to kick it down continue to yell and we'll call the police guard no no no wait for me take me with you don't leave me here on this terrible world i've got to get away there's gonna be an atomic war don't leave me on earth i've got a right to go to mars all right listen to me t-minus 15 seconds and counting i've got to get away don't leave me on earth don't leave me on earth 10 9 8 7 6 5 two three two one no don't go i'm a taxpayer how many times do i tell you i'm a taxpayer don't leave me here i'm a taxpayer i'm a taxpayer april 2031 the third expedition [Music] april 15 2031 ship's journal entry captain john black commanding we're making our final descent the ship has served us well since we left ohio field on this third voyage to mars now we are decelerating in the upper martian atmospheres the ship is moving on the midnight waters of space like a pale sea leviathan our crew of 17 have performed well despite being battered thrown about and sickened each within his turn one has died the remaining 16 have clear eyes in their heads and are now looking through the ports as mars swings up under them good old mars prepare for landing [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so i'll be damned captain do you see this yes april 15 2031 ship's journal entry continued we have landed on mars it's it's i'll be damned we have landed on a lawn of green grass outside there is an iron deer and further up is a tall brown victorian house houses just like it all along the street white houses brick houses tall elm trees maples horse chestnuts and a church steeple on the other end of the street i captain out i'll be damned it just can't be lord oxygen report sir the atmosphere is thin for breathing but there's enough oxygen it's safe then we'll go out hold on how do we know what this is it's a small town with thin but breathable air in it sir and it's a small town the like of earth towns incredible it can't be but but it is you're the archaeologist hangston do you think that the civilizations of two planets can progress at the same rate and evolve in the same way i wouldn't have thought so sir look out there the geranium's a specialized plant that specific variety has only been known to earth for 50 years think of the thousands of years it takes to evolve plants then tell me if it's logical that the martian should have one leaded glass windows two cupolas three porch swings four an instrument that sounds like a piano and probably is a piano and five if you look closely through this telescope lens here is it logical that a martian composer would have published a piece of music titled beautiful ohio all of which means that we have an ohio river on mars captain williams of course what captain williams and his crew of three men or nathaniel york and his partner that would explain it that would explain absolutely nothing as far as we've been able to figure the york expedition exploded the day it reached mars killing york and his partner as for williams and his three men their ship exploded the second day after their arrival at least the pulsations from their ship ceased at that time if the men were alive after that they would have contacted us and anyway the york expedition was only a year ago while captain williams and his men landed here sometime during last august theorizing that they are still alive could they even with the help of a brilliant martian race have built this and aged it in so short of time look at that town out there it's been standing here for the last 70 years look at the wood on the porch look at the trees a century old all of them no this isn't york or williams it's something else i don't like it i i'm not leaving the ship until i know what it is for that matter williams and his men as well as york landed on the opposite side of mars we were very careful to land on this side an excellent point just in case a hostile local tribe of martians killed off york and williams we have instructions to land in a further region to forestall a recurrence of such a disaster so here we are as far as we know and a land that williams in new york never saw damn it i want to get out into this town sir with your permission it may be there are similar thought patterns civilization graphs on every planet in our sun system we may be on the threshold of the greatest psychological and metaphysical discovery of our age i'm willing to wait a moment it may be sir that we're looking on a phenomenon that for the first time would absolutely prove the existence of god sir there are many people who are of good faith without such proof mr hingston i'm one myself sir but certainly a town like this could not occur without divine intervention the detail it fills me with such feelings that i don't know whether to laugh or cry do neither then until we know what we're up against up against against nothing captain it's a good quiet green town a lot like the old-fashioned one i was born in i like the looks of it when were you born lustig 1980 sir and you hingston 1985 sir grinnell iowa and this looks like home to me hangston lustig i could be either of your fathers i'm just 80 years old born in 1950 in illinois and through the grace of god and science that in the last 50 years know how to make some old men young again here i am on mars not any more tired than the rest of you but infinitely more suspicious this town out here looks very peaceful and cool so much like green bluff illinois that it frightens me it's too much like green bluff mr jackson sir radio earth tell them we've landed that's all tell them we'll radio a full report tomorrow yes sir tell you what we'll do lustig sir you and i and hingston will look the town over the other men will stay aboard if anything happens they can get the hell out a loss of three men is better than a whole ship if something bad happens our crew can warn the next ship that's captain wilder's ship i think due to be ready to take off next christmas if there's something hostile about mars we certainly want the next ship to be well armed so are we we've got a regular arsenal with us jennings captain tell the men to stand by their guns lustig kingston let's go the air is indeed thin we'll move slow so we don't tire out sir it must be it has to be that rocket travel started to mars in the years before the first world war no how else can you explain these houses the pianos the music say that there were people in the year 1905 who hated war and got together with some scientists in secret and built a rocket and came here to mars and no no why not the world was a different world in 1905. they could have kept it a secret much more easily a complex thing like a rocket no you couldn't keep it secret and then they came up here to live and naturally the houses they built were similar to earth houses because they brought culture with them and they've lived here all these years in peace and quiet yes maybe they made a few trips enough to bring enough people here for one small town and then stop for fear of being discovered that's why the town seemed so old-fashioned i don't see a thing myself older than the year 1972 do you or maybe sir rocket travel is older than we think perhaps it started in some part of the world centuries ago and was kept secret by the small number of men who came to mars with only occasional visits to earth over the centuries you make it sound almost reasonable it has to be we've the proof here before us all we have to do is find some people and verify it all right here this house here well there's someone inside can i help you beg your pardon but we're looking for that is could you help us if you're selling something no wait what town is this what do you mean what town is it how could you be in a town and not know the name we're strangers here we want to know how this town got here and how you got it are you census takers no everyone knows this town was built in 1868 is this a game no not a game we're from earth out of the ground you mean no we came from the third planet earth in a ship and we've landed here on the fourth planet mars this is green bluff illinois on the continent of america surrounded by the atlantic and pacific oceans on a place called the world war sometimes the earth go away now goodbye let's knock the screen door in we can't do that this is private property good god did it ever strike you hingston that perhaps we got ourselves somehow in some way off track and by accident came back to earth and landed on earth how could we have done that i don't know i don't know oh god let me think we checked every mile of the way our chronometers said so many miles we went past the moon and out into space and here we are i'm positive we're on mars but suppose by accident in space and time we got lost in dimensions and landed on earth that is 60 or 70 years ago oh go away lustig wait excuse me ma'am can you tell us what year this is 1956 of course you hear that 1956 we have gone back in time this is earth i didn't ask for a thing like this scares the hell out of me how could a thing like this happen will anyone in this town believe us are we playing with something dangerous time i mean shouldn't we just take off and go home no not until we try another house i'd like to be as logical as i can be and i don't believe we put our finger on it yet suppose hingston as you originally suggested that rocket travel occurred years ago and when the earth people lived here a number of years they began to get home sick for earth first a mild neurosis about it then a full-fledged psychosis then threatened insanity what would you do as a psychiatrist if faced with such a problem well i i think i'd rearrange the civilization on mars so it resembled earth more and more each day if there was any way of reproducing every plant every road and every lake and even an ocean i'd do so then by some vast crowd hypnosis i convinced everyone in a town this size that this was really earth not mars at all good enough kingston i think we're on the right track now that woman in that house back there just thinks she's living on earth it protects her sanity she and all the others in this town are the patients of the greatest experiment in migration and hypnosis you will ever lay eyes on in your life that's it sir right well now we've got somewhere i feel better it's all a bit more logical without talk about time and going back and forth and traveling through time turns my stomach upside down but this way well it looks as if we'll be fairly popular here or will we after all like the pilgrims these people came here to escape earth maybe they won't be too happy to see us maybe they'll try to drive us out or kill us we have superior weapons this next house here let's go sir what is it lustig oh sir what i see look look don't let him get away lustig where are you going stop grandma grandpa it's me open the door open the door please rustig what are you doing grandma it's me open the door rustic grandma grandpa david david it's you it's been so many years how big you are david how are you grandpa you look fine fine boy come in oh there's there's iced tea for you fresh lots of it i've got friends here captain come in howdy come in any friends of davids are our friends too well don't just stand there here's to our health how long have you been here grandma ever since we died ever since you what oh yes they've been dead 30 years and you sit there calmly who are you to question what happens here we are what's life anyway who does what for why and where all we know is here we are alive again and no questions asked a second chance here take my wrist captain feel solid ain't it yes well then why go around questioning well it's simply that we never thought we'd find a thing like this on mars and now you found it i dare say there's lots on every planet that'll show you god's infinite ways is this heaven nonsense no it's a world and we get a second chance nobody told us why but then nobody told us why we were on earth either uh that other earth that uh the one you came from how do we know there wasn't another before that one a good question boy it's good to see you it's good well we've got to be going thank you for the drinks you'll come back of course for supper tonight we'll try and make it thanks there's so much to be done my men are waiting for me back at the ship and what's that we'll soon find out [Music] look at that a crowd at the ship and the crew they're all outside mingling with everyone laughing shaking hands like family come on bye grandma grandpa see you tonight looks like they're all marching away down that other street come back abandoned they abandoned the ship i'll have their skins by god they had orders sir don't be too hard on them those were all old relatives and friends that's no excuse think how they felt captain seeing familiar faces outside the ship they had their orders damn it how would you have felt captain i would have obeyed orders john john what john john you old son of a it's you of course who'd you think it was edward this this is my brother edward ed meet my men lustig hingston my brother ed oh john you're looking fine ed but ed what is this you haven't changed over the years you died i remember when you were 26 and i was 19. so many years ago and here you are and lord what goes on mom's waiting mom and dad too dad mom and dad alive where at the old house on oakdale avenue the old house did you hear that lustig kingston kingston he's gone towards that house over there must be his you see captain what happened to everyone on the ship they couldn't help themselves yes yes when i open my eyes you'll be gone you're still there god ed but you look fine come on lunch is waiting i told mom sir i'll be with my grandfolks if you need me what oh fine lustig later then let's go this way [Music] oh there's the house you remember it hell bet i can beat you to the front porch [Music] i beat you i'm an old man and you're still young [Music] but then you always beat me i remember john john mom [Music] and uh it's a spaceship yes it's how we got here a 17-man crew but we lost one during the journey look at that turkey will you dad why the drumsticks are picked clean you boys always love the drumsticks about as much as i loved my cigar can still blow a perfect ring yeah look at that beautiful night all you can hear are pianos playing people talking doors closing speaking of music what are you going to put on the phonograph my favorite [Music] john come dance with me okay mom [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh this is so nice you're wearing the same perfume i remember from that summer which summer dear the summer when when you and dad were killed in the train accident it's not every day you get a second chance to live i'll i'll wake up in the morning and i'll be in my ship in space and all this will be gone no don't think that don't question god's good to us let's be happy sorry mom you're tired son your old bedroom's waiting for you brass bed and all but i should report my men in why well i don't know no reason i guess no not at all they're all eating or in bed a good night's sleep won't hurt them [Applause] good night son it's good to have you home it's good to be home [Applause] [Music] [Applause] i it's my brass bed and my football pen it's from college and my leather coat it's too much what do you mean i'm numb and i'm tired too much has happened today i feel as if i'd been out in a pounding rain for 48 hours without an umbrella or a coat i'm soaked to the skin with emotion the whole town covered in moonlight so this is mars now this set just how it was decades ago is marilyn here yes she's out of town but she'll be here in the morning i want to see marilyn very much good night ed good night john how how is this all made and why for what purpose out of the goodness of some divine intervention is god then really that thoughtful of his children how and why and what for maybe hingston was right maybe people did invent a rocket in 1905 and came here and mom dad edward mars earth mars martians who lived here a thousand years ago on mars martians or has this always been the way it is today martians i wonder if no no john that's silly but just suppose now that there were martians living on mars and they saw our ship coming and saw us inside our ship and hated us suppose now just for the hell of it they wanted to destroy us as invaders as unwanted ones and they wanted to do it in a very clever way so that we would be taken off guard what would the best weapon be that a martian could use against earth men with atomic weapons telepathy hypnosis memory and imagination suppose all the houses aren't real at all this bed not real but only figments of my own imagination given substance by telepathy and hypnosis through the martians suppose these houses are really some other shape a martian shape by playing on my desires and wants these martians have made this seem like my old hometown my house to lull me out of my suspicions what better way to fool a man than to use his own father as bait in this town so old long before any of my men were born what if the martians took the memories of a town exclusively from my mind they say childhood memories are the clearest and after they built the town from my mind they populated with the most loved people from all the minds of the people on the ship and suppose those two people in the next room asleep are not my mother and father at all but two martians incredibly brilliant with the ability to keep me under the dreaming hypnosis all the time first fool lustig then hingston then gather a crowd and all the men in the ship seeing mothers aunts uncles sweethearts dead 10 20 years ago naturally disregarding orders rush out an abandoned ship what more natural what more unsuspecting what more simple a man doesn't ask too many questions when his mother is suddenly brought back to life he's much too happy and here we all are tonight in various houses in various beds with no weapons to protect us and the ship lies in the moonlight empty and wouldn't it be horrible and terrifying to discover that all of this was part of some great clever plan by the martians to divide and conquer us and kill us sometime during the night perhaps my brother here on this bed will change form melt shift and become another thing a a terrible thing a martian it would be very simple for him to turn over in bed and put a knife into my heart and all those other houses down the street a dozen other brothers or fathers suddenly melting away and taking knives and doing things to the unsuspecting sleeping men of earth where are you going what i said where do you think you're going for a drink of water you're not thirsty yes yes i am no you're not ah june 2032 and the moon be still as bright [Applause] black space of stars and under it a dead dreaming world we're the first men to land on mars we assume biggs captain we never heard from any other expeditions they failed the fourth expedition us is the successful one we landed and we're safe you get the fire going yes sir what an easy to find why don't we use the ship's chemical fire instead never mind what's that splendor wouldn't be right first night on mars to make a loud noise to introduce a strange silly bright thing like a stove well this isn't my idea of a celebration that city down there why don't we go check it out we're all tired tomorrow night perhaps tonight we should be glad we got across all that space without getting a meteor in our bulkhead or having one man of us die look the pod is returning at the way captain wilder well that city there captain is dead and has been dead for a good many thousand years that applies to those three cities in the hills also but the fifth city sir 200 miles over sir what about it people were living in it last week sir martians where are they now dead i went into a house on one street i thought that it like the other towns and houses had been dead for centuries but there were bodies there it was like walking in a pile of autumn leaves like sticks and pieces of burnt newspaper that's all and fresh they've been dead 10 days at the outside did you check the other towns did you see anything alive nothing whatsoever so i went out to check the other towns four out of five had been empty for thousands of years what happened to the original inhabitants having the faintest idea but that this city always contained the same thing bodies thousands of bodies what did they die of you won't believe it what killed them chickenpox my god no i made tests chickenpox it did things of the martians it never did to earth men their metabolism reacted differently i suppose brought them black and dried them out to brittle flakes but it's chickenpox nonetheless so york captain williams and captain black must have got through to mars all three expeditions god knows what happened to them but we at least know what they unintentionally did to the martians you saw no other sign of life chances are a few of the martians if they were smart escape to the mountains but there aren't enough i'd lay your money to be a native problem this planet is through chickenpox chickenpox think of it a race builds itself for a million years refines itself erect cities like those out there does everything it can to give itself respect and beauty and then it dies part of it dies slowly in its own time before our age with dignity but the rest does the rest of mars die of a disease with a fine name or a terrifying name or a majestic name no chickenpox a child's disease a disease that doesn't even kill children on earth it's like saying the greeks died of mumps or the proud romans died of athlete's foot if only we'd given the martians time to arrange their death robes lie down look fit and think of some other excuse for dying can't be a dirty silly thing like chicken pox it doesn't fit the architecture it doesn't fit this entire world all right hathaway get yourself some food why wine splendor no pigs all them for me they don't know what they're doing captain they should have had an orientation program before they came to mars to tell them how to walk around and be good for a few days just one night look at this over this rise it's a canal a martian canal give me those empty bottles what's he doing i christen thee biggs biggs biggs canal hey well all right that's enough all right bigs get some dry clothes and you men carry on with your party spender come with me i suppose you explain what just happened i don't know i i was ashamed that biggs and us and the noise christ what a spectacle it's been a long trip they've got to have their fling where's their respect sir where's their sense of the right thing you're tired and you have a different way of seeing things bender that's a fifty dollar fine for you yes sir it was just the idea of them watching us make fools of ourselves them the martians whether they're dead or not most certainly dead do you think they're nowhere here doesn't an old thing always know when a new thing comes i suppose so you sound as if you believe in spirits i believe in the things that were done and there are evidences of many things done on mars there are streets and houses and there are books i imagine and canals and clocks and places for stabling if not horses well then some domestic animal perhaps with 12 legs who knows everywhere i look i see things that were used they were touched and handled for centuries ask me then if i believe in the spirits of the things as they were used and i'll say yes they're all here all the things which had uses all the mountains which had names we'll never be able to use them without feeling uncomfortable the mountains will never sound bright to us we'll give them new names but the old names are there somewhere in time and the mountains were shaped and seen under those names the names we'll give to the canals and mountains and cities will fall like so much water on the back of a mallard see captain no matter how we touch mars we'll never touch it and then we'll get mad at it and you know what we'll do we'll rip it rip the skin off and change it to fit ourselves we won't ruin mars it's too big and too good you think not we earth men have a talent for ruining big beautiful things we'll call the canal the rockefeller canal and the mountain will be king george mountain and the sea the dupont sea and they'll be the roosevelt and lincoln and coolidge cities and it won't ever be right when there are proper names for these places that'll be our job as archaeologists to find out the old names and we'll use them a few men like us against all the commercial interests look at those mountains over there they know we're here tonight to spit in their wine and i imagine they hate us there's no hatred here from the look of their cities they were a graceful beautiful and philosophical people they accepted what came to them they ceded to racial death that much we know and without a last moment war of frustration to tumble down their cities every town we've seen so far has been flawlessly intact they probably don't mind us being here any more than they'd mind children playing on the lawn knowing and understanding children for what they are and anyway perhaps all this will change us for the better perhaps did you notice a peculiar quiet of the men's spender until biggs forced him to get happy they looked pretty humble and frightened looking at all this we know we're not so hot we're kids and rompers shouting with our play rockets and atoms loud and alive but one day earth will be as mars is today this will sober us it's an object lesson in civilizations we'll learn from mars now suck in your chin let's go back to the crew and that fifty dollar fine still goes come on gents come on whitey your harmonica what kind of party is this [Music] okay me and my bottle will go have our own party all those who want can come into the city with me we'll post a guard here at the ship and go armed just in case i'll go all right figs and leave the bottle yes sir [Music] we moved out into the outer rim of the dreaming dead city in the light of the racing twin moons our shadows under us were double channels we did not breathe or seemed not to for several minutes we were waiting for something to stir in the dead city some gray form to rise some ancient ancestral shape to come galloping across the vacant sea bottom on an ancient armored steed of impossible lineage of unbelievable derivation people i see people moving like blue vapor lights on the cobbled streets and there are faint murmurs of sound and odd animals scurrying across the great red sands each window has a person leaning from it and waving slowly as if under timeless water at some moving form in the fathoms of space below the moon silver towers music is playing in my inner ear the land is haunted hey hi you people in the city they're you thanks just wanted to see if it's like entering a mausoleum where have the people gone what had they been who were their kings how did they die how did they build this city to last the ages through did they ever come to earth were they ancestors of earth men ten thousand years removed lord byron lord who lord byron the 19th century poet he wrote a poem a long time ago that fits this city and how the martians must feel if there's anything left of them to feel it might have been written by the last martian poet how's the poem go spender so we'll go no more eroving so late into the night though the heart be still as loving and the moon be still as bright for the sword out wears the sheath and the soul wears out the breast and the heart must pause to breathe and love itself must rest though the night was made for loving and the day returns too soon yet will go no more eroving by the light of the moon captain it's four in the morning aren't you sleeping sir i'm waiting for spender you know sir i don't think he'll ever come back i don't know how i know but that's the way i feel about him sir he'll never come back ships log june 20th 2032. it's been a week no sign of spender i've sent out search parties but all returned saying they didn't know where he could have gone they say you will be back when he is good and ready that he's a sore head into the devil with him cookie yes captain where's biggs i'm not sure sir i think he said he was going down to the canal well i want to see him when he returns he has the next search party i'm taking the morning patrol out now yes sir breakfast is just about ready sir after the patrol we'll be scouting on the east ridge we'll be back in an hour or so yes sir let's go man what time is it getting to be who's well i'll be damned i'm the last martian what did you say i'm going to kill you get it what kind of jokes that splendor stand up and take it in the stomach like christ's sakes put that gun away cookie i'll never get tired of the way you make these eggs how specialty look here comes the lonely one hello spender long time no see you and them damn runes you're like a god in a boneyard maybe i've been finding out things like what what would you say if i'd said i'd found a martian prowling around did you where never mind let me ask you a question how would you feel if you were a martian and people came to your land and started tearing it up i know exactly how i'd feel you do chirok i've got some cherokee blood in me my grandfather told me lots of things about oklahoma territory there's a martian around i'm all for him what about you other men well i found a martian what where up in a dead town i didn't think i'd find him i didn't intend looking him up i didn't know what he was doing there i've been living in a little valley town for about a week learning how to read the ancient books and looking at their old art forms and one day i saw this martian he stood there for a moment and then he was gone he didn't come back for another day i sat around learning how to read the old writing and the martian came back each time a little nearer until on the day i learned how to decipher the martian language it's amazingly simple and there are picture graphs to help you the martian appeared before me and said give me your boots and i gave him my boots and he said give me your uniform and all the rest of your apparel and i gave him all of that and then he said give me your gun and i gave him my gun then he said now come along with me and watch what happens and the martian walked here to the camp and is here now i don't see any martian i'm sorry you killed them you can come with me you can be with me on this you killed them they deserved it you're crazy maybe i am but you can come with me come with you for what go on get out of all of them i thought you would understand get out [Music] no stop stop it no stop it stop no no [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] park hill on the next patrol we'll check that small town down on the other side of those small hills yes sir we'll leave an hour after breakfast first we need to captain what happened dead they're all dead that's mcclure cookie jackson lynch shot they've all been shot captain it's davis clara collins kneel they were with him davis what what happened here report captain we found bix floating face down in the canal collins and neil are carrying him back i ran ahead how do you think he died did he drown fall hit his head what no sir he was shot at a close range collins and neil are on their way back here so who's missing spender sir i just went through the entire ship empty spender damn him why didn't he come and talk to me he should have talked to me i'd have shot his bloody brains out all right everyone inside we'll get our guns and grenade packets and go find spender this book at least 10 000 years old to just leave it in a villa like they did the pages so thin so old [Music] and down below the dust rising from the valley they're coming for me what's the use i'll sit here reading until they come along and shoot me i was stunned when i killed those men a blankness then sickness but now strange peace that the peace will not last i know it the dust they follow they want to die too it's so peaceful here and in the valley i could live here without a sound without a worry i'll i'll go further up into the hills but i'll walk slow so they can catch up to me these bluffs perfect a nice spot ah there they are you standing off by yourself deadness tracks now what captain oh i know form a circle a net all you have to do is close in and get me why aren't they using grenades better they don't i'm much too nice to be blown to bits it's what the captain thinks he wants me with only one hole in me isn't that odd he wants my death to be clean nothing messy why because he understands me he's willing to risk good men to give me a clean shot in the head isn't that spender white flag that's far enough can i sit down on this boulder right next to me no tricks no tricks cigarette thanks light got my own warm it is you comfortable up here quite how long you think you can hold out about 12 men's worth why didn't you kill all of us this morning when he had the chance he could have you know i know i got sick when you want to do something badly enough you lie to yourself you say the other people are all wrong well soon after i started killing people i realized they're fools and i shouldn't be killing them but it was too late i couldn't go on with it then so i came up here where i can lie to myself some more and get angry to build it all up again is it built up not very high enough why'd you do it because i've seen what these martians had was just as good as anything we'll ever hope to have they stopped a hundred years ago i've walked in their cities and i know these people and i'd be glad to call them my ancestors their cities are beautiful it's not that alone yes their cities are good they knew how to blend art into their living it's always been a thing apart for americans art was something you kept in the crazy sun's room upstairs art was something you took in sunday doses mixed with religion perhaps well these martians have art and religion and everything you think they knew what it was all about to you for my money and for that reason you started shooting people when i was a kid my folks took me to visit mexico city i'll always remember the way my father acted loud and big and my mother didn't like the people because they were dark and didn't wash enough and my sister wouldn't talk to most of them i was the only one who really liked it and i can see my mother and father coming to mars and acting the same way here perhaps anything that's strange is no good to the average american if it doesn't have chicago plumbing it's nonsense the thought of that oh god the thought of that and then the war you heard the congressional speeches before we left if things work out they hope to establish three atomic research and atom bomb depots on mars that means mars is finished all this wonderful stuff gone how would you feel if a martian vomited stale liquor on the white house floor and the other power interests coming up the mineral men and the travel men do you remember what happened to mexico city when cortes and his very fine good friends arrived from spain a whole civilization destroyed by greedy righteous bigots history will never forgive cortes you haven't acted ethically yourself today what could i do argue with you it's simply me against the whole crooked grinding greedy set up on earth they'll be flopping their filthy atom bombs up here fighting for bases to have wars isn't it enough they've ruined one planet without ruining another do they have to foul someone else's manger the simple-minded wind bags when i got up here i felt i was not only free of their so-called culture i felt i was free of their ethics and their customs i'm out of their frame of reference i thought all i have to do is kill you all off and live my own life but it didn't work out no after the fifth killing at breakfast i discovered i wasn't all new all martian after all i couldn't throw away everything i had learned on earth so easily but now i'm feeling steady again i'll kill you all off that'll delay the next trip in a rocket for a good five years there's no other rocking in existence today save this one the people on earth will wait a year two years and then when they hear nothing from us they'll be very afraid to build a new rocket they'll take twice as long and make a hundred extra experimental models to insure themselves against another failure you're correct a good report from you on the other hand if you returned would hasten the whole invasion of mars if i'm lucky i will live to be 60 years old every expedition that lands on mars will be met by me there won't be more than one ship at a time coming up one every year or so and never more than 20 men in the crew after i've made friends with them and explained that our rocket exploded one day i intend to blow it up after i finish my job this week i'll kill them off every one of them mars will be untouched for the next half century after a while perhaps the earth people will give up trying remember how they grew leery of the idea of building zeppelins that were always going down in flames yet you're outnumbered in an hour we'll have you surrounded in an hour you'll be dead i've found some underground passages and a place to live you'll never find i'll withdraw to live there for a few weeks until you're off guard i'll come out then to pick you off one by one tell me about your civilization here they knew how to live with nature and get along with nature they didn't try too hard to be all men and no animal that's the mistake we made that darwin and our religious leaders didn't mix or at least we didn't think they did we were fools we tried to budge darwin and huxley and freud they wouldn't move very well so like idiots we tried knocking down religion and we succeeded pretty well we lost our faith and we went around wondering what life was for if art was no more than a frustrated outflinging of desire if religion was no more than self-delusion what good was life faith had always given us answers to all things but it all went down the drain with freud and darwin we were and still are of lost people and yet these martians are a found people yes they knew how to combine science and religion so the two worked side by side neither denying the other each enriching the other it sounds ideal it was i'd like to show you how the martians did it my men are waiting we'll be gone a half hour tell them that sir all right i will [Music] a martian village cool perfect marble great freezes of beautiful animals white limped cat things yellow limb sun symbols statues of bull like creatures and statues of men and women there's your answer captain i don't see the martians discovered the secret of life among animals the animal does not question life it lives its very reason for living is life it enjoys and relishes life you see that statuary the animal symbols again again it looks pagan on the contrary those are god symbols symbols of life man had become too much man and not enough animal on mars too and the men of mars realized that in order to survive they would have to forego asking that one question any longer why live life was its own answer life was the propagation of more life and living of as good a life as possible the martians realized that they asked the questions why live it all at the height of some period of war and despair when there was no answer but once the civilization calmed quieted and war ceased the question became senseless in a new way life was now good and needed no arguments sounds as though the martians were quite naive only when it paid to be naive they quit trying too hard to destroy everything to humble everything they blended religion and art and science because at base science is no more than an investigation of a miracle they never let science crush the aesthetic and the beautiful it's all simply a matter of degree and earth man thinks in that picture color does not exist really a scientist can prove that color is only the way the cells are placed in a certain material to reflect light therefore color is not really an actual part of things i happen to see a martian far cleverer would say this is a fine picture it came from the hand and the mind of a man inspired its idea and its color are from life this thing is good i'd like to live here you may if you want you ask me that will any of those men under you ever really understand all this they're professional cynics and it's too late for them why do you want to go back with them so you can keep up with the joneses to buy a gyro just like smith has to listen to music with your pocketbook instead of your glands there's a little patio down here with a reel of martian music in it at least fifty thousand years old it still plays music you'll never hear in your life you could hear it there are books i've gotten unwell in reading them already you could sit and read it all sounds quite wonderful spender but you won't stay no thanks anyway and you certainly won't let me stay without trouble i'll have to kill you all you're optimistic i have something to fight for and live for that makes me a better killer i've got what amounts to a religion now it's learning how to breathe all over again and how to lie in the sun getting a tan letting the sun work into you and how to hear music and how to read a book what does your civilization offer i'm sorry this is happening i'm sorry about it all i am too i guess i'd better take you back now so you can start the attack i guess so captain i won't kill you when it's all over you'll still be alive what i decided when i started that you'd be untouched well i'll save you from the rest when they're dead perhaps you'll change your mind no there's too much earth blood in me i'll have to keep after you even when you have a chance to stay here it's funny but yes even with that i don't know why i've never asked myself well here we are will you come quietly spender this is my last offer thanks no one last thing yes if you win do me a favor see what can be done to restrict tearing this planet apart at least for 50 years until the archaeologists have a decent chance will you right and last if it helps in just think of me as a very crazy fellow who went berserk one summer day and never was right again it'll be a little easier on you that way i'll think it over so long spender good luck is there a drink here sir thanks all right be careful we have all the time we want i don't want any more lost you'll have to kill him because he won't come down make it a clean shot if you can don't miss him get it over with blow his damn brains out you heard what i said through the chest now let's go [Music] pan out i hate me clever when you don't really feel clever and you don't want to be clever sneak around and make plans and feel big about making them see anything no i'm heading over here i hate this feeling of thinking i'm doing right when i'm not really certain i am who are we anyway the majority is that the answer the majority is always holy is it not always always just never wrong for just one tiny insignificant tiny moment is it never ever wrong 10 million years what is this majority and who are we in it and what do they think and how did they get that way will they ever change and how the devil did i get caught up in this rotten majority i don't feel comfortable it's a claustrophobia fear of crowds or common sense can one man be right when all the world thinks they are right let's not think about it let's crawl around and act exciting and pull the trigger there and there the captain sees him yes he's got him nailed down damn brains all over i see him i'll shoot his damn brains all over parkel get back here hey you here's a slug for your head cargill come on spend it get out like you said you would you've only got a few minutes to escape come on now get out and come back later go on i got a clear shot no parkour what captain it's a clear shot from here he's looking to the others coming up the right he doesn't see me i can't let you do it nor the others none of you only me go on spender i'll give you 30 seconds to get away 30 seconds go down into the tunnels you said you found and lie there and live there for months and years reading those fine books go on before it's too late spender ugh he's dead in the chest in the chest i wonder why he waited i wonder why he didn't escape as he planned wonder why he stayed on and got himself killed who knows if only he had come to me and talked it over before he shot anybody we could have worked it out somehow worked what out what could we have worked out with his likes i guess you're right i could have never got together spender myself perhaps but spender and you and the others no never he's better off now well we should bury him not here the village we passed through on that patrol a few days ago that empty sarcophagus we found in the burial vault we'll put him in there i think it'd be a good idea for you to think of spender from time to time yeah and after we leave him in the vault we can do some target practice in the town shoot out some windows blow the tops off with some of them towers park hill august 2032 the settlers [Music] [Applause] ten nine eight seven six five four three two one the men of earth came to mars they came because they were afraid or unafraid because they were happy or unhappy because they felt like pilgrims or did not feel like pilgrims there was a reason for each man leaving bad wives bad jobs bad towns coming to find something or leave something or get something to dig up something or bury something or leave something alone they were coming in small dreams or large dreams or none at all and the men shuffled forward only a few at first a double score for most men felt the great illness in them before the rocket fired into space and this disease was called the loneliness because when you see your hometown dwindle the size of your fist and then lemon size and then pin size and then vanish in the firewake you felt you had never been born there was no town you were nowhere with space all around nothing familiar and when the state of illinois iowa missouri and montana vanished into cloud seas and when the united states shrank to a misted island the entire planet earth became a muddy baseball tossed away then you were alone wandering in the meadows of space on your way to a place you couldn't imagine 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. so it was unusual that the first men were few the number grew steadily in proportion to the census of earth men already on mars there was comfort in numbers but the lonely ones had to stand by themselves [Music] december 2032 the green morning benjamin driscoll i remember my arrival on mars like a thousand others i thought how do i fit here what will i do is there a job for me then i fainted oh you'll be all right what is that stuff you'll be all right what happened fainted the air is pretty thin some can't take it i think you'll have to go back to earth no i'll be all right i've got to stay here that's when i noticed that there were no trees no trees at all as far as you could look in any direction the land was down upon itself a land of black loam but nothing on it not even grass of course in school they told the story about johnny appleseed walking across america planting apple trees well i'm doing more i'm planting oaks elms and maples every kind of tree aspens and deodars and chestnuts instead of making just fruit for the stomach i'm making air for the lungs when those trees grow up some year think of the oxygen they'll make let me up i've got to see the coordinator it'll be months if not years before organized planting can begin all our food is frosted brought from earth true some communities have hydroponic plants yes sir but meanwhile i will get what seed we can for you a little equipment the space on the rockets is mighty precious now i'm afraid since these first towns are mining communities there won't be much sympathy for your tree planting but you'll let me do it they let me do it provided with a single motorcycle it's been full of seeds and sprouts i parked in the valley wilderness and struck out on foot over land that was 33 days ago and i never glanced back i couldn't look back for it would sicken my heart the weather was excessively dry i doubted any seeds and sprouted my entire campaign my four weeks of bending and scooping could be lost so i looked only ahead going down this wide shallow valley under the sun away first town waiting for the rains to come clouds were gathering over the dry mountains mars is a place of unpredictable time the baked hills simmered down into a frosty night the fire fluttered into sleepy ash tonight tonight we should have rain rain rain the great black lid of sky had cracked and rushed down 10 billion rain crystals it rained for two hours and then stopped it was one o'clock in the morning i changed into dry clothes and went happily to sleep the sun broke upon the land and i woke but i waited before horizon i had worked and waited a long hot month always moving forward and never looking back and now i decided to turn and face the direction from which i came it was a green morning as far as i could see the trees were standing up against the sky not one tree not two not a dozen but the thousands i had planted in seed and sprout and not little trees no not saplings not little tender shoots but great trees huge trees as tall as ten men green and green and huge and round and full trees shimmering their metallic leaves trees whispering trees in a line over the hill lemon trees lime trees redwoods and mimosas and oaks and elms and aspens cherry maple ash apple orange eucalyptus stung by a tumultuous rain nourished by alien and magical soil and even as i watched new branches were growing popping open new buds impossible this is impossible and the air it's like a moving current like a mountain river oxygen oxygen blowing from the green trees you can see its shimmer and high crystal billows oxygen fresh pure green cold oxygen turning the valley into a river delta the town doors will flip wide people will run out through the new miracle of oxygen sniffing gusting in lungfuls of it cheeks pinking with it lungs revivified hearts leaping and worn bodies lifting into a dance i took one long deep drink of green water air and i fainted and when i woke again five thousand new trees had climbed up into the yellow sun february 2033 the locusts [Music] the rockets at the meadows of fire turned rock to lava turned wood to charcoal transmuted water to steam made sand and silica into green glass which lay like shattered mirrors reflecting the invasion all about [Music] the rockets came like drums beating in the night the rockets came like locusts swarming and settling in blooms of rosy smoke and from the rockets ran men with hammers in their hands to beat the strange world into a shape that was familiar to the eye to bludgeon away all the strangeness their mouths fringed with nails so they resembled steel-toothed carnivores spitting them into their swift hands as they hammered up frame cottages and scuttled over roofs with shingles to blot out the stars in six months a dozen small towns had been laid down upon the naked planet in all some ninety thousand people came to mars and more on earth were packing their grips 2033 night meeting [Music] kind of alone out here aren't you pop not bad clean the windshield yeah thank you how do you like mars pop fine always something new i made up my mind when i came here last year i wouldn't expect nothing we've got to forget earth and how things were we've got to look at what we're in here and how different it is through yeah i get a hell of a lot of fun out of just the weather here martian weather hot as hell day times cold as hell nights i came to mars to retire in a place where everything is different an old man needs to have things different young people don't want to talk to him other people bore the hell out so i thought the best place for me is a place so different that all you got to do is open your eyes and you're entertained got this gas station business picks up too much i'll move back to some other old highway that's not so busy where i can earn just enough to live on and still have time to feel the different things around here you got the right idea pop yeah i'm not surprised at anything anymore i'm just looking just experiencing if you can't take mars for what she is you might as well go back to earth everything's crazy up here the soil the air the canals the natives i never saw any but i hear they're around even my clock acts funny even time is crazy up here you know sometimes i feel i'm here all by myself no one else on the whole damn planet i'd take bets on it sometimes i i feel about eight years old my body squeezed up and everything else jesus it's just a place for an old man keeps me alert keeps me happy you know what mars is what it's like the thing i got for christmas 70 years ago i don't know if you ever had one they they called them kaleidoscopes little bits of crystal and cloth and beads pretty junk he held it up to the sunlight and looked in at it and it took your breath away all the patterns well that's mars enjoy it don't ask it to be nothing else but what it is jesus you know the highway right here yes was built by martians it's over 16 centuries old and it's still in good condition that's a dollar fifty cents oh yes here you are thank you and you have a good night thanks pop yes 16 centuries old there is a smell of time in the earth tonight here's a thought what does time smell like like dust and clocks and people and if you wondered what time sounded like it sounded like water running in a dark cave and voices crying dirt dropping down upon hollow box lids and rain what does time look like like snow dropping silently into a black room where it looks like a silent movie an ancient theater one hundred billion faces falling like those new year balloons down and down into nothing that's how time smells it looks and sounds tonight you could almost touch time [Music] two hours on the road in time for a break there's that thermos of coffee nice promontory good view of that deserted town down there yep nice place for the break what what's that what is that six legs huge looks like a praying mantis by the car can't make a run for it covered with green diamonds it's a machine and a martian a martian [Music] hello i can't understand the language did you say hello what did you say yes who are you where are you going i'm thomas gomez wait ah hey my head was just touched my head was just touched but no hand touched me that's better you learned my language so quick nothing at all may i offer you a drink please here you go jesus christ the cup went right through your hand like your hand was missed or something name of the gods did you see what happened jesus indeed let me try and pick up the cup your hand passes right through it my knife catch it no it fell right through your flesh no impossible let me get it i you i kneeling down here and looking up at you you're transparent i can see the stars in the sky they look like they're inside you flickering like jewelry i can see through you and i throw you what oh no i'm here i'm alive i have flesh i am alive if i'm real then you must be dead no you a ghost a phantom you mean you can see through me starlight is in your limbs like icicle daggers fireflies i i feel warm again yes so do i i'm drunk i won't tell anyone about this tomorrow where are you from earth what is that there up there when we landed a year ago remember no and all of you were dead all but a few you're rare don't you know that that's not true yes dead i saw the bodies black in the rooms in the houses dead thousands of them that's ridiculous we're alive mister you're invaded only you don't know it you must have escaped i haven't escaped there was nothing to escape what do you mean i'm on my way to a festival now at the canal nearly in the mountains i was there last night don't you see the city there down there yes i am pointing wait that city has been dead thousands of years dead i slept there yesterday and i just drove through it now and it's a heap see the broken pillars broken pillars why i see them perfectly the moonlight helps and the pillars are upright there's dust in the streets the streets are clean the canals are empty right there the canals are full of lavender wine it's dead it's alive oh you're quite wrong see the carnival lights there are beautiful boats as slim as women beautiful women with fire flowers in their hands i can see them small running in the streets down there that's where i'm going now to the festival we'll float on the waters all night long we'll sing we'll drink we'll make love can't you see it mister that city is as dead as a dried lizard ask any of our party me i'm on my way to green city tonight that's the new colony we just raised over near illinois highway no you're mixed up we brought in a million board feet of oregon lumber and a couple of dozen tons of good steel nails and hammered together two of the nicest little villages you ever saw tonight we're warming one of them a couple of rockets are coming in from earth bringing our wives and girlfriends there'll be bomb dances and whiskey you say it's over that way here look over the ledge be careful look there are the rockets see now damn it there they are those long silver things no you're blind i see very well you are the one who does not see but that way you see the new town don't you i see nothing but an ocean and water at low tide mister that water's been evaporated for 40 centuries ah now now that is enough it's true i tell you tell me again you do not see the city the way that i describe it the pill is very white the boat's very slender the festival lights oh i see them clearly and listen i can hear them singing it's no space away at all no and i on the other hand cannot see what you describe well i feel ice in my flesh could it be what you say from the sky earth earth the name nothing but as i came up the pass an hour ago i felt the strangeness the road the light and for a moment i felt as if i were the last man alive on this world so did i ah this can only mean one thing it has to do with time yes you are a figment of the past no you are from the past you are so certain how can you prove who is from the past and who is from the future what years 2033 what does that mean to me nothing it is as if i told you that it was the year 4462853 sec it is nothing and more than nothing where is the clock to show us how the stars stand but the ruins prove it they prove that i am the future i am alive you are dead everything in me denies this my heart beats my stomach hungers my mouth thirsts no no not dead not alive either of us more alive than anything else caught tween is more like it two strangers passing in the night that is it two strangers passing ruins you say yes you're afraid who wants to see the future whoever does a man can face the past but to think the pillars crumbled you say and the sea empty and the canals dry and the maidens dead and the flowers withered but there they are i see them isn't that enough for me they wait for me now no matter what you say the rockets waiting for me in the town and the women from earth we can never agree let us agree to disagree what doesn't matter who is past or future if we are both alive for what follows will follow tomorrow or in ten thousand years how do you know that those temples are not the temples of your own civilization 100 centuries from now tumbled and broken you do not know then don't ask but the night is very short there go the festival fires in the sky and the birds will we meet again who knows perhaps some other night i'd like to go with you to that festival and i wish i might come to your new town to see the ship you speak of to see these men to hear all that has happened goodbye good night [Music] october 2033 the shore mars was a different shore and the men spread upon it in waves each wave different and each wave stronger the first wave carried with it men accustomed to spaces and coldness and being alone the coyote and the cattlemen with no fat on them with faces the years had worn the flesh off with eyes like nail heads and hands like the material of old gloves ready to tough anything mars could do nothing for them they were the first men everyone knew who the first women would be the second men should have traveled from other countries with other accents and other ideas but the rockets were american and the men were american and it stayed that way while europe and asia and south america and australia and the islands watched the roman candles leave them behind the rest of the world was buried in war or the thoughts of war [Music] so the second men were americans also and they came from the cabbage tenements and subways and they found much rest and vacation in the company of the silent men from the tumbleweed states who knew how to use silences so they filled you up with peace after long years crushed in tubes tins and boxes in new york and among the second men were men who looked by their eyes as if they were on their way to god november 2033 the fire balloons mars yes father peregrine mars but what would i you will captain the missionaries with father stone at your side mars you hesitate no no bishop warren but but why me i find my reasons deplorably obscure father but your pamphlet on planetary sin did not go on red oh you are a flexible man and mars is like that unclean closet we have neglected for millenniums sin has collected there like bric-a-brac mars is twice earth's age and has had double the number of saturday nights liquor baths and eye-poppings at women as naked as white seals when we open that closet's door things will fall on us we need a quick flexible man whose mind can dodge anyone a little dogmatic might break in too i feel your resilience father the job is yours yes um thank you bishop warren i know you will go with god to prepare the martians for the reception of his truth i wish you all a thoughtful journey mars yes father stone father peregrine you're very quiet for someone who pinwheels to mars at dawn what are you thinking i'm thinking should we go at all shouldn't we solve our own sins on earth are we running from our lives here running or is it sloth you dread the journey i shall go leaving old sins here and on mars to find new sins since no one's ever thought of on mars sin might appear as a virtue you must guard against virtuous acts there that later might be found to be sins dread the journey no it