 Adventures in time and space told in future tense. Can you predict the future? Can you tell what will come in 100 years, or in 10, or in the next minute? Tonight we present two ventures into the unknown, two fantasies of a future chosen from the works of one of our most brilliant young science fiction writers, Ray Bradbury. First his story entitled, there will come soft rains. Was a good house, planned and built to be lived in in the year 1980. The real estate agent had told them all about it. Now this is the bedroom. Of course it contains all the latest devices, self-warming blankets, and here is a brand new feature, beds which make themselves. Now if you just step this way through the library, we can see the latest in talking book recorders, self-building fireplace, self-cleaning robot dust disposal, all these little mouse-like things come out of the wall and take away all the books. Now over this way, as a complete robot kitchen of course, just set the menu for the week and the stove does the rest. Then there's the automatic hydroponic garden, self-sprinkling fire protection. See the house is fully automatic. Now you could go away for a year that would run itself. So the family took the house. The man and the woman and the two children, a boy and a girl. And they lived contentedly, enjoying music and poetry and the rich, warm things in life. And the house fed them and slept them and entertained them. It made a good life for them. Until one day there were 10,000 explosions and the world shook and red fire and ashes and radioactivity fell from the sky. The happy time was over. The stove sighed and ejected from its warm interior eight eggs, sunny side up, twelve bacon slices, two coffees and two cups of hot cocoa. Well, on my Mr. Featherstone's birthday, insurance, gas, atom heat and electricity bills are due. In the walls, relays clicked. Memory tapes glided under electric eyes. Recorded voices moved beneath steel needles. At 8.30 the eggs began to shrivel. An aluminum wedge scraped them into the sink. It was a tiny mechanical mice jargon. The rooms were a claw which they sucked up the hidden dust and dirt and popped back into their burrows. The sun came out from behind the rain. The house stood alone on a street where all the other houses were rubble and ashes. At night the ruined town gave off a radioactive glow which could be seen for miles. At 10.15 the garden sprinkler filled the soft morning air with golden fountains. The water tinkled over the charred west side of the house, the side which had been facing the blast. It was black except in five places. One of the five places was a silhouette of a man mowing a lawn. Just as he'd been the instant the radioactivity burned his image into the side of the house. Over there a woman bent to pick flowers. Still further over their images burned into the wood where a small boy hands flung into the air, higher up the image of a thrown ball and opposite a girl, her hands raised to catch a ball which never came down. Five people, five spots of paint. On the front porch the dog whined and shivered. The front door recognized the dog's voice and opened. The dog padded in wearily, thin to the bone, covered with sores. It ran to the kitchen and pawed the kitchen door wildly. Behind the door the stove was making pancakes which filled the house with their odor as prescribed by the automatic preset menu selector. The dog frogged, ran insanely, spun in a circle biting its tail and died. Ellicantly sensing decay the regiments of mice hummed out of the walls as blown leaves, their electric eyes glowing. One, two, three. