We present now a special transcribed Christmas message from the President of the United States to the American people. My fellow countrymen, all over our country and in many other parts of the world, men, women, and children are preparing to celebrate the birthday of Christ. Never before in our lives has a Christmas seemed so important. I am not thinking of turkey dinners and stacks of gifts. I mean the quiet, reverent celebration of faith, hope, and love, born in a manger in Bethlehem. Across all the continents of this world, peace-loving people today feel apprehension and lowliness and fear. Many have forgotten the humble surroundings of the nativity and how, from a straw-littered stable, shown a light which for nearly 20 centuries has given men strength, comfort, and peace, peace of mind. At this Christmas time, we should renew our faith in God. We celebrate the hour in which God came to man. It is fitting that we should turn to him. Many of us are fortunate enough to celebrate Christmas at our own fireside. But there are many others who are away from their homes and loved ones on this day. Thousands of our boys are on the cold and dreary battlefield of Korea. But all of us, at home, at war, wherever we may be, are within reach of God's love and power. We can all pray. All of us should pray. We should ask the fulfillment of God's will. We should ask for courage, for wisdom, for the quietness of soul which comes alone to them who place their lives in his hands. We should pray for a peace which is based on righteousness. The nation already is in the midst of a crusade of prayer. On the last Sunday of the old year, there will be special services devoted to a revival of faith in God. I call upon all of you to enlist in this common cause. I call upon you no matter what your spiritual allegiance may be. We are all joined in the fight against the tyranny of Communism. Communism is godless. Democracy is the foundation of faith. Faith in oneself, faith in one's neighbors, faith in God. Democracy's most powerful weapon is not a gun, a tank, or a bomb. It is faith. Faith in the brotherhood and dignity of man under God. Let us pray at this Christmas time for the wisdom, the humility, and the courage to carry on in this faith. Ladies and gentlemen, you have just heard President Truman's Christmas message to the American people. This is NBC, the National Broadcasting Company. In answer to many thousands of requests from its listeners, the National Broadcasting Company is happy to bring you Adventures in Time and Space, transcribed in future tense. Dimension! This is the story of Riesling, the singer of the spaceways. You've probably sung his songs in school, in English, French, or German. The language doesn't matter, but it was an Earth tongue. But the real story of Riesling is not found in the footnotes of a scholar's critique or a publisher's biography. It is in the memories of the old-time spacemen, the pioneers who pushed the thundering old-fashioned rockets to the far-strange ports that are our commonplace heritage. These men know the true story of Riesling. The arching sky is calling spacemen back to their trade. All hands stand by free, falling as the lights below us fade. Outride the sons of terror, far drives the thundering jet. Up leaps the race of Earthmen, out far and onward, yeah. When I first met Riesling, he was hustling drinks in the Twin Moons bar at Drywater Mars. He'd won a guitar off a Chinese barkeep at Luna City by cheating at one thumb, and he made his whiskey by singing in the bar and passing the hat. Listen to her, Earthman. Don't she strum pretty like a 16-year-old gal? Say, how much did you collect on that last song? Three dollars, Marshal, and a slug. Al grabbed it from a bill. He don't trust me no more. Funny, never did have no luck with hound dogs and a Marshal barkeep. Hey, Riesling, look over there by the bar. There's an Institute Four striper giving in the eye. Know him? Captain Hicks off the gossaw. He sure giving you the once-over. Maybe he's got a job. They don't make never no mind of me. I've been blacklisted. Hicks logged me for making up a song on watch. Right, fine song, too. Hold it. Here comes the brass arm. Riesling, I've been looking for you. I've been right here, Skipper. You saw to that. I need a jet man on the gossaw. Interesting. Real interesting. Well? I got