is exciting it's it's been centuries since so much adventure has accompanied the prospect of being a missionary i will recognize sin even on mars oh we priests pride ourselves on being litmus paper changing color at sins presence but what if martian chemistry is such that we do not color at all if there are new senses on mars you must admit the possibility of unrecognizable sin if there is no malice of forethought there is no sin or punishment for same the lord assures us that on earth yes but perhaps martian sin might inform the subconscious of its evil telepathically leaving the conscious mind of man free to act seemingly without malice what then what could there be in the way of new sins adam alone did not sin add eve and you add temptation add a second man and you make adultery possible with the addition of sex or people you add sin if men were harmless they could not strangle with their hands you would not have that particular sin of new violence amoebas cannot sin because they reproduced by fission they do not covet wives or or murder each other add sex to amoebas add arms legs and you would add or subtract possible evil on mars what if there were five new senses organs invisible limbs we can't conceive of then might there be five new sins i think you enjoy this thing keep my mind alive father just alive that's all your mind is always juggling isn't it mirrors torches plates yes because sometimes the church seems like those pose circus tableaus where the curtain lifts and men white zinc oxide talcum-powered statues freeze to represent abstract beauty very wonderful but i hope there will always be room for me to dart about among the statues don't you father stone we'll see in a few hours we'll be jumping up to see your new sins father peregrine i wonder what father if mars is hell only waiting for our arrival before it bursts into brimstone and fire lord be with us you are a flexible man and mars is like that unclean closet we have neglected for millenniums sin has collected there like bric-a-brac coming out of space was like coming out of the most beautiful cathedral we had ever seen touching mars was like touching the ordinary pavement outside the church five minutes after having really known your love for god lord we thank thee for the journey through thy rooms and lord we have reached a new land so we must have new eyes we shall hear new sounds and must needs have new ears and there will be new sins for which we ask the gift of better and firmer and purer hearts amen father peregrine yes captain whitney the crew will have your cargo unloaded shortly thank you captain now just over there it's first town you can just about see the roofs over the top of the hill follow the path it'll take you right to it thank you captain now if you'll excuse me yes of course shall we hello hello there it looks like someone has come to meet us oh hello hello hello you must be father peregrine yes i am i am the mayor of first town oh mr mayor it's very nice to meet you we saw your landing now what can i do for you father well we'd like to know about the martians for only if we know about them can we plan our church intelligently are they 10 feet tall we will build large doors are their skins blue red or green we must know when we put human figures in the stained glass so we may use the right skin color are they heavy we will build sturdy seats for them father i don't think you should worry about the martians there are two races one of them is pretty well dead a few are in hiding and the second race well they're not quite human oh they're round luminous globes of light father living in those hills man or beast who can say but they act intelligently i hear of course they're not men so i don't think you'll care on the contrary intelligent you say there's a story a prospector broke his leg in those hills and would have died there the blue spheres of light came at him when he awoke he was down on the highway and didn't know how he got there drunk that's the story father peregrine with most of the martians dead and only those blue spheres i frankly think you'd be better off in first city oh mars is opening up it's a frontier now like in the old days on earth out western in alaska men are pouring in up there there are a couple of thousand black irish mechanics and miners and day laborers in first town who need saving because there are too many wicked women came with them and too much 10 century old martian wine well father spheres of blue fire yes father blue balloons a circus mayor could your black irish laborers cook one more day in hellfire i'd turn them and base them for you father then that's where we'll go where the hills the hills it would be so simple to go into town i prefer to think that if the lord walked here and people said here is a beaten path he would reply show me the weeds and i will make a path but father stone think of how it would weigh upon us if we pass sinners by and did not extend our hands but globes of fire i imagine man looked funny to other animals when we first appeared yet he has a soul for all his holiness until we prove otherwise let us assume that these fiery spheres have souls all right but you'll be back to town we'll see first some breakfast then you and i father stone will walk alone in the hills i don't want to frighten those fiery martians with machines or crowds shall we have breakfast would you join us mayor yes yes thank you don't mind if i do the night is upon us i must sit for a moment i never thought a rock would be so comfortable why haven't they appeared we've been looking for hours it's a disappointment i wonder what do you think if we called out uh hello they might answer father peregrine won't you ever be serious not until the good lord is father oh don't look so terribly shocked the lord is not serious in fact is a little hard to know just what else he is except loving and love has to do with humor doesn't it but you cannot love someone constantly unless you can laugh at him isn't that true well and you cannot put up with someone constantly unless you can laugh at him isn't that true i never thought of god as humorous the creator of the platypus the camel the ostrich and man oh come now look monsters wait we should have gone to town no listen look i'm afraid don't be this is god's work the devils no now quiet not one but a thousand a thousand whispering fire balloons let's go please father i must speak to them hello we come with god silly silly silly in the name of god father peregrine stop no don't go come back look what you've done oh lord an avalanche we have to run there's no toy run [Music] now [Music] what happened we we should have been crushed look the boulders from the avalanche that right where we were standing what happened the blue fires lifted us we ran that was it no the globe saved us they couldn't they did let's get away from here you'll have us killed i haven't feared death for a good many years father stone we've proved nothing those blue lights ran off at the first cry it's useless no somehow they saved us that proves they have souls it proves only that they might have saved us everything was very confused we might have escaped ourselves it's getting cold i'll get a fire started they are not animals father stone animals do not save lives especially of strangers there's a mercy and a compassion here perhaps tomorrow we may prove more prove what how follow them in helicopters reading chapter and verse they're not human they have an eyes or ears or bodies like ours but i feel something about them i know a great revelation is at hand they saved us they think they had a choice let us live or die that proves free will i myself will open a convent for nurseling geese a monastery for sainted swine and i shall build a miniature apps in a microscope so that paramecium can attend services and tell their beads with the flagella oh father stone i'm sorry but this is like blessing a crocodile before he chews you up you're risking the entire missionary expedition what do you mean we belong in first town washing liquor from men's throats and perfume off their hands can't you recognize the human in the inhuman i'd much rather recognize the inhuman in the human if i prove these things sin no sin no immoral life have free will and intellect father stone that will take much convincing not adam and eve on mars no original sin maybe the martians live in a state of god's grace then can we go back down to town and start work on the earth men yes father stone but the martians killed some of our settlers now that's sinful there must have been original sin and in martian adam and eve we'll find them men are men unfortunately no matter what their shape and inclined to sin you're back now the stone look you're floating there watching me you are human i know it i need to prove it or the bishop telling me to step aside how to prove humanity if you live in the high vaults of the sky how to bring you near and provide answers to the many questions you saved us from the avalanche yes [Music] this cliff it drops off to a floor nearly 200 feet below if i fell from here it would surely kill me the lord would never forgive me she wouldn't be suicide would it if i did it out of love hello [Music] hello i must prove everything i'm an old man i'm not afraid surely the lord would understand and i'm doing this for him in a moment shall i die i'm afraid that i love living too much but i love things more one two oh you saved me you wouldn't let me die you knew it was wrong who saved you i told you they saved me i jumped from the cliff they flew after me they got hold of me slowed my speed and i landed gently on the ground a 200-foot fall a dream a nightmare here the coffee is ready but i was awake now now father calm yourself there now you don't believe me have you a gun you know i do for a protection let me have it what are you going to do i'll prove it i wait why are you pointing it at your hand no i it it the bullet stopped it's it's just hanging there in the air one inch from your hand surrounded by a phosphorescent blue light the light moves away the bullet drops and look the fire balloons they're here they know they understand they are not animals they they think and judge and live in a moral climate what animal would save me from myself like this there is no animal would do that only another man father now do you believe the bullet it's still warm i think we could better go down to the other than tell them of this and bring them back up here [Music] this circle signifies christ the son of the father this is christ in all his glory it looks like a geometry problem a fortunate comparison for we deal with symbols here christ is no less christ you must admit in being represented by a circle or a square for centuries the cross has symbolized his love and agony so this circle will be the martian christ this is how we shall bring him to mars you brother matthias will create in-glass a replica of this circle a globe filled with bright fire it will stand upon the altar a cheap magic trick on the contrary we're giving them god in an understandable image if christ had come to us on earth as an octopus would we have accepted him readily was it then a cheap magic trick of the lords to bring us christ through jesus in man's shape after we bless the church we build here and sanctify its altar and this symbol do you think christ would refuse to inhabit the shape before us you know in your hearts he would not refuse but the body of a soulless animal we've gone over that many times since we've returned this morning brother matthias these creatures saved us from the avalanche they realized that self-destruction was sinful and prevented it time after time therefore we must build a church in the hills live with them to find their own special ways of sinning the alien ways and help them to discover god is it because they are so odd to the eye but what is a shape only a cup for the blazing soul that god provides us all if tomorrow i found that sea lion suddenly possessed free will intellect knew when and when not to sin knew what life was and tempered justice with mercy and life with love then i would build a undersea cathedral and if the sparrows should miraculously with god's will gain everlasting souls tomorrow i would freight a church with helium and take after them for all souls in any shape if they have free will and are aware of their sins will burn in hell unless given their rightful communions i would not let a martian sphere burn in hell either for it is a sphere only in mine eyes when i close my eyes it stands before me an intelligence a love a soul and i must not deny it but that glass globe you wish placed on the altar consider the chinese what sort of christ to christian chinese worship an asian christ naturally you've all seen asian nativity scenes how is christ dressed in eastern robes where does he walk in chinese settings of bamboo and misty mountains and crooked trees his eyelids taper his cheekbones rise each country each race adds something to our lord i am reminded of the virgin of guadalupe to whom all mexico pays its love her skin have you noticed the paintings of her a dark skin like that of her worshippers is that blasphemy not at all it is not logical that men should accept a god no matter how real of another color i often wondered why our missionaries do well in africa with a snow white christ perhaps because white is a sacred color in albino or in any other form to the african tribes given time might and christ darken there too the form does not matter the content is everything we cannot expect these martians to accept an alien form we shall give them christ in their own image there's a flaw in your reasoning father yes father stone won't the martians suspect us of hypocrisy how do you mean they will realize that we don't worship a round globular christ but a man with limbs and a head how do we explain the difference by showing there is none christ will fill any vessel that is offered bodies or globes he is there and each will worship the same thing in a different guise we must believe in this globe we give to the martians we must believe in a shape which is meaningless to us as to form the spheroid will be christ and we must remember that we ourselves and the shape of our earth christ would be meaningless ridiculous a squander of material to these martians now let us go into the hills and build our church [Music] the church was not a church but an area cleared of rocks a plateau on one of the low mountains its soil smoothed and brushed an altar established where on brother matthias placed the fiery globe he had constructed [Music] what shall we do with this what does a bell mean to them i imagine i brought it for our own comfort we need a few familiarities this church seems so little like a church and we feel somewhat absurd here even i for it is something new this business of converting creatures of another world i feel like a ridiculous play actor at times and then i pray to god to lend me strength many of the fathers are unhappy some of them joke about all this father peregrine i know we'll put this bill in a small tower for their comfort anyway what about the organ we'll play it now at the first service but the martians i know but again i suppose for our own comfort our own music later we may discover theirs i wonder if it is sunday here on mars hmm it might be tuesday or thursday who knows but no matter my idol fancy it is sunday to us come it's cold almost freezing well father peregrine the sun is rising i don't see our friends they'll come let us pray let us ask them to come they read minds they know look there the fiery globes thank you oh thank you lord we have come for a little while you may stay for a little while we have come to tell you certain things you should have spoken sooner but we had hoped that you might go on your way if left alone but i are the old ones we are the old martians who left our marble cities and went into the hills forsaking the material life we had lived so very long ago we became these things that we now are once we were men with bodies and legs and arms such as yours the legend has it that one of us a good man discovered a way to free man's soul and intellect to free him of bodily yells and melancholies of deaths and transfigurations of ill humors and senilities so we took on the look of lightning and blue fire and have lived in the winds and skies and hills forever after that neither prideful nor arrogant neither rich nor poor passionate nor cold we have lived apart from those we left behind those other men of this world and how we came to be has been forgotten the process lost but we shall never die nor do harm we have put away the sins of the body and live in god's grace we covet no other property we have no property we do not steal nor kill nor lust nor hate we live in happiness we cannot reproduce we do not eat or drink or make war all the sensualities and childishness and sins of the body were stripped away when our bodies were put aside we have left sin behind father paragraph and it has burned like the leaves of autumn wicker and it is gone like the soiled snow of an evil winter and it is gone like the sensual flowers of a red and yellow spring and it is gone like the panting nights of hottest summer and our season is temperate and our climb is rich in thought we wish to tell you that we appreciate your building this place for us but we have no need of it for each of us is a temple unto himself and we need no place wherein to cleanse ourselves forgive us for not coming to you sooner but we are separate and apart and have talked to no one for 10 000 years nor have we interfered in any way with the life on this planet it has come into this mind now that we are the lilies of the fields why yes yes we toil not neither do we spin you are right and so we suggest that you take the parts of this temple into your own new cities and there cleanse them for rest assured we are happy and at peace may i may i come again someday that i might learn from you yes someday come back come back no we couldn't build a church for the likes of you your beauty itself what church could compete with the fireworks of the pure soul the way i see it there's a truth on every planet all parts of the big truth on a certain day they'll all fit together like the pieces of a jigsaw this has been a shaking experience i'll never doubt again father peregrine for this truth here is as true his earth's truth and and they lie side by side and will go on to the other worlds adding the sum of the parts of the truth until one day the whole total will stand before us like the light of a new day that's a lot coming from you father stone i'm sorry now in a way we're going down to the town to handle our own kind those blue lights now when they settled about us and that voice the glass sphere on the altar you know father peregrine yes it's him it is him after all february 2034 interim and john hancock right there mr silvestri he signed for fifteen thousand feet of oregon pine and seventy nine thousand feet of california redwood good good ninth city ninth oh no nice is done well i'm finished we're on tenth city now yes i will take this pine and redwood and hammer together a clean neat little town by the edge of the stone canal on sunday nights you will see red blue and green stained glass light in the churches and hear the voices singing the numbered hymns [Music] and in certain houses you'll hear the hard clatter of a typewriter the novelist at work or the scratch of a pen the poet at work or no sound at all the former beachcomber at work it is as if in many ways a great earthquake had shaken loose the roots and cellars of an iowa town and then in an instant a whirlwind twister of oz-like proportions had carried the entire town off to mars and set it down without a bump april 2034 the musicians we've hiked in the summer autumn and winter i like the autumn best it's like walking on earth through the autumn leaves what you got for lunch liverwurst and ketchup you ham and pickles and orange soda how far are we going today far out into martian country my mom said we can't go beyond the limits of tent city yeah i'll catch heck if we go too far with the dead martian town just calling our names you want to stay here well come on first one there gets to kick last one there's a girl first one gets to play martian [Music] there it is dead town the forbidden town the dead town's doors lay wide open and listen you can hear the faintest crackle from inside what's making the crackle sound maybe the autumn leaves maybe something else you know my mom said i couldn't go into any of the old towns she said i'd get the beating of my life when i get home she said she would check my shoes mine said the same thing they can tell afraid go on the house right there no i'm not afraid just don't