Dwellers In Silence

Come down for Blast Off, X-5, 4, 3, 2, X-1, Fire. On the far horizon 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.

Heck, heck, heck, heck, heck. Minus, minus, minus, minus, minus, one, one, one. Tonight's story, Ray Bradbury's Dwellers in Silence. Twenty years had passed. Twenty years since the last of the giant migration ships had crashed to the surface of Mars, bearing its pitiful handful of survivors of the Earth Wars.

Twenty years of longing, of turning eyes toward the green Earth as it hung on the horizon like a beckoning light. And now it was done. And the first new ship, built of shining Martian chromaton, had lifted bravely toward home with three men locked in its metal belly.

There it is. You barely see the top of the atomic trade building in the twilight. I never finished building. Captain, what is it? Am I going out of my mind? Look, out that way to the west.

Could that be? Heaven, it is. Those are lights. Turn the ship. Full cruising speed. They are lights. Captain, it's the city, a whole blasted city lit up like a Christmas tree. What do you think of your dead planet now, William?

They celebrate to negative five. We're gonna take her down. Believe it, we've been walking for hours now and not a soul to be seen. There must be someone. How do you explain the life? Unless they've been burning like this for 20 years.