news for you, Skipper. You blacklisted me, remember? Well, you kept your nose clean. And we need an experienced man. Been a little changing down after the gossaw, ain't this, Skipper? How'd you know that? You got that new atomic pile drive. Last three of them tea kettles blew somewhere in the asteroids. Look, it's double pay, but if you're scared... Scared? Listen, fella. With double pay, I'd jump off the top of the Herrman Tower... if you allowed me rubber heels for the landing. All right, then. You show up tonight to sign the book. Sober. Got no choice, Skipper. Marnie and me is total strangers. We lift at 11.30 Mars time. Sober, you understand, Riesling? You taking the job? Well, that gossawk has one stinking old tongue. Her engine's got more bugs than a beagle dog in spring. And that new drive is about as safe as a pretty gal in the Ozarks. But I reckon she'll do for one more trip. Welcome home, Riesling. Hi, Jimmy Leggs. Meet my friend Hertzman. He's signing on as a whopper. This is Jimmy Leggs Casey. He's boasting. Can't hold his liquor no more than a sieve, poor boy. Mr. Casey. Riesling, you sober enough to sign the book? Drunk or sober, I'll make my mark. Stand aside. Three Xs? Took me a middle name. You two lay below. And Hertzman. Aye, sir. Get him sobered up before the Skipper makes rounds. Jimmy Leggs, I'm sober as a hanging judge. Yeah? Well, you can leave that bottle here. What bottle? The one in your back pocket. Glass buttons, maybe. Give it here. Jimmy Leggs, I swear I'm going to write a song about you. Go ahead, threaten me. Now get below. We raise ship in 30 minutes. Hi, Skipper. Riesling, what the devil are you doing up here on the bridge without permission? Figured I'd take a little stroll. Riesling, get below before I have... Hold on, Skipper. You'll have that gold braid just crawling up your arm. I'm up here on business. That number two jet ain't fit. Cadmium dampers are whooped. Why tell me? Tell the chief engineer. I did. He says they'll hold. Well? He's wrong. He's wrong. He's got a Harriman Institute degree in power electronics. And some drunk space rat says he's wrong. Skipper, I was damping jets when that shirttailed tad wore pins for buttons. I've got no time for you, Riesling. Casey, sound takeoff. Aye, sir. I'm telling you, Skipper, that number two jet's going to blow. Dampers won't cook it like a turtle's back. Riesling, drag your dead head out of here. Get below. Go ahead from control tower, Captain. All right, Casey. Fire one and four. Hawk-class Thunder had to blast for three watches before going into free flight. Riesling and I had the second watch. Damping was done by hand in those days with a multiplying vernier and a danger beeper. And as long as the beeper ticked off slow and steady, we knew the ship was safe for a while. Hey, Riesling, you better stow that guitar. If Jimmy Legs catches ill, he'll blow a gasket. Don't worry. I can damp this tea kettle in my sleep. How's number two? All right so far. Did you ever hear that song about Hicks, the one that got me blacklisted? Oh, the Skipper is the father of his crew. A gentle guiding light to me and you. But on Mars he likes his women if they walk or if they're swimming, or if they've got six arms instead of two. Hey, the second verse is better. Now the Skipper likes his liquor by the quart. Yes, he go from Mars to Venus for his snort. He'll drink rocket fuel and... Well, hi, Skipper. Didn't see you come in. You were too busy, eh? Who's watching the gauge? I got an eye on it. Don't you fret none. Riesling, I'm going to fix it so you can't get a berth on a rocket-powered pogo stick. Report the case under arrest. I don't rightly think I will. You what? You kind of forget, Skipper. According to space code, you can't remove a jetman till the end of the watch, right? Now look, you corn-fed space-loaner. Is that a rule or ain't it? Riesling, your shift is over at 2300. And I'll see you ride the rest of the way in Sluplocker. Maybe. Maybe. In the meantime, you clear out of my power room. I gotta make me up a third verse from a song. I got it. Power room. Damn number two a point. Number two, all right. Hey, let me have that mic. Jimmy Legs, is that forced dry boil up there? Give me that, Casey. Riesling, I take a jet about enough from you. And I've got a little news for you, Skipper. Number two jet is bulging like a fat