want to get into trouble that's all [Music] here goes nothing living room a bedroom and these black leaves everywhere just like all the other dead houses i'm the musician oh i am i was here first now where are the bones there they are yeah here goes look at me playing the xylophone ball once i'm a martian musician a martian come on we'll kick some more of these black plates it will sound good with the xylophone wait stop look what just rolled out from the flakes looks like a snowball look that isn't a snowball it's a skull look on the side facing me his mouth eyes he lived here he was the martian who lived here maybe he was but he's dead now more ribs like a spider's leg a big spider we should see what's in some of the other houses this one is still fun but the fireman he's right the firemen are coming they're burning clean all these old dead towns pretty soon they'll shuffle away these peppermint stick bones and then burn the houses to the ground [Applause] after a while we went home my mom examined my shoes for black flakelets she found them i got a scalding bath for playing there in a beating from dad by the end of the year the firemen had riked the autumn leaves and white xylophones away and it was no more fun 2034 the wilderness 60 million miles i can't believe that men on mars tonight are building towns waiting for us the only thing to believe is catching our rocket tomorrow my wedding dress strange to marry on another world let's go to bed no the call comes at midnight i couldn't sleep thinking how to tell will i've decided to take the mars rocket oh lenora think of it my voice traveling 60 million miles on the light phone to him i changed my mind so quick i'm scared our last night on earth our children they won't be americans or earth people at all we'll all be martians the rest of our lives i don't want to go what i'm afraid the space the darkness the rocket the meteors everything gone why should i go out there it's a new world it's like the old days the men first and the women following why why should i go tell me because will is up there these men make it so hard used to be if a woman ran 200 miles after a man it was something then they made it a thousand miles and now they put a whole universe between us but that can't stop us can it i'm afraid i'll be a fool on the rocket i'll be a fool with you now let's walk around town let's see everything one last time tomorrow night this will all be here but we won't people wake up eat work sleep wake again but we won't know it and they'll never miss us come on we'll go get some chocolate malts so [Music] uh good evening hello uh you ladies look pretty but uh sure looks sad two chocolate malteds yes indeed look this is from will to me it came in the rocket mail two days ago it was this that made my mind up for me made me decide to go i didn't tell you i want you to see it now go ahead read the note all right dear janice this is our house if you decide to come to mars will look at the picture he enclosed oh my the house is beautiful red flowers in the front burns a porch but janice what this is a picture of your house here on earth here on elm street no look close see on both sides of the house the land it's not land here on earth the soil is violet the grass is a faint red that's the house will built for me on mars it helps to look at it helps all yesterday when i had the chance alone and was most afraid and panicky i took out this picture and looked at it that man will knows just what he's doing two chocolate bolts thank you can i get you anything else no thank you [Music] what's the matter you don't look happy i am but yes i feel like i'm dead dead like i'm in a graveyard on a spring night and everything alive but me and everyone moving and ready to go on with life without me i see the faces of hundreds of friends i'm leaving behind in this town it's the first time i knew it was beautiful the lonely night and the ancient bricks beautiful it's like i felt each spring when i was very young passing the graveyard and weeping for them because they were dead and it didn't seem fair on nights as soft as that that i was alive i was guilty of living and now here tonight i feel they have taken me from the graveyard and let me go above the town just once more to see what it is like to be living to be a town and a people before they slam back the door on me again is this us here janice smith and lenora holmes in the year 2034 yes i wish it was some other year 1492 1622 it's always columbus day or plymouth rock day and i'll be darned if i know what we women can do about it be old maids or just do what we're doing the call hello hello light phone operator with a call for janice smith yes yes i'm janice please wait the call should come through at any moment yes i'll wait i placed it this afternoon takes a long time to reach mars yes ma'am once connected you will only have one minute please leave your message as quickly as you can falling through millions upon millions of miles meteors and comets from the moons of mars and then to mars itself to a man in a room in another world did you say something ma'am no no i'm waiting you are connected go ahead please hello will this is janice they say i haven't much time a minute i want to talk slow but they say talk fast and get it all in so i want to say i've decided i will come up there i'll go on the rocket tomorrow i will come up there to you after all and i love you i hope you can hear me i love you it's been so long transmission completed please await reply has he replied hello hello janet i hear him what does he say dennis and i love the call has been completed thank you for using my phone but i did you hear him yes what did he say what did he say is this how it was over a century ago when women the night before lay ready for sleep or not ready in the small towns of the east and heard the sounds of the horses in the night and the creek of the conestoga wagons ready to go and the brooding of oxen under the trees and the cry of children already lonely before their time all the sounds of arrivals and departures into the deep forests and fields the blacksmiths working in their own red hells through midnight the smells of bacons and hams ready for the journeying and the heavy feeling of the wagons like ships foundering the goods with water and the wooden kegs to tilt and slop across the prairies and the chickens hysterical and they're slung beneath the wagon crates and the dogs running out to the wilderness ahead fearful running back with the look of empty space in their eyes is this how it was so long ago on the rim of the precipice on the edge of a cliff of stars in their time the smell of buffalo in our time the smell of a rocket is this then how it was yes yes indeed very much so this is how it has always been and will forever continue to be here is hingston creek lustig corners black river frisco forest peregrine mountain [Music] wilder town [Music] here's the place where the martians killed the first earth men it's called red town and has to do with blood [Music] here's where the second expedition was destroyed it's named second try [Music] spender hill nathaniel york town the old martian names were names of water and air and hills they were the names of snows that emptied south in the stone canals to fill the empty seas and the names of sealed and buried sorcerers and towers and obelisks [Music] [Applause] and the rockets struck at the names like hammers breaking away the marble into shale shattering the crockery milestones that named the old towns in the rubble of which great pylons were plunged with new names irontown steel town aluminum city electric village corn town green villa detroit ii all the mechanical names and the metal names from earth but after everything was pinned down and neat and in its place when everything was safe and certain when the towns were well enough fixed and the loneliness was at a minimum then the sophisticates came in from earth they came on parties and vacations on little shopping trips for trinkets and photographs and the atmosphere they came to study and apply sociological laws they came with stars and badges and rules and regulations bringing some of the red tape that have crawled across earth like an alien weed and letting it grow on mars wherever it could take root [Music] they began to plan people's lives and libraries they began to instruct and push about the very people who had come to get away from being instructed and ruled and pushed about and it was inevitable that some of these people pushed back april 2036 usher two during the whole of a dull dark and soundless day in the autumn of the year when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens i had been passing alone on horseback through a singularly dreary tract of country and at length found myself as the shades of everything drew on within the view of the melancholy house of usher and there it stands on a low black hill just as you wanted it with the cornerstone inscription of 2036 a.d long may it stand yes and with that my work is done it's completed and here is the key mr sendal the house of usher plan built bought paid for wouldn't mr poe be delighted is it everything you wanted sir yes is the color right is it desolate and terrible very desolate very terrible the walls are bleak amazingly so the tan is it black inlured enough most incredibly black and lured in the sedge we we've dyed it you know is it the proper gray in ebon hideous i'm very happy we followed your plans to the letter the structure should cause a iciness a sickening of the heart a dreariness of thought and it does mr bigelow it's worth every penny my god it's beautiful thank you i had to work in total ignorance thank the lord you had your own private rocket so we'd never have been allowed to bring most of the equipment through you notice it's always twilight here this land always october baron sterile dead took a bit of doing we killed everything 10 000 tons of ddt not a snake frog or martian fly left twilight always mr sandal and i'm proud of that there are machines hidden which blot out the sun it's always pretty dreary the dreariness the oppression the fetid vapors the whole atmosphere so delicately contrived and fitted and that house that crumbling horror that evil lake the fungi the extensive decay plastic or otherwise who could guess the autumn sky somewhere above beyond far off is the sun somewhere it is the month of april on the planet mars a yellow month with a blue sky somewhere above the rockets are burning down to civilize a beautiful dead planet the sound of their screaming passage is muffled by this dim soundproofed world my ancient autumn world [Music] uh now that my job is done i i feel free to ask you uh what you're going to do with all this with usher haven't you guessed no does the name usher mean anything to you nothing what about edgar allan poe no i i'm afraid not of course how could i expect you to know the blessed mr poe he died a long while ago before lincoln all his books were burned in the great fire thirty years ago ah one of those yes one of those mr bigelow he and lovecraft and hawthorne and ambrose beerus and all the tales of terror and fantasy and horror and for that matter tales of the future were burned heartlessly they passed a law ho ho it started very small few years before the fire it was a grain of sand they began by controlling books of cartoons and then detective books and of course films one way or another one group or another political bias religious prejudice union pressures there was always a minority afraid of something and a great majority afraid of the dark afraid of the future afraid of the past afraid of the present afraid of themselves and shadows of themselves i see afraid of the word politics so i heard politics had become a synonym for communism and with a screw they tightened it here and bolted it there a push a pull a yank art and literature were soon like a great twine of taffy strung about being twisted like braids and then tied in knots and thrown in all directions until there was no more resiliency and no more savor to it then the film camera chopped short and the theaters turned dark and the print presses trickled down from a great niagara of reading matter to a mere innocuous stripping of pure material the word escape was radical too i tell you was it it was every man they said must face reality must face the here and now everything that's not so must go like what senator literary lies and flights of fancy they must be shot in mid-air line them up against a wall saint nicholas the headless horseman and snow white and rumpelstiltskin and mother goose shoot them down and burn the paper castles and the fairy frogs and old kings and the people who live happily ever after once upon a time needs to become no more and spread the ashes of the phantom rickshaw with the rubble of the land of ours they fled at the bones of glinder the good and asthma and shattered polychrome in a spectroscope and served jack pumpkinhead with meringue at the biologists ball the beanstalk died and a bramble of red tape sleeping beauty awoke at the kiss of a scientist and expired by the fatal puncture of his syringe and they made alice drink something from a bottle which reduced her to a size where she could no longer cry curiouser and curiouser and they gave the looking glass one hammer blow to smash it and every red king and oyster away how immediate it was sorry i i don't know what you're talking about it's just names to me from what i hear the burning was a good thing get out you've done your job now let me alone you idiot listen here i came to mars to get away from you clean-minded people but you're flocking in thicker every day like flies to awful so i'm going to show you i'm going to teach you a fine lesson for what you did to mr poe on earth as of this day beware the house of usher is open for business [Music] your name's stendahl yes i'm garrett investigator of moral climates my identification so you finally get to mars you moral climate people i wondered when you'd appear we arrived last week we'll soon have things as neat and tidy as earth suppose you tell me about this place stendahl it's a haunted castle if you like i don't like i don't like the sound of that word haunted simple enough in this year of our lord 2036 i've built a mechanical sanctuary in it copper bats fly on electronic beams brass rats scuttle in plastic cellars robot skeletons dance robot vampires harlequins wolves and white phantoms compounded of chemical and ingenuity live here that's what i was afraid of i'm afraid we're going to have to tear your place down i knew you would come out as soon as you discovered what went on i'd have come sooner but we your moral climates wanted to be sure of your intentions before we moved in we can have the dismantlers and burning crew hereby supper by midnight your place will be raised to the cellar mr stendall yes i consider you somewhat of a fool sir spending hard-earned money on a folly why it must have cost you three million dollars four million mr garrett i inherited 25 million when very young i can afford to throw it about seems a dreadful shame though to have the house finished only an hour and have you race out with your dismantlers could you possibly let me play with my toy for just well 24 hours you know the law straight to the letter no books no houses nothing to be produced which in any way suggests ghosts vampires fairies or any creatures of the imagination he'll be burning babbitts next you've caused us a lot of trouble mr stendall it's in the record 20 years ago on earth you and your library yes me and my library and a few others like me how poe's been forgotten for many years now and ours and the other creatures but i had my little cash we had our libraries a few private citizens until you sent your men around with torches and incinerators and tore my 50 000 books up and burned them just as you put a stake through the heart of halloween and told your film producers that if they would make anything at all they would have to make and remake ernest hemingway my god how many times have i seen for whom the bell tolls done 30 different versions all realistic uh oh realism oh here oh now oh hell it doesn't pay to be bitter mr garrett you must turn in a full report mustn't you yes then for curiosity's sake you better come in and look around it'll only take a minute all right lead the way but no tricks i've got a gun with me ah it's it's it's not real amazing rare in the corner a witch and her tarot cards yes now that's the sort of thing i mean a tarot witch a toothless mouth and hands of wax deplorable i'll let you burn her personally will you really i must say you're taking this all very well it was enough just to be able to create this place to be able to say i did it to say i nurtured a medieval atmosphere in a modern incredulous world i have a somewhat reluctant admiration for your genius shaped like a woman but it's not real it's a mist hold on it ape it's an ape don't be afraid a robot copper skeleton and all like the witch see under the fur metal tubing yes but why mr stendall why all this what obsessed you bureaucracy mr garrett but i haven't time to explain ape kill mr garrett what are we almost ready pikes yes sir you've done a splendid job well i'm paid for it mr stendall now the other one lift the plastic eyelid okay and insert the glass eye yes fascinate to the reboroid muscles and the spitting image of mr garrett what do we do with him sir him on that table the real mr garrett you mean better burn him pikes we wouldn't want two mr garretts now would we wheel him to the incinerator here you go now i will bring our mr garrett back to his spaceship and send him on his way when i return pikes we send the remainder of the invitations for tonight i think we'll have a jolly time don't you considering we've waited 20 years it's quite jolly [Music] [Music] seven o'clock almost time to our success oh how i will savor this in my old age this pain back of the antiseptic government for its literary terrors and conflagrations the anger and the hatred i have for it how the plan has taken shape in my mind slowly at first until three years ago when i met pikes pikes with the bitterness in him as deep as a black charred well of green acid who is banks only the greatest of them all a man of ten thousand faces a fury a smoke a blue fog a white rain a bat a gargoyle a monster that is who i am better than lon chaney better than that ancient mummer what was his name kerlov far better there is only one pikes and he was a man stripped of his fantasies now no place on earth to go no one to show off to forbidden even to perform for himself before a mirror poor impossible pikes how it must have felt the night they seized your films like entrails yanked from the camera out of your guts clutching them in coils and wads to stuff them up a stove to burn away did it feel as bad as having some 50 000 books annihilated with no recompense yes yes so we talked over endless coffee pots into innumerable midnights and out of all the talk and the bitter brewings would come the house of usher seven o'clock pikes our robots are ready and waiting they are tweedledum and tweedledee mock turtle door mouse tick-tock nicholas bluebeard 10 000 eyelets the night is enchanted and they are arriving dressed in their finest evening clothes to be sure eminent people one and all members of the society for the prevention of fantasy advocates of the banishment of halloween and guy fawkes killers of bats burners of books good clean citizens everyone who had waited until the rough men had come up and buried the martians and cleansed the cities and built the towns and repaired the highways and made everything safe and then with everything well on its way to safety the spoil funds the people with a cure chrome for blood and iodine-colored eyes come now to set up their moral climates and allow goodness to everyone and they are my friends yes i met and befriended each one of them on earth how nice to see them again i'll wait for them outside [Music] welcome welcome one and all so this is usher welcome all of you to the vasty halls of death stand up what is all this you'll see everyone off with their clothes totally absurd find booths to one side there change into your costumes you find there men on this side women on that i don't know if we should stay i don't like the look of this it versus on blasphemy nonsense a costume ball seems quite illegal oh come off it enjoy yourselves tomorrow it will be a ruin get in the booths a house blazed with life and color harlequins rang by with build caps and white mice danced miniature quadrilles to the music of dwarves who tickle tiny fiddles with tiny bows and flags ripple from scorched beams while bad splying clouds about gargoyle mouths which spout down wine cool wild and