X Minus One - And The Moon Be Still As Bright

0:00Countdown for blast off. X minus 5, 4, 3, 2, X minus 1, fire. From the far horizons of the unknown come transcribed tales of new dimensions in time and space. These are stories of the future, adventures in which you'll live in a million could be years on a thousand maybe worlds. The national broadcasting company in cooperation with street and smith publishers of astounding science fiction presents. X minus 1, 1, 1, 1, 1.

1:11Tonight the Ray Bradbury story entitled, and the moon be still as bright. The first three expeditions for Mars left Earth in a mushroom of flame, arc through the atmosphere, and finally dwindled of tiny specks in the big eye of the Mount Palamau telescope. Then were lost to sight forever. The pre-arranged landing signals flashed back to Earth, and then the radios went dead, one after the other ships had disappeared and whenever heard from again. But still the rockets came. The fourth expedition emerged from the silent Gulf of space, angle down toward the floating red disc of Mars, down into an orbit as the order came to land. The last blast of the bow jets broke red against the blue desert sands, and the ships slid to a halt at the edge of a vast city that reflected the icy glare of the moonlight.

2:15For a while, all was still. All right, Park Hill. Open the airlock. Hi, sir. Ah, fresh air. Hey, it's cold out here. Who cares we got here? I thought I'd never hit solid ground again. Hey, how about a fire cap and wildest freezing? Later. We have work to do. Oh, smell that air. Why, you could get drunk on it. Say there's an idea. Why don't we break out a bottle and celebrate? Biggs, there will be no drinking done till we're secured. But we landed, Captain. Three other expeditions landed and disappeared within 24 hours. Now, we're not relaxing security till we find out what happened to them. What do you mean? Maybe Martian? Send it. You're an archaeologist. How old would you say they are? I can't tell till I study them more closely. It's a kind of engineering we couldn't duplicate under it. Well, I'm not interested in the architecture now. I want to make sure there's nothing there that might be dangerous. Mr. Hathaway. Yes, sir. I want you and Spender to take a reconnaissance party into the city and find out what's there.

3:17We've set up camp here. No man is to go more than 50 feet from this rocket. And there'll be no celebration till Hathaway and his party report back. In the sea bottoms, the winds stood along faint vapors. And from the mountains, great stone visages looked upon the silvery rocket and the small fire. The sky was black overhead as the two racing moons through knife-edge double shadows on the desert. All right, come and get it, ciao! Hey, what do you got, the jerky? Saada, smothered in cold chicken fat. Good, I thought it was some of my good needs. Hey, Captain. Mr. Hathaway's back. Oh, Captain. Captain Wilder. Oh, yes, all they hear is Hathaway. Well, most of the city's dead. Spender says it's been dead a good many thousand years, but we found one part about a mile over 20. What about it?

4:17People were living in it last week, sir. People. Martians. Where are they now? Dead. We found bodies, thousands of bodies. They hadn't been dead more than 10 days. What are they dying of? You won't believe it. What killed them chickenpox? Chickenpox? Yes. Where could they get chickenpox? From Earth. Oh, then the other rockets did get through. Yes. I don't know what the Martians did to them, but I sure know what they did to the Martians. They gave them chickenpox and wiped them out. They just didn't have any resistance to an Earth disease. Think of it, Captain. A race builds itself for a million years, refines itself, does everything it can to give itself respect and beauty, and then it dies. Of what? It's like saying the Greeks died of mumps or the proud Roman Empire collapsed because of athletes foot. We didn't even give them a decent excuse for dying. We just gave them chickenpox. Spender, get hold of yourself. You didn't see those bodies, Captain. I don't know what must have been a shock. You need to rest, little relaxation. The Martians are dead. There's nothing you can do about that now.