lady in a satin skirt. Listen, you clown, that's it. Skipper, I think I'm going to junk my song and start over. I can do much better on you. This is the last time, Riesling. Damn number two a point. Sure. Look out, Hutchman. I'll take it. You watch the gauge. Now. I didn't mean to hear. She's bucking a little. Riesling, hit the emergency. She won't get him. It's that door. Back on the lights. No, no, no. Riesling. Riesling. Stay down behind the bathroom. I've got to take a look. It's Riesling. I've got to take a look. It's radioactive. Look out. I've got to face the hot stuff under the tube. I can't go on down there. Shut up. Jimmy Legs, I'm busy. She's tight now. What happened? Number two blew your lung headed space around. You all right? A little sunburn. The lights are gone. What's the matter with the emergency circuits? Riesling. Jimmy Legs, get some lights down here. It's dark. Get the emergency light on. They're on, Riesling. They went on after the blast. The lights are on. What are you talking about? Jimmy Legs. Jimmy Legs, turn on the lights. It's dark. Turn on the lights. That blue radioactive glow from the jets was the last thing Riesling ever saw. His optic nerve was burned out in an instant. He was in sick bay on the rest of the trip. And on the swing back, we set Riesling down at Drywater Mars. Look out for the cable, Riesling. Thanks, Hergius. Hey, Riesling. That you, Jimmy Legs? Hold up a minute, will you? Oh, Riesling. Jimmy Legs, I promised I'd write a song about you, didn't I? Sure, Riesling, sure. Can't seem to sing like you used to. Look, Riesling, the men up in the bridge feel kind of bad about this. Yeah? Why didn't they think of that when Riesling told them that damper was shot? Now, Hertzman, that's all over. Sure, sure. That's all forgotten. Riesling, let's get out of the Twin Moons before I've bombarded. No, hold it, hold it. The skipper feels pretty bad about the whole thing, Riesling. Kind of late for that, Jimmy Legs. Feeling sorry, don't hold no corn. The boys passed the hat. The skipper kicked in half a month's pay. Did he, man? Then on principle, I suppose I ought to tell him to stuff it back up their jets. But you can't buy no drinking whiskey on principle. I'll take it. Here you are. I'll get it. I'll be seeing you, Riesling. Sure, Jimmy Legs, sure. Come on, Hertzman, let's get that drink. That was all. Just another space bum who didn't have the good sense to finish before his luck ran out. Well, Riesling holed up at the Twin Moons till his money was gone, then he hooked a ride on a crawler over to Marsopolis. It was a boom town then, with an industrial district, mushrooming between the Lesser and Grand Canals. I ran into Riesling about two months later, playing his guitar on a jetty that ran out into the canal. He had a dirty rag tied over his eyes, with a jetman's knot, and his hat was on the water beside him. Riesling! Who's that? Wait a minute. Hertzman. Yeah, how have you been? Passable. Say, is this a Venusian diner? No, it's a slug. I figured. Well, how's it going? Singing again? Some. Work in saloons, mostly. But I've been thinking some funny songs, Hertzman. The words come out different than they used to. Come on along the canal with me. Sure. Here, take my arm. I know the way. That's a funny thing, Hertzman. I figure I know it better than other folks. Look back there, towards the city. What do you see? Factory towers. Ah, smell them from here. But they don't seem that way to me. I remember them old buildings. Old before Bible times on Earth. Thin and graceful, like the fairy palaces my grandma used to tell about down home in the hills. Well, they've torn them down now. Or else it blocks them up with cinder bricks. Hertzman, when I stand out out here on the canal, I can see it the way it used to be. The water, ice blue with the stars shining up out of it. Way off there, the city with the towers sweeping up like a bird of flying off a tree. I can see it. It's the dirtiest stinkhole in the system. Not always. Depends on how you see it. Bontar, the race that raise the towers. Forgotten are they lores. Long gone are the gods who shed the tears that lap these crystal shores. Slow beats the time-worn heart of Mars beneath this icy sky. The thin air whispers voicelessly that all who live must die. You make that up. Why don't you go home, Riesling? Home? Earth. I've