foaming a creek wanders through the seven rooms of the masked ball guests are sipping and it's not water it's sharing the guests poured from the booths transformed from one age into another their face is covered with dominoes the very act of putting on a mask revokes all their licenses to pick a quarrel with fantasy and horror the women sweep about in red gowns laughing the men dance them attendants on the walls are shadows with no people to throw them and here and there are mirrors in which no image shows image there are seven rooms each a different color one blue one purple one green one orange another white the sixth violet and the seven shrouded in black velvet in the black room is an ebony clock which strikes the hour loud [Music] yes into the rooms all of you into the rooms trunk at last drunk among the robot fantasies amid the door mice and the mad hatters the trolls and giants the black cats and white queens and under your dancing feet the floor gives off the massive beat of a hidden and tell tale heart [Music] this is tender it's the standard what is it i must see you though what here what are these half melted shard wheels nuts cogs bolts i was cleaning out the incinerator and i found them garrett garrett he sent a robot in his place this means the police will be here any minute our plan will be ruined i don't know i should have guessed garrett wouldn't be fool enough to come in person ah but wait what's the matter nothing there's nothing the matter garrett sent a robot to us well we sent one back unless he checks closely he won't notice the switch of course next time he'll come himself now that he thinks it's safe why that must be him now i'll bet you go let mr garrett in [Music] mr stendall mr garrett the real mr garrett the same i thought i'd better come see for myself you can't depend on robots other people's robots especially i also took the precaution of summoning the dismantlers they'll be here in one hour to knock the props out from under this horrible place thanks for telling me in the meantime you might enjoy a little wine no thank you what's going on how low can a man sink see for yourself mr garrett murder murder most foul the most hard thing just happened i saw miss blunt strangled by an ape and stuffed up a chimney what yes miss pope miss blunt i i just saw you crammed up the flu no no a robot of myself a clever facsimile but but oh don't cry darling i'm quite all right let me look at myself oh well so there i am oh chimney little strands of yellow hair trailing down from the flue isn't that funny have a drink garrett i believe i will that unnerved me my god what a place this does deserve tearing down for a moment there there goes mr stephens upon the shoulders of four white rabbits down a flight of stairs but the stairs just appeared on the floor no no no what's that what's wrong let's go look mr garrett mr steffens we've got staffords yes you just just what the white rabbits they here we are oh look down there is that me down there bound and gagged under the razor steel of a great pendulum getting closer how strange how odd to see yourself die and dead how realistic how realistic another drink mr garrett yes please it won't be long the dismantlers will be here thank god what was that miss drummond oh it's my turn look why i remember that i'm being nailed into a coffin from the old forbidden books the premature burial they're lowering me into the ground the others the pit and the pendulum and the ape the chimney the murders and the rue morgue in a book i burned yes another drink mr garrett here hold your glass steady and five others die one in the mouth of a dragon the others thrown into the black tarn sinking and vanishing would you like to see what we have planned for you mr garrett certainly what's the difference we'll blow the whole damn thing up anyway you're nasty stendall come along then this way and here another drink [Applause] [Music] what do you want to show me down here yourself killed the duplicates yes and also something else what hey hold that lantern higher will you it's very difficult to see down here certainly what is the something else the amanteada the whites haven't you ever heard of the amontillado no skeletons half out of the coffin lids disgusting what is this place don't you recognize that room i point to should i or this what's that thing looks like a trowel or something does it come inside why you left the lantern out there it's too dark to see anything what's that hey what are you get these off me yes for god's sake what are you doing i'm being ironic don't interrupt a man in the midst of being ironic it's not polite you just blocked his chain on me so i have what are you going to do leave you here you're joking a very good joke where's my duplicate don't we see him killed there's no duplicate but the others the others are dead the ones you saw killed were the real people the duplicates or robots stood by and watched now you're supposed to say for the love of god montresor and i will reply yes for the love of god won't you say it come on say it you're fool must i coax you say it for the love of god montresor i won't you idiot get me out of here here put this arm what is it a cap and bells put it on and i might let you out stand out put it on i said there it's on don't you have a feeling that this has all happened before what are you doing walling you in you're insane i won't argue that point you'll be prosecuted for this [Music] almost done more flashing please let's make it a good show let me out let me out [Applause] and here is the last brick there's one brick left garrett garrett do you know why i've done this to you because you burned mr poe's books without really reading them you took other people's advice that they needed burning otherwise you'd have realized what i was going to do to you when we came down here ignorance is fatal mr garrett i want this to be perfect jingle your bells softly now if you'll please say for the love of god montresor i might set you free for the love of god montresor ah [Applause] dear friend ready pikes ready get in sir and there there it goes thy brain reeled as i saw the mighty walls rushing asunder there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters [Music] and the deep and dark tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the house of usher august 2036 the old ones [Music] and what more natural than that at last the old people come to mars following in the trail left by the loud frontiersmen the aromatic sophisticates and the professional travelers and romantic lecturers in search of new grist and so the dry and crackling people the people who spent their time listening to their hearts and feeling their pulses and spooning syrups into their rye mouth these people who had once taken their cars to california in november and third class steamers to italy in april the dried apricot people the mummy people came at last to mars september 2036 the martian first rain of the season it's good very welcome it's cold come and warm yourself by the fire lathe looking out this window and seeing the rocket out there that brought us from earth what about it yeah there's just one thing well i wish we could have brought tom with us oh now ladies i won't start again i'm sorry we came here to enjoy our old age in peace not to think of tom he's been dead so long now we should try to forget him and everything on earth you're right i won't speak of it anymore it's just that i i miss driving to green lawn park every sunday to put flowers on this marker it used to be our only excursion anna are you awake yes did you hear something nothing someone is whistling no i didn't hear it i'm going to get up and see anyhow who's there do you see it's a small figure who is it what do you want who are you why are you shouting small boy is standing in the yard and he won't answer me he he looks like tom come to bed you're dreaming but he's there see for yourself see he's just standing there staring at us his eyes they look so distant go away doesn't it look like tom it's not moving i'm afraid lock the door and come to bed i won't have anything to do with it tom if that's you if by some chance it's you tom i'll leave the door unlatched and if you're cold and want to come in to warm yourself up just come in later fly by the heart there's some fur rugs there it's a terrible night i feel so old go go to sleep the morning sun is hot already doesn't take long what are you staring at the hearth rugs they're empty i'm getting old i'll take the bucket and get some water from the canal i'll make the bed [Music] good morning father morning time it's a fine day yes yes it is um how did you get here you're alive shouldn't i be tom greenlawn park every sunday the flowers and i have to sit down let me take your hand you're you're really here it's not a dream you do want me to be here don't you yes yes tom then why ask questions except me but but your mother the shark don't worry about her during the night i sang to both of you and you'll accept me more because of it especially her i know what the shock is wait till she comes you'll see good morning leif tom isn't it a fine day see that was a wonderful lunch mother i'm happy you liked it tom how how old are you now son don't you know father 14 of course who are you really you can't be tom but you are someone who don't you you can tell me uh i'll understand you're a martian aren't you i i've heard tales of the martians no nothing definite stories about how rare martians are and when they come among us they come as earth men there's something about you you're tom and yet you're not why can't you accept me and stop talking don't doubt please don't doubt me where's tom going did you say something to bother him anna anna do you remember anything about green lawn park uh a marker and tom having pneumonia what are you talking about never mind [Music] he's been gone for hours i i didn't mean to make him run off hello tom are you gonna ask me anything no questions as well where have you been near the town i almost didn't come back i was almost trapped how do you mean trapped i passed a small tin house by the canal and i was almost made so i couldn't come back here ever and see you i don't know how to explain it to you there's no way i can't tell you even i don't know it's strange i i don't want to talk about it well well we won't then not a better wash up boy it's supper time hello there who's that it sounds like saul yep it's all on his boat he's slowing down in front of the house evening brother lafarge evelyn seoul what's the word all kinds tonight you know that fella named normland who lives down the canal in the tin hut yes you know what sort of a rascal he was rumor has it he left earth because he killed a man remember the name of the man he killed uh gillings wasn't it right killings well about two hours ago mr gnomlin came running down to town crying about how he'd seen gillings alive here on mars today this afternoon he tried to get the jail to lock him up safe and the jail wouldn't so normland went home and and 20 minutes later as i get the story it blew his brains out with a gun i just came from there well well the darndest things happen well good night lafaye good night supper's hot hey tom what'd you do this afternoon nothing why i just wanted to know [Music] i'd like to go into town haven't been there in months but i'm afraid of the town why the people i don't want to go there such talk for a grown boy i won't listen to it you'll come along i say so enough the boy doesn't want to i'll hear no more of it the people changing and changing the trap it will be all right pleasant voyage down the canal and into town and here we are i wish i was home you never talked that way before you always liked saturday nights in town stay close to me i i don't want to get trapped stop talking that way come along i'll stick with your tummy boy we won't stay long nonsense we'll spend all evening there's a lot of people now tom you tom where is he he's always running off alone every chance he gets tom he's gone he'll come back he'll be at the boat when we leave look out get out of the way please look out let me through joe joe joe spalding out of the way please let me get by hurry you didn't even see me i was in such a hurry for no idea and let's get the theater tickets and go see the show eleven o'clock where could he be i don't know he should have been here by now oh mother don't worry i'll find him you just wait here hurry back warm night lights in the houses going out one by one it is getting late where is he why was he always saying something about being trapped his fear of crowds and cities there's no sense in it he might be gone forever or perhaps he never had been hello there lafarge hello mike you and your woman quarrel you're not walking it off no just walking you look like you lost something speaking of lost things somebody got found this evening oh you know joe spalding yes remember his daughter lavinia yes lavinia came home tonight you recall she was lost on the dead sea bottoms about a month ago they found what they thought was her body badly deteriorated remember since the spaulding family's been no good joe went around saying she wasn't dead that wasn't really her body guess he was right tonight lavinia showed up where on main street baldings were buying tickets for a show and there all of a sudden in the groud was lavinia it must have been quite a scene she didn't know them first off they followed her half down a street and spoke to her then she remembered did you see her nah but i heard her singing remember how she used to sing the bonnie banks of loch lomond i heard her trolling out for her father a while ago over there in the house it was good to hear she's such a beautiful girl shame i thought her dead now with her back again it's fine here now you look weak yourself better come in for a spot of whiskey thanks no mike what will happen to anna if i don't bring tom home with me a second shock a second death what will it do to her will she remember the first death too and this dream and the sudden vanishing oh god i've got to find tom oh what will come of anna what's that on the balcony a girl i who's there it's me i know you please go there's nothing you can do it is you now you've got to come back i'm not your son anymore we should have never come to town anna's waiting at the landing i'm sorry but what can i do i'm happy here i'm loved even as you loved me i am what i am and i take what can be taken too late now they've caught me banana the shock to her think of that the thoughts are too strong in this house it's like being imprisoned i can't change myself back you are tom you were tom weren't you you you aren't joking with an old man you you're really not lavinia spalding i'm not anyone i'm just myself wherever i am i am something and now i'm something you can't help but you're not safe in the town it's better out in the canal where where no one can hurt you that's true but i must consider these people now how would they feel if in the morning i was gone again this time for good anyway the mother knows what i am she guessed even as you did i think they all guessed but didn't question you don't question providence if you can't have the reality a dream is just as good perhaps i'm not their dead one back but i'm something almost better to them an ideal shaped by their minds i have a choice of hurting them or your wife they're a family of five they can stain your loss better please i'm tired you've got to come i can't let anna be hurt again you're our son you're my son and you belong to us no please you don't belong to this house or these people no don't do this to me tom tom son listen to me come back slip down the vines boy come along ann is waiting we'll give you a good home everything you want all right father tom who's down there hurry boy they're turning on the house lights jump i'll catch you hurry stop i have a gun vinnie are you all right tom we have to hurry tom you go that way i'll go down here and and lead them off run to the canal i'll meet you there in 10 minutes boy be careful [Applause] [Music] anna and i'm here where's tom you'll be here any minute hold up there anna here he comes but that's not tom it's just a shape with a face like silver look it's shining in the lights from the town look again the shape now it looks more like tom it is tom quick get on board get ready to cast off look at those people behind him they're chasing him spalding is leading them mother get on board hurry don't move lafarge officer are you going to let him point that gun at me yeah and i'll add mine as well now you down there inside the cabin come out and i want your hands in the air what's this all about you're hiding a criminal there's no one below but my wife and my son he's 14. your son i saw him running through the streets i saw his face and i called for him to stop his face was that of a known criminal criminal that's my wife i thought she was dead but she's come back the doctors must have been wrong it's tom my son tom lavinia my daughter quiet quiet there you are you're coming home with me no i can't wait he's my prisoner his name's dexter and he's wanted for murder you haven't got me wishful thinker no it's my husband i guess i know my own husband don't let them take me linda no no get back this is my son you have no right to accuse him of anything we're going home right now don't let them take me father i no no get back oh oh god oh his face it's dissolving like wax he's dead along home anna there's nothing we can do listen did you hear something nothing nothing i'll go look anyway stay in bed it's too cold to go check do you see anything is there anything out there rain from the black sky falling into an empty door yard into the canal and among the blue mountains november 2036 the luggage store and that's all the information unfortunately that we have at this time i wish there was more we could tell you speculation to when would not be accurate but it would be dangerous there are some things that we have no control over and this is one of them please stay with us as we will remain on the air and we'll be bringing you updates as we receive them but for now what we know is this well that's a fine time to turn it off oh sorry father peregrine i i didn't hear you come in your ears were elsewhere it comes from earth and a light sound beam doesn't always come in clear so i tune everything else out sorry father what was he saying as you shut it off there's going to be a war on earth war i don't believe it it's because you're not there what do you mean father it's like when i was a boy we heard about wars in asia but we never believed them it was too far away and there were many people dying it wasn't possible even when we saw the news footage we didn't believe it oh that's how it is now earth is asia it's so far away it's unbelievable it's not here you can't touch it you can't even see it all you can see is a green light two billion people living on that light unbelievable war we won't hear the explosions oh we will i keep thinking about all those people that were going to come to mars this week what was it a hundred thousand or so coming up in the next month or so what about them if the war starts i imagine they'll turn back they'll be needed on earth well i better get my luggage dusted off i have a feeling there'll be a rush sale here at any time do you think everyone now on mars will go back to earth if this thing is the big war we've been expecting for years it's a funny thing father but yes i think we will all go back i know we came up here to get away from things politics the atom bomb war pressure groups prejudice laws but it's still home there you wait and see when the first bomb drops in america the people will start thinking they haven't been here long enough couple of years or so they've been here 40 years it'd be different but they all got relatives down there and their hometowns me i can't believe in earth anymore i just can't imagine it much but i'm old i don't count i might stay on here i doubt it yes i guess you're right look at those stars and that bright one is earth come to think of it you'd better give me a new release my old one is in pretty bad condition november 2036 the off season here we are yes sir look at that look at that sign sam's hot dogs ain't that beautiful elma sure sam boy what a change for me if the boys from the fourth expedition could see me now am i glad to be in business myself while all the rest of the guys are off soldier around still we'll make thousands elmer thousands whatever happened to captain wilder that captain that killed that guy who thought he was going to kill off every other earth man what was his name spender that knit he was too damn particular oh captain wilder he's off on a rocket to jupiter they kicked him upstairs