5:20Hey, you hear that? The Martians are all dead. Come on, let's break out of bottling hoopbeats. How about a case, hey? Good Lord. They have to do that now. Isn't that time later to throw old beer cans into the canals? Then here an idealist. They're not. All they know now is that they're safe. Little shouting won't hurt. You think too much. I was safe on Mars. The first Earth men are Mars. We're going to celebrate. Yeah! Twenty bottles were opened and drunk. The voices got louder. The Earth laughs and shouts echoing across the empty Martian sands. Spender, listen to the wind over his ears. Cool it was spring. He felt the land getting cooler. The stars drew closer. Very near.

6:24The air smelled clean and new. He looked at the cool ice of the white Martian buildings over there on the empty sea land. What a woman! Hey, what do we do with these empty bottles? Same stupid, there's a two cents deposit. No way! Hey, wait, I'll put that building to the one on the block I can hit when I ride through that window. Here I go. Double nothing on the next shot. Put that bottled out, Bigs. Oh, is there Mr. Spender? Stop smashing those windows. Oh, it's a difference. The planet's ours now. I guess I can do anything with it I want. Drop that bottle or I'll knock your teeth out. Yeah. And just watch me. I warned you. Bigs. Hey, what are you doing? Come on, come on. What's going on here? Spender! Spender!

7:25I did him. He's crazy captain. He just walked on a slugway. All right, Bigs. Spender, you come with me. Now, I suppose you would explain. That was the idea. The noise, the drunken braw. Spender, the men are tired. This has been a long trip. And you have a different way of seeing things. No, I'm seeing things all right. I'm seeing how we'll ruin Mars. We'll rip it up and rip this kind of the way we've already ruined Earth. Is that why you hit Bigs? Yes. I couldn't stand the idea of them watching us make fools of ourselves. Damn. The Martians. They're dead. They're all dead. But they know we're here. Doesn't an old thing always know when a new thing comes? Do we come a long way to smash their windows and spit them their wine? Well, maybe you're right. But I'm still going to find you $50 for that fight. Now, come on, Spender. Suck in your chin. We'll go back there and play happy.

8:35Now they moved out into the moonlight across the desert. They made their way into the dreaming dead city. The light of the racing twin moons glinted on the barrel of a pistol. The long blade of a machete, the round gurgling shape of a raised bottle. The wind blew in from the dead sea bottom and brushed through the silvery wire filigree of the towers. Strange music drifted down to the double-shadowed streets, a thin haunted music that played as it had played through the uncounted years of time. Nobody moved. The moon's held and frozen. The wind beat slowly around them. Hey! Hey, you people in the city! Pig! I just want to make a little noise. I'm kind of a celebration is this, anyway. Come on. They built this city thousands of years ago. And now where are they?

9:38How do they die? Who cares and dead? That's good enough for me. Lord Byron. Lord Byron, a 19th century poet. He wrote a poem that fits this city. Might have been written by the last Martian poet. So we'll go no more eroding, so late into the night. Though the heart be still as loving, though the moon be still as bright. For the sword outwears it sheathen the soul outwears its 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 we'll go no more eroding by the light of the moon. With our word, the earth men stood in the center of the city. It was a clear night that was not a sound except the music of the wind. At their feet lay a tile court worked into the shapes of ancient animals and images.

10:43They stood there, silvery by the double moons beneath the crystal towers of Mars. And then bigs were sick and the sour stench of liquor filled the cool air. The men of earth had come to Mars and spender turned and walked away into the city, alone in the moonlight, never once stopping to look back. It was a morning that might have been a Monday or a Tuesday or any day on Mars. Bigs was on the canal rim, his feet hung down in the cool water soaking. Quotty took the sun in his face. Hey, what are you doing back here, Bigs? Didn't you go out with the search party? Yeah. I come back. I got a blister. Oh yeah. Yeah. What do you mean, look? I'll check, you see that? Anyway, I had enough searching. Four days hunting for that screw ball, Spender. Didn't find him yet, huh? Oh, good riddance. Oh, my feet, I'm gonna soak them in the canal.