been thinking about that, Hertzman. When I was a youngster down in the Ozarks, I used to climb a big old oak tree my daddy had in the dolyard. You could see the hills from miles, green and cool. I've been thinking about that. Why don't you go back then? I couldn't see them hills no more now. I couldn't stand to see black when I knew they was lying all around me, cool and green in the sun. I couldn't stand that. Yeah. Well, let's get back to town, Hertzman. Today I made three and a half dollars' mushing. I'm all set to drink it down to Fort Dawn. Come on. I lost track of Riesling after that. I shipped out on a slow freight of the Condor class for Luna, and he hitchhiked a ride to Venusburg on an ore ship in a tri-planet run. So he beat around the system. Venusburg to Layport to Drywater to New Shanghai and back. Any spaceport was his home, and no skipper had refused to lift the extra mass of Riesling and his battered guitar. He made up his songs sitting out watches down in the power rooms with old shipmates while the monotonous speed of the jets shook the hull plates. Hear the jets, hear the jets Hear them snarl at your back when you're stretched on the rack Hear the jets, feel the pain in your ship Feel the strain in your grip, hear the jets Feel the rise, feel the drive, strength still come alive on her jets On her jets Little by little his songs began to travel along the spaceways ahead of him. Raw spaceman songs with titles like Since the Pusher Met My Cousin and the Spacesuit Built for Two. But more and more we began to hear a different kind of song. Strange, sad songs, the ones you find printed in the Centennial Editions. Dark Star Passing, Death Song of a Woods Cove. And then finally, The Green Hills of Earth. It grew for 20 years, that song. They say it started way back when Riesling was down in the labor camps on Venus singing for the indentured man. Now, if someone will kindly pass a bottle. It is not much, Riesling. Here. It'll do. What is that stuff? Tequila. You cannot make him good here on Venus. What do you use? Carac Bush. Home it is... Home it is different. Where are you from, son? Tascot, Mexico. It's a long way from here. Si, a long way. How did you come to sign on? The man comes out to the village from the city in his shining automobile, very big. He says there is work. You sign the paper for 10 years and you work. Work! There is work here, all right. Ten stinking hours in the jungle with machete. I tell you, when I get home to Earth... What'll you do, son? What is the use? We aren't getting home. You know how many men die out there in this swamp today? Ten men, ten! What is the use? My mother, she's dead. My father don't care. A girl? She says she wait. I... I don't know. Sure, son. You sing some more, Easton. We drink, you sing. Maybe a new song, son. We rot in the molds of Venus We wretch at her tainted breath Foul are her flooded jungles A-crawling with unclean death Let the... What is the matter? Finish the song, Riesling. I can't. I can't yet. It just don't come. I'll finish it when I go home. That's it. When I go home to the hills. Now pass that bottle. The dawn whistle don't blow for four hours. That's where the green hill started. And I was there when it was finished. It was 20 years after that. And there wasn't a man flying around the beach. Hadn't heard of Riesling and his songs. He was getting old now for a spaceman. He was a familiar figure through the whole system. Tall, gaunt, and with that dirty bandage tied across his blind eyes. I was Chief Jetman then on the old Falcon. We were cradled at Venus Alice Isle, scheduled for a direct jump to Great Lakes, Illinois, on Earth. I was taken in to Dunnage when Riesling fell this way up the gangway and came through the line. Riesling! Who's that? Mike Hertzman. Hertzman, Hertzman. Well, what are you doing on this old hog boat? I figured I'd ride it back to Earth. Earth? Are you going home, Riesling? I thought you were never going to make that run. I've been hankering to set foot in the Ozarks again. How about those hills? I've been singing about them so long now, Hertzman. I got to finish the song. I got to set foot in the dooyard and hear the wind through that oak tree. About the last thing I'll be doing. I got to get home before... Riesling has a new company policy in effect now. You see, Hertzman, I'm getting just a little old. Riesling, listen. No more deadhead rides. The new code book is in force. I seen code books come and go. The skipper's one of them youngsters fresh out of Harriman Institute cadet training. He's liable to throw the book at you. At me? I've been around space as long as Halley's Comet and Brewster's Ridge. Going back to Earth. Cool green hills of Earth. I'm going home. All secured, Hertzman. What are you doing here? That's Riesling, Captain. Riesling, huh? I'm dragging it back to Earth, Captain. Not on this ship. Hertzman have his man removed. Funny thing, Captain, I... I sprained my shoulder suddenly. Look, skipper, you're a youngster. You're pretty new out here. I'm going home. You don't know what that means to an old man. Going home? Against the Harriman Code. Now look, skipper, you can slide me by out of the Distressed Basement's Clause in that code book. Distressed Basement, my eye. Been bumming around the system for 30 years. Skipper... You make me do something I never done for no one before. I'm an old man. An old blind man and I want to go home. I ain't never crawled in front of a four striper in my life, but... You gotta let me drag home. The law says a man's got a trip coming to him. You can stretch for a poor old blind man, now can't you? You gotta, skipper. All right, you old space rat. But keep out of the way. I run an efficient ship and I don't want any trouble. No, sir, no trouble. I'll just lay down to the power room. I'd kinda like to be near the jets when they blast off. For Earth. Sit down, Riesling. Take a load off your feet. Thanks, Mick. Stand by for lift. Stand by. Best seat in the system. Power room and an old hot glass ship. Power room, fire three. Aye, sir. The cool green hills of Earth. Still singing that, Riesling? Oh, some. I changed her a little. Gonna finish her now, Mack. Going home to finish her. Yeah. Have you seen those new automatic dampers, Riesling? Don't have to do nothing but sit and watch. Where's the peeper? Turned off. She's all automatic. You have it soft nowadays. When I was twisting her tail, you had to stay awake. You got an old hand damping plates on? All but the links. Man ship them, they cover up the dials. You might need them. No, the automatics handle everything. Well, you're finally going home, Riesling, huh? Won't seem the same out past the moon. I've been waiting for this a long time, Mack. Gonna be good to get home, I reckon. The arching sky is calling spacemen back. Mack! Mack! Mack, you all right? I got the emergency. They're here, Danvers. Where are the links? Mack, Mack, you ought to be on the wall here some... Power room, what's the alarm? Emergency squad coming in. Stay out. The place is hot. Radiation blast. Stay behind the baffle. I got the link shift. I can hand damper now. What's going on in there? I'm still in jet three. Is this McDougal? McDougal is dead. This is Riesling on watch. Riesling? Get out of there. You'll kill yourself. Don't worry, Skipper. I know this power room. I can get inside of my shirt. Somebody's got a damper. Riesling, I'm sending in a crew. No, no, no use. The whole room will be hot for an hour, and the other jets won't hold. Skipper, throw on the recording tape. What? Throw on the recording tape. I want to get something down. Tape's on, Riesling. Stop it, Riesling. The radiation will burn you down. Yeah, I reckon. Yeah, pretty sharp sunburn. Pick me out of here with a tongs. Bury me in a litchi. You'll pop it. Oh, okay, Skipper. She's clean. Hey, radiation's getting brighter. I can almost see it. Bright, rosy like the sun. Like the sun over the hills down here. I got my song figured right now. Here it comes. We pray for one last landing On the globe that gave us birth Let us rest our eyes On the fleecy skies Of the cool green hills of Earth I can see him now. He's huge. My son. I can see the sun. That's the way he died. Riesling, the blind singer of the spaceways, singing of the home he never reached, the cool green hills of Earth. Next week we bring you another story many of you have requested that we repeat. It's the strange tale of man's first visit to another planet and why he decides that Mars is heaven. Be with us at this same time next week for another adventure into the unknown world of... Dimension! This program was transcribed. Now, Dynamic Tallulah Bankhead brings you the big show on NBC.