i think he was a little batty about mars too touchy you know he'll be back down from jupiter and pluto in about 20 years if he's lucky that's what he gets for shooting off his mouth and while he's freezing to death look at me look at this place best hot dog on two worlds first man on mars with a hot dog stand the best onions and chili and mustard you can't say i'm not alert here's the main highways over there is the dead city and the mineral deposits those trucks from earth settlement 101 will have to pass here 24 hours a day do i know locations or don't i you think those 10 000 new top work rockets will come through to mars in a month what do you what do you look so funny i don't trust those earth people i'll believe it when i see them 10 000 rockets arrive with the 100 000 mexicans and chinese on them customers 100 000 hungry people if there's no atomic war i don't trust no atomic bombs there's so many of them on earth right now you can never tell sam look coming towards us that that float mask and the yellow robes it's that friend of yours what it's like it is floating so you're back again yes mr parkhill i've come to speak to you again i thought i told you i don't want you near here go on uh i'll give you the disease i've already had the disease i was one of the few survivors i was sick a long time go on and hide in the hills that's where you belong that's where you've been why you come down here and bother me now all of a sudden twice in a day we mean you no harm i mean you harm i don't like strangers i don't like martians never seen one before it ain't natural all these years you guys hide and all of a sudden you pick on me leave me alone we've come for an important reason if it's about this land it's mine i built this hot dog stand with my own hands in a way it is about the land look here i'm from new york city where i come from there's 10 million others just like me you martians are a couple of dozen left got no cities you wander around the hills no leaders no laws and now you come tell me about this land well the old got to give way to the new that's the law of give and take i got a gun here after you left this morning i got out and loaded it we martians are telepathic we are in contact with one of your towns across the dead sea have you listened to your radio the radius busted then you don't know there's big news it concerns earth observe let me show you this too what is that a gun what did you do he just collapsed like he melted look his mask and this tube he was holding don't touch that this is no weapon he was going to show you a message it's all written out and snake script all the blue snakes i can't read it can you no i had martian picture writing it wasn't anything let it go there may be others we've got to get him out of sight get the shovel what you gonna do bury him of course you shouldn't have shot him it was a mistake quick sorry what happened you know it was purely the circumstances of fate yeah i hit it like hell to see him take out that weapon what weapon well i thought it was one i'm sorry i'm sorry how many times do i have to say it shh i don't care i got the whole earth settlements inc back of me these martians won't dead look the dead sea bottom elma elma elma here they come sand ships far off sand ships but there aren't any more elmer no more sand chips that's what they look like but the authorities confiscated all of them they broke them up sold some at auction i'm the only one in this whole damn territory's got one and knows how to run one not anymore look come on let's get out of here why they'll kill me get in the truck quick wait the truck isn't running what i started working on the engine won't start the sand ship get in and let you drive me in a sand ship oh no get in i can do it all right sail up there why won't it start oh the anchor start to pick up speed look they're falling yes i showed them by god i'll report to the rocking corporation they'll give me protection i'm pretty quick they could have stopped you if they wanted to they just didn't bother i'm off it why should they let me get away no they weren't quick enough that's all weren't they ah she's just sitting there at artilla go back no get off of my ship this isn't your ship it's old as our world it sailed the sand seas ten thousand years ago when the seas were whispered away and the docks were empty and you came and took it stole it now turn it around go back to the crossroad place we have need to talk with you something important has happened get off my ship jump off before i count to three i'll shoot don't i won't hurt you neither will the others we came in peace once listen to me sam why did you she's gone she just folded melted like a crystal figurine sam sam stop the ship no you don't not after all this time you're not pulling out on me i believe you would you actually would noma this is crazy we'll be in town a minute we'll be okay yeah listen there's nothing to hear sam elmer sam look we're surrounded by them stop you have to stop one two three they're closing in i can't hold this many off i'm outnumbered you have to stop they'll kill me they're all staring at us all all of them with those hideous masks you have to stop [Music] oh man i didn't do anything it was all a mistake i came to mars like any honest enterprising businessman i took some surplus material from a rocket that crashed and i built me the finest little stand you ever saw right there on that land by the crossroads you know where it is you've got to admit it's a good job of building and then martian came i know he was a friend of yours his death was an accident i i assure you all i wanted to do was to have a hot dog stand the only one on mars the first and most important one you understand how it is i was going to serve the best damn hot dogs there with chili and onions orange juice they are not moving now turn your ship and go back to your stand we will not harm you you ran away before we were able to explain come [Music] here we are now what ready your stand prepare the viens prepare the foods prepare the strange wines for tonight is indeed a great night you mean you let me stay on here yes you you're not mad at me prepare your place of food and take this a scroll little snake figures on it the dancing it is the land grant to all the territory from the silver mountains to the blue hills from the dead salt sea there to the distant valleys of moonstone and emerald mine yours one hundred 000 miles of territory yours why are you giving me all this that is not all here six scrolls more territories what that's half of mars i own half of mars elmer did you hear i heard thank you oh thank you tonight is the night you must be ready i will be what is it a surprise are the rockets coming through earlier than we thought a month earlier from earth all 10 000 rockets bring in the settlers the miners the workers and their wives all hundred thousand of them won't that be swell elma you see i told you i told you that the town there won't always have just 1 000 people in it there'll be 50 000 more coming and the month after that a hundred thousand more and by the end of the year five million earth men and me with the only hot dog stand staked out on the busiest highway to the mines we leave you prepare the land is yours [Music] elmer why did they do it why didn't they kill me don't they know anything what's wrong with them alma do you understand i own half of mars why are you looking up at the sky come on we've got to get the place fixed all the hot dogs boiling the buns warm chili cooking the onions peeled and diced the relish lay down napkins in the clips place spotless hey just think that martian said a surprise that can only mean one thing elma those hundred thousand people coming in ahead of schedule tonight of all nights will be flooded think of the money same there it is look earth rising full and green like a fine cut stone above the hills good old wonderful earth send me you're hungry and you're starved something something how does that poem go again send me your hungry old earth here's sam park hill with his hot dogs all boiled and chilly cooking everything needs a pin come on earth send me a rocket sam look the earth it's on fire it's on fire [Music] it can't be earth that's not earth no that ain't earth it can't be sam sam will switch on more lights turn up the music open the doors there'll be another batch of customers around in a million years gotta be ready yes sir what a swell place for a hot dog stand let you in on a little secret sam this looks like it's gonna be an off season november 2036 the watchers they all came out and looked at the sky at night they left their suppers or they're washing up or they're dressing for the show and they came out upon their now not quite as new porches and watched the green star of earth it was a move without conscious effort they all didn't why why what why is everyone staring so it helps them us understand the news we heard on the radio there's earth and there is the coming of war and there are hundreds of thousands of mothers and grandmothers and fathers and brothers and aunts and uncles and cousins so we stand on our porches and try to believe in the existence of earth what do you mean believe in the existence believe in it the way we once tried to believe in the existence of mars it's a problem reversed i'm not following you well to all intents and purposes earth is now dead we've been away from it for three or four years spaces and anesthetic 70 million miles of space numbs us puts memory to sleep depopulates earth races the past it allows these people here to go on with their work but now tonight the dead have risen earth is re-inhabited memory awakes and a million names are spoken what is harry doing tonight on earth what about joan and the kids what time you got ben 2 am the earth seemed to explode at nine catch fire and burn fire seemed to go out around midnight earth is still there yeah we haven't heard from harry for a long time he's all right we should send a message to that she's all right is she don't you worry there it is the earth is flashing that's the light radio message you read morse code what is it saying right um australian continent atomized in premature explosion of atomic stockpile los angeles london bombed war come home come home come home come home we have to go we can't stay here they need our help come home at three in the chilly morning the luggage store proprietor glanced up a lot of people were coming down the street stayed open late on purpose what'll it be mister by dawn the luggage was gone from the shelves december 2036 the silent towns there was a little white silent town on the edge of the dead martian sea the town was empty no one moved in it lonely lights burned in the stores all day the shop doors were wide as if people had run off without using their keys the town was dead its beds were empty and cold the only sound was the power hum of electric lines and dynamos still alive all by themselves water ran in forgotten bathtubs poured out into living rooms onto porches and down through little garden plots to feed neglected flowers across town was a rocket port you can still smell the hard scorch smell where the last rocket blasted off when it went back to earth hey if i drop a dime in the telescope and point it at earth maybe i'll see the big war happening there maybe i can see new york explode maybe london covered with some new kind of fog how quick was the evacuation from this town that war on earth must be very bad my name is walter grip i have a placer mine and a remote shack far up in the blue martian hills i walk to town every two weeks to see if i can marry a quiet and intelligent woman i always return to the shack alone and disappointed and now no one in the town i'm all alone a phone it's coming from a house someone should answer the phone someone someone should answer the phone me good lord what's wrong with me which house over there hello hello come on ring again come on there isn't anyone left on mars i haven't seen anyone the entire week all towns must be as empty as this one is come on ring who was it interlocking dial systems connect every town on mars which one of the 30 towns made the call there wasn't anyone on the other end of that call maybe a poll blew down somewhere and the phone rang by itself she won't call back she won't ever call a number that didn't answer she's probably dialing other houses in town right now and here i sit wait a minute what do i keep saying she could as easily be a he couldn't it she'll phone more and more numbers it must be a woman why only a woman would call and call a man wouldn't a man's independent did i phone anyone no never thought of it it must be a woman it has to be by god huh that's in another house this house here damn you porch chair where there i picked up the thin directory that listed every phone on mars fifty thousand names i started with number one amelia ames in new chicago 100 miles over the dead sea number two lived in new new york five thousand miles across the blue mountains i called three four five six seven eight hello hello hello i'm not able to take your call at this time please leave a message and i will get back to you hello go to hell [Music] iphone mars junction new boston arcadia wait then i have it i checked the directory and dialed a long distance call to the biggest beauty parlor in new texas city if there was ever a place where a woman would putter around it would be a velvet soft diamond gem beauty parlor hello if this is a recording this isn't a record hello oh hello there is someone alive where are you you good lord what luck what's your name jennifee seltzer oh i'm so glad to hear from you whoever you are walter grip hello walter walter hello genevieve it's such a nice name walter walter thank you walter where are you i'm in marlin village i hello we must have knocked the pole down i know where she is anyway [Music] i took the car from the stranger's garage filled the backseat with food from the house and set out at 80 miles an hour down the highway headed for new texas city a thousand miles away i drove all day at sunset i pulled over to the roadside and pulled my hat down over my eyes the martian mountains lay all around millions of years old genevieve sweet genevieve the years may come the ears may go but genevieve sweet genevieve hello oh hello walter this is no record where are you walter where are you my hand touches you in the moonlight your long dark hair shaking in the wind beautiful it is and your lips like red peppermints and your cheeks like fresh cut wet roses and your body like a clear vaporous mist while your soft cool sweet voice croons to me once more the words to the old sad song oh geneve sweet geneve the years may come the years may go i reached new texas city at midnight i halted in front of the deluxe beauty salon genevieve here i am hello genevieve hey don't hide i know you're here genevieve if this is a practical joke wait a minute we were cut off maybe she drove to marlin village while i was driving here she probably took the old sea road we missed each other during the day how did she know i'd come get her i didn't say i would and she was so afraid when the phone died that she rushed to marlin village to find me and here i am my god what a fool i am i drove all night what if she isn't in marlin village waiting but i won't think of that she must be there and i'll run up and hold her perhaps even kiss her once on the lips genevieve sweet genevieve marlin village was quiet at dawn yellow lights were still burning in several stores genevieve genevieve and there she was standing in the open door of the salon a box of cream chocolates lay open in her arms her fingers cuddling it were plump and pallid her face as she stepped into the light was round and thick and her eyes were like two immense eggs stuck into a white mess of bread dough her legs were as big around as the stumps of trees and she moved with an ungainly shuffle her hair was an indiscriminate shade of brown that had been made and remade it appeared as a nest for birds she had no lips at all and compensated this by stenciling on a large red greasy mouth that now popped open in delight she had plucked her brows to thin antenna lines are you genevive salsa are you what a griff grip grip how do you do how do you do well what i just said well oh before i knew it it was nine o'clock at night we spent the day picnicking and for supper i prepared a filet mignon but i don't like it it's too real so i broiled it some more it's too much broiled or fried or something so i said let's see a movie okay but all she wanted to see was an 80 year old film of clark gable doesn't he just kill you doesn't he kill you the film ended run it again again again [Music] [Applause] doesn't he just how old are you yes oh 30. well i'm only 27 so there oh here's another candy store look at all the nice boxes filled with candy in the window wow one no thanks honest i've lived the life of riley since everything exploded i never liked my folks they were fools they left for earth two months ago i was supposed to fall on the last rocket but i stayed on you know why why because everyone picked on me so i stayed where i could throw perfume on myself all day and drink ten thousand waltz and eat candy without people saying oh that's full of calories so here i am here you are it's getting late yes i'm trying it funny i'm wide awake oh i feel like staying up all night say there's a good record at mike's come on i'll play it for you i'm trying i'm very alert strange coming to the beauty shop i i want to show you something over here this white box when i drove from texas city i brought this with me is it this pink ribbon dreamy well i thought well here i am the only lady on mars and here is the only man and well what is it don't you know silly it's all lace and all white and all fine and everything no i don't know what it is it's a wedding dress silly is it how nice isn't it genevieve yes genevieve i have something to tell you yes goodbye walter griff you come back here grip [Music] i drove all night and all day for three nights and days once i thought i saw a car following and i broke into a shivering sweat and took another highway cutting off across the lonely martian world i drove and drove for a week and a day until i had put 10 000 miles between myself and marlin village pulled into a town named hopeville springs lived here ever since with two deep freezes packed with food to last me 100 years and enough cigars to last 10 000 days and once in a while over the long years the phone rings but i don't answer april 2057 the long years mr hathaway every night you're in the doorway looking at the sky the wind is blowing the canal waters mrs hathaway it may just blow the stars out of the sky i don't think that would be possible the stars are not going anywhere now tell me what you really see every night when you stand here it's been 20 years since the great war 20 years since everyone got in the rockets and left mars is a tomb planet what do they leave for whether or not earth is the same as a matter for debate what's happening on earth now i can't see any visible sign of change on earth through that 30-inch telescope of mine i'm i'm going to take a walk all right i'm good for another 20 years if i'm careful someone might come do you forgive me for what i've done i i didn't think that you were dead up here in a martian graveyard and the wind i'm sorry how it just sweeps up this hill and onto you those crude wooden crosses i couldn't do any better i wish i could have and wish i could cry but i can't my tears dried long ago do you forgive me i was very much alone you do understand don't you there you are did you have a nice walk you're looking at the sky again you keep waiting and looking and one night perhaps what is it what's wrong look where i'm pointing that tiny red flame that tiny red flame is still there what about it it wasn't there last night get the children marguerite susan john what is it father's looking through his telescope again oh i i have good news what i have looked at the sky a rocket is coming to take us home what it will be here in the early morning where are you going i'm going to burn what's left of those buildings over there they should see it from space and land close by i'll help you [Music] see wine i saved just for tonight i knew that someday somebody would find us we'll have a drink to celebrate it's been a long time remember the day the war broke 20 years and seven months ago and all the rockets were called home from mars and you and i and the children were out in the mountains doing archaeological work research on the ancient surgical methods of the martians we ran our horses almost killing them remember but we got here to the city a week late everyone was gone america had been destroyed