11:44If I was wilder, I wouldn't worry about that nut spinner. Let him go as a cracked pot anyway. Well, he's a little foggy upstairs, I guess. Hey, why don't you take your feet out of that canal, Bigs? I gotta make coffee out of that water. Coffee, you calling stuff coffee? I had a motorcycle once that dripped grease that tasted better. Hey, man, he made him into Bigs. Hey, he, he look over there. Where? By that bush there's someone there. Hey, it's him. Hey, hey, Spender. Spender, he's coming over. Why don't you stay lost at crazy jerk? I spend a long time no see. Hello, Cherokee. I have been exploring some ruins. Oh, you're in them, Ru, and you're like a darkened up bone, yeah. What's the matter, everyone? I just say something. Oh, you've been up in the hills. What would you say if I told you I found a Martian? Oh, yeah? Well, never mind. Let me ask you a question.

12:44How would you feel if you were a Martian and people came to your land and started to tear it up? I know how I'd feel. I've got Cherokee blood in me. My grandfather told me a lot of things about the way they kicked the Indians around in the Oklahoma territory. If there's any Martian around, I'm all for him. How about you, Bigs? A dead, they're all dead. There's a good thing, too. Well, I found a Martian. Up in a dead town on the hills, I've been reading their books and they're easy to understand. I've been reading their language. Then I found this Martian. And I brought him here now. I don't see no Martian. I'm the last Martian. What did you say? Bigs, I'm going to kill you. Oh, cut it out. What kind of a lousy joke is that? And I don't put that gun away. As your kid, man. I spend a year. He's dead. You killed him.

13:46You can come with me, Cherokee. You're an Indian. You know how the Martians would feel. You can be with me in this. You killed him. You just killed him. He deserved it. You're crazy. Maybe I am. But you can come with me. Come with you for what? Go and get any of your crazy murderer? For all of them, I thought you'd understand. I thought you'd remember what happened to your own people. You get out of here. You crazy murderer? Don't reach for that gun. Spender. Spender. Houthaway break out the arms locker. Issue pistols, rifles and grenades. Yes, sir. And you'd better get the Bible out of the navigation chest, we have to bury these two. Park your you start digging a grave. How about Spender? We'll have to walk in the hills and find them. Just let me add them with my bare hands, a crazy murdering lousy. That's enough, Park your men. Man is sick. You must...

14:46Sick my eye, he's enough. Now grab a shovel and start digging. Spender saw the thin dust rising in the valley, and he knew the pursuit was beginning. The sun burned farther up the sky, and the blue sand drifted lazily across the sea bottom below. He sat beside a quiet pool, 10,000 years old, and held a silver book. Through the house played the strange wind music of ancient Mars. He heard voices whispering his mind. I hear you. I've always heard you. You went down there on earth. No, I won't run what's the use. Live, live, workman. Live, live, live. Live, foot four. Just see them tear down your temples and put up hot dogs, dams.

15:46Run, run, run, run. Run, run, run. They've seen me now. They know I'm up here. There's wilder now. I've got them right in my sights. Kill, kill, kill, workman. Kill, kill, kill, kill. Funny, he hasn't ordered them to use grenades. They could lob one right up here and blow me a bit. Maybe the captain thinks I'm too nice to be blown to bits. He wants my death to be clean. Just one bullet hole in me, nothing messy. And why? Because he understands me. You're the only one the crew whoever did. Well, at least I could do the same for him. Just one bullet in his head, a nice clean death. All I have to do is pull the trigger in there. It's no use I can't do to him. Fender! Fender! Can you hear me, Fender? I hear you, captain. What do you want?

16:47Five. Two. All right. Come on up. Leave your gun down there. Keep your heads up. Well, that's quite a climb. You mind if I sit down? How long do you think you can hold out? Until you're all dead. Why didn't you kill all of us this morning when you had the chance? You could have. I know. I got sick. But I started killing people. I realized they were just fools and I shouldn't be killing them, but it was too late. So I came up here where I could get angry again. Why did you do it? But I was a kid. My folks took me to visit Mexico City. Now, always remember the way my father acted loud and big. And my mother didn't like the people because she thought they didn't wash enough. I can see my mother and my father coming to Mars and acting the same way.

17:50Anything that's strange is no good to us. We aren't fit to take over this planet. But to kill two men. How would you feel if a Martian spit on the White House floor? You know, you haven't acted very civilized yourself. I'll kill you all off, Lother. That'll delay the next rocket five years. And then I'll kill them too. And if I'm lucky, I'll live to be 60. And I'll meet every expedition that lands on Mars. Oh, I'll be very friendly. I'll explain our rocket blew up one day. And then I'll kill them off. I'll save Mars for half a century. And by then, maybe the Earth people will give up. And yet you're outnumbered. We already have you surrounded. In an hour, you will be dead. I found an underground passage. It'll take me back in the hills, Wilder. I'll go back there. And then I'll pick you off one by one. We'll see. Well, it's a nice town you've got here, Spendid. It's beautiful.

18:50I'd like to live here. Man, join me. You're not like them. Why go back to them, Captain? I'll show you what a good life these people had. Oh, no. No, there's too much Earth blood in me. I might even agree with you about all this. But that does not change what I must do. You won't stay? No. This is your last chance, Spendid. Look, you're sick. Now, come along with me quietly. No. One last thing. If you wouldn't do me a favor, try to see that they don't tear this planet apart. Right. If it helps, just think of me as a very crazy fellow who went for certain one summer day. Be easier on you that way. Now, I think that'll do. So long, Spendid. Goodbye, Captain. Good luck.

19:51You! The men spread out again, walking and then running on the hot hillside places where there would be sudden cool grottoes that smelled of moss and sudden open blasting places that smelled of sun or stone. The men ran and ducked and ran and squatted in the shadows. A blow is brain! Captain Wilder hugged the rock worn by the sun. A gas for the air was thin and not meant for running. Spender lay at the top of the hill and a gap in the rocks showed the white of his shirt against the shadows. Wilder looked at the towers of a little clean, Martian village, like sharply carved chest pieces lying in the afternoon. He saw the rocks and the interval between where Spender's chest was revealed. Go on, Spender. Get out. You only got a few seconds to escape. Go on, get out of the caves, come back later.

20:53You go now. I've got to win this. I've got to think that I'm right. Pull the stringer. Go now. Get out. I'll get him a slug in the head of the bloody bear. No, Park you. Put down that gun. I'll do this myself. Spender. Why didn't you get out? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? They buried him in that ancient valley town, where the music of the wind played on through the days and the nights. They laid him at an ancient silver sarcophagus with waxes and wines which were 10,000 years old, his hands folded on his chest. The last they saw him was his peaceful face in the cold silver light of the racing twin moons.

21:58The captain found the poem in Spender's pocket, and he read it before he shot the marble door. So we'll go no more eroding, so late into the night, though the heart be still as loving, and the moon be still as bright. Though the night was made for loving, and the day returns too soon, yet we'll go no more eroding by the light of the moon. The next afternoon, Park you did some target practice in one of the dead cities, shooting out the crystal windows and blowing the tops off the fragile towers, Captain Wilder caught Park you and nearly knocked his teeth out.

23:05You have just heard X-1, presented by the National Broadcasting Company in cooperation with Street and Smith, publishers of astounding science fiction. Tonight by transcription, X-1 has brought you the Ray Bradbury story, and the moon be still as bright, adapted for radio by Ernest Canoei. Featured in the cast were John Larkin, Clark Gordon, Dick Hamilton, Nelson Amstead, Lawrence Kerr and Stan Earley. Your narrator was Norman Rose, your announcer Fred Collins. X-1 was directed by Daniel Sutter, and is an NBC radio network production. X-1.