every rocket had left without waiting for stragglers remember remember and it turned out we're the only ones left lord lord how the years pass i'd have killed myself without you but with you it was worth waiting here's to us then into our long wait together [Applause] captain captain wilder who is it good lord it's hathaway that's right hathaway from my old crew from the fourth expedition it's been a long time captain too long it's good to see you i'm old well i'm not young myself anymore i've been out to jupiter and saturn in neptune for 20 years i heard they kicked you upstairs so you couldn't interfere with colonial policy here on mars you've been gone so long you don't know what happened i can guess we've circled mars twice found only one other man named walter grip about ten thousand miles from here well we offered to take him with us but he said no last i saw him he was sitting in the middle of the highway in a rocking chair smoking a pipe and waving to us and myers is pretty well dead not even a martian alive what about earth you know as much as i do once in a while i get the earth radio very thankfully but it's always in some other language sorry to say i only know latin a few words came through i take it most of earth as shambles but the war goes on are you going back sir yes we're curious of course we had no radio contact so far out in space we'll want to see earth no matter what you'll take us back with you of course your wife i remember her 25 years ago wasn't it when they opened first town and you quit the service and brought her up here and there were three children my son and two daughters i remember are they here up at our hut there's a fine breakfast waiting all of you up the hill will you come we would be honored [Music] do you remember spender captain i've never forgotten him about once a year i walk up past his tomb looks like he got his way at last he didn't want us to come here and i suppose he's happy now that we've all gone away what about oh what was his name parkhill sam parkhill he opened a hot dog stand sounds just like him and he went back to earth the next week for the war well i just sit for a moment here i'm sorry the excitement seeing you again after all these years i have to rest my heart here give me a rest let me count the beats been happening more and not good we've got a doctor will i yeah excuse me hathaway i know you're a doctor as well but we better check you with our own doc i'll be all right the waiting the excitement i'll check with the stethoscope you know it's as if i kept alive all these years just for this day and now you're here to take me back to earth i'm satisfied and i can just lie down and quit here take this little tablet we better let you rest nonsense just let me sit a moment it's good to see all of you good to hear voices again is the pellet working fine here we go alice come see who's here alice you remember captain wilder of course captain wilder i remember we had dinner the night before i took off for jupiter mrs hathaway my daughters marguerite and susan my son john you remember the captain shirley hello is that gingerbread cooking will you have some we need to set up the extra folding tables how old are you john 23. [Applause] john help me with these chairs yes sir how many will we need captain wilder that can't be right what's that williamson i'm 43 myself captain i was in school the same time as young john hathaway there 20 years ago he says he's only 23 now he looks 23 but that's wrong he he should be 42 at least what's it mean sir i don't know you look kind of sick sir i i don't feel well the daughters too i saw them 20 years or so ago they haven't changed not a wrinkle do me a favor i want you to run in aaron williamson i'll tell you where to go and what to check late in the breakfast slip away it should take you only 10 minutes the place isn't too far from here sorry from the rocket as we landed now this is what you're looking for that's right two chairs there five six uh eight here better set this last table up as well susan the two extra folding chairs here what are you talking about so seriously oh nothing serious mrs hathaway smile now we're all together the trip's over and it's like home come sit down all right where did that crewmen of yours go captain uh to the ship why oh we have a test running and it needs to be checked every hour on the hour but as i was saying hathaway there's nothing on jupiter nothing at all for men that includes saturn and pluto oh here's the young man now captain can i see you a moment sir is it about the test results yes captain uh will you excuse me well i found it sir and i i went into the graveyard four crosses were there the four crosses were there sir the names were still on them i wrote them down to be sure alice marguerite susan and john hathaway died of unknown virus 2038. thank you williamson 19 years ago sir yes then who are these i don't know that either will we tell the other men later go inside and finish eating as if nothing happened i'm not really hungry right now sir [Music] and now a toast a toast to all of you it's good to be with friends again and to my wife and children without whom i could not have survived alone it's only through their kindness and caring for me that i've lived on waiting for your arrival pathway give them some room doctor let me see why hathaway i spoiled the breakfast nonsense say goodbye to alice and the children from me they're right over there i'll call them no no don't they wouldn't understand i wouldn't want them to understand don't he's dead alice yes do you uh know what just happened something about my husband he just passed away his heart i'm sorry how do you feel he didn't want us to feel badly he told us it would happen one day and he didn't want us to cry he didn't teach us how you know he didn't want us to know he said it was the worst thing that could happen to a man to know how to be lonely and know how to be sad and then to cry so we're not to know what crying is or being sad mr hathaway did a fine job on you and your children he would have liked to hear you say that he was so proud of us after a while he even forgot that he had made us and then he loved us and took us as his real wife and children and in a way we are you gave him a great deal of comfort yes for years on end we sat and talked he so much loved to talk he liked the stone hut and the open fire we could have lived in a regular house in town but he liked it up here where he could be primitive if he liked or modern if he liked he told me all about his laboratory and the things he did in it he wired the entire dead american town below with sound speakers when he pressed a button the town lit up and made noises and car noises and the sounds of the people talking he would sit and light a cigar and talk to us and the sounds of the town would come up to us and once in a while the phone would ring and a recorded voice would ask mr hathaway scientific and surgical questions and he would answer them with the phone ringing and us here and the sounds of the town and his cigar mr hathaway was quite happy there's only one thing he couldn't make us do and that was to grow old he got older every day but we stayed the same i guess he didn't mind i guess he wanted us this way well we'll bury him down in the yard where the other four crosses are i think you'd like that i'm sure he would [Music] sir we're ready for liftoff very well thank you williamson they've come to see us off i see yes what are we going to do about them i don't know are you going to turn them off off i've never entered my mind you're not taking them back with us no be useless you mean you're going to leave them here like that as they are they'll never be anything as fine as them again they're built to last 10 50 200 years they have as much right to to life as you or i or any of us well get aboard we're taking off the city's done for will not be using it on nights when the wind comes over the dead sea bottoms and through the hexagonal graveyard over four old crosses and one nude there's a light burning in the low stone hut and in that hut as the wind roars by and the dust whirls and the cold stars burned are four figures a woman two daughters a son tending a low fire for no reason and talking and laughing night after night for every year and every year for no reason at all the woman comes out and looks at the sky her hands up for a long moment looking at the green burning of earth not knowing why she looks and she goes back and throws a stick on the fire and the wind comes up and the dead sea goes on being dead and that's all the information unfortunately that we have at this time i wish there was more we could tell you speculation too when would not be accurate but it would be dangerous sam look the earth it's on fire don't leave me here on this terrible world i've got to get away the earth seemed to explode at night catch fire and burn it's on fire it can't be earth that's not earth no that ain't earth it can't be i've got to get away don't leave me on earth don't [Music] we have to leave earth [Applause] [Applause] memory tapes are engaged and functioning take time take time seven o'clock time to get up time to get up seven o'clock [Applause] as ordered eight pieces of perfectly brown toast eight eggs sunny side up 16 slices of bacon two coffees and two cool glasses of milk [Applause] today is august 4th 2057 in the city of allendale california today is august 4th 2057 in the city of allendale california today is august 4th 2057 in the city of allendale california [Applause] today is mr featherstone's birthday today is the anniversary of tilita's marriage insurance is payable as are the water gas and light bills [Applause] eight one tick tock 8-1 o'clock off to school off to work run run 8-1 rain rain go away rubbers raincoats for today [Applause] engage garage door [Applause] 8 30 clear breakfast into sink [Applause] engage hot water deposit dishes into water security location three garage car remains in bay also alert high levels of radiation detected extreme danger level repeat high levels of radiation detected extreme danger level security location three garage car remains in bay wait time wait time expired closing bay [Applause] 9 15 time to clean 9 15 time to clean engage robotic mice knead the rug now remove the dust be careful do not bump the chairs [Music] [Applause] [Applause] 10 o'clock weather readings indicate the sun has appeared from behind the reins security check location front door door remains unlocked short distance neighborhood checked unable to detect houses used for parameter borders no longer exist cannot complete reading security check location front door door remains unlocked [Applause] 10 15 garden sprinklers how's the new mower working like a charm all right here it comes kiss the ball ready ready [Music] [Applause] 12 noon voice recognition dog voice [Applause] 235 bridge tables scheduled patio walls opened [Music] martinis and egg sandwiches now available in kitchen four o'clock bridge tables return to storage 4 30 nursery children's hour o'clock bath drawn six seven eight o'clock dinner dishes clean car fire started nine five mrs mcclellan which poem would you like this evening mrs mcclellan which poem would you like this evening since you express no preference i shall select a poem at random sarah teasdale as i recall your favorite there will come soft rains and the smell of the ground and swallows circling with their shimmering sound and frogs in the pools singing at night and wild plum trees in tremulous white robins will wear their feathery fire whistling their worms on a low fence wire and not one will know of the war not one will care at last when it is done not one would mine neither bird nor tree if mankind perished utterly and spring herself when she woke at dawn would scarcely know that we were gone ten o'clock security warning window broken cause computed as fallen tree warning fire chemicals spilled from accident clean procedure in place fire fire fire memory tapes are engaged and functioning today is august 5th 2057. today is august 5th 2057. today is august 5th 2057. today is august 5th 2057. today is august 5th 2057 today october 2057 the million-year picnic somehow the idea was brought up by mom that perhaps our whole family would enjoy a fishing trip but they weren't mom's words i knew that they were dad's words and mom used them for him somehow all the food is stored away from the rocket over by the rocks there so we're ready to go everyone get into the boat i remember the night before we left earth in our small family rocket i thought mars was a long way to go for a family vacation how far are we going a million years gee oh look kids there's a dead city it was a bird i thought it was a rocket how goes it timothy fine dad what are you looking so hard at dad up at the sky i was looking for earthian logic common sense good government peace and responsibility all that up there no i i didn't find it it's not there anymore maybe it'll never be there again maybe we fooled ourselves that it was ever there huh see the fish it's eating all those little particles floating around just like war war swims along sees food contracts a moment later earth is gone william sorry when do we see martians quite soon perhaps maybe tonight oh but the martians are a dead race now no they're not i'll show you some martians all right what do they look like you'll know them when you see them we came a million miles for this outing to fish but dad had a gun on the rocket this was a vacation but why all the food more than enough to last us years and years left hidden back there near the rocket vacation no martians yet nuts dad had brought an atomic radio alone strapped to his wrist you hold it up to your ear and it vibrates singing or talking to you dad was listening to it now his face looked like one of those fallen martian cities caved in sucked dry almost dead what is it here what the rocket of course i'm getting jumpy the rocket what happened dad what happened oh we just blew up our rocket that's all i've heard rockets blown up before ours just blew why'd you blow up our rocket huh dad it's part of the game silly a game dad fixed it so it would blow up and no one would know where we landed or when in case they ever came looking see oh boy a secret scared by my own rocket i am nervous it's silly to think there'll ever be any more rockets except one perhaps if edwards and his wife get through with their ship check the radio again all right it's over at last the radio just went off the atomic beam every other world station's gone they dwindled down to a couple in the last few years now the air is completely silent it'll probably remain silent for how long maybe your great grandchildren will hear it again this is good everyone out come on move over a good wharf for the boat the streets are dusty paved two old fountains and the water still leaps from them 50 maybe 60 huge structures this is the city here we are this is ours this is where we will live from now on from now on what about the rocket what about minnesota here put this radio up to your ear all right tell me what you hear nothing that's right nothing nothing at all anymore no more minneapolis no more rockets no more earth wait a moment i'm giving you a lot more in exchange mike what i'm giving you this city mike it's yours mine for you and robert and timothy all three of you to own for yourselves look guys all for us all of that in about five days i'll go back down to where rocket was and collect the food hidden in the ruins there and bring here and i'll hunt for bert edwards his wife and daughters there daughters how many four i can see that that'll cause trouble later girls are they coming in a rocket too yes if they make it family rockets are made for travel to the moon not mars we're lucky we got through come on mike let's look over there okay where did you get the rocket i saved it i saved it for 20 years tim i had hidden away hoping i'd never have to use it i suppose i should have given it to the government for the war but i kept thinking about mars and a picnic right this is between you and me when i saw everything was finishing on earth after i'd waited until the last moment i packed us up burt edwards had a ship hidden too but we decided it would be safer to take off separately in case anyone tried to shoot us down why did you blow up the rocket dad so we can't go back ever and so if any of those evil men ever come to mars they won't know we're here is that why you look up all the time yes it's silly they won't ever follow us ever they haven't anything to follow with i'm being too careful that's all night came and we all stood in the town square by a fountain and dad went down to the boat and came back carrying a stack of papers he laid them on the ground and set them on fire i saw the little letters leap in the flames i could read some of the words government bonds business graph 2030 religious prejudice an essay the science of logistics problems of the pan-american unity stock report for july 3 2029 the war digest it's time i told you a few things i don't suppose it was fair keeping so much from you i don't know if you'll understand but i have to talk even if only part of it gets over to you i'm burning a way of life just like that way of life is being burned clean of earth right now forgive me if i talk like a politician i am after all a former state governor and i was honest and they hated me for it life on earth never settled down to do anything very good science ran too far ahead of us too quickly the people got lost in a mechanical wilderness like children making over pretty things gadgets helicopters rockets emphasizing machines instead of how to run the machines wars got bigger and bigger and finally killed earth that's what the silent radio means that's where we ran away from we were lucky there aren't any more rockets left it's time you knew this isn't a fishing trip at all i put off telling you earth is gone interplanetary travel won't be back for centuries maybe never but that way of life proved itself wrong and strangled itself with its own hands you're young i'll tell you this again every day until it sinks in now i'm going to show you the martians come on all of you we walked down through the ruins to the canal your mother and i will try to teach you perhaps we'll fail hope not we've had a good lot to see and learn from we planned this trip years ago before you were even born even if there hadn't been a war we would have come to mars i think to live and form our own standard of living it would have been another century before mars would have been really poisoned by the earth civilization now of course i've always wanted to see a martian we're at the canal we can't walk any further where are they dad you promised there they are look the martians were there in the canal reflected in the water me and michael and robert and mom and dad the martians stared back up at us for a long long silent time from the rippling water [Music] [Music] oh you have been listening to ray bradbury's the martian chronicles featured in tonight's cast in alphabetical order were robert antonelli david alt isaac bean jeremy benson lee berry tom berry joe caliendo junior diane capen ken carberry b.j chamberlain lincoln clark patrick clark m.j cogburn mason cogburn michael cogburn denis cordell kate decisto shayna derek sam donato kerry donovan marcia friedman jeffrey gage m sierra garcia jim hamilton ellie hirschmann caitlin hubbard benjamin hull carryanne kilkelly gunna leckball jack labresco andrew marchev rob matson sean mckechn hugh metzler brandon moore duncan o'brien justin o'brien cynthia pape rick pierce dan powell todd radford jordan rich jerry robbins april sadowsky seth adam cher amy sheridan john specht lucian eg spellman james talek mark thurner jt tim vincent barbara dempsey west and joseph zamparelli [Music] the martian chronicles was dramatised for audio and directed by jerry robbins from the original novel by ray bradbury the original music score was composed by geoffrey gage the martian chronicles was produced by seth adam cher and our executive producer was mark van der berk for the colonial radio theater on the air this is david old speaking [Music] this has been a production of the colonial radio theater on brilliance audio for further information concerning this program or other brilliance audio titles please call the following toll-free number 1-800-222-3225 or visit our website at brillianceaudio.com no part of this recording may be played for an audience or reproduced in any form it may not be streamed downloaded broadcast or copied without written permission address all inquiries to brilliance audio po box 887 grand haven michigan four nine four one seven [Music] [Music] audible hopes you have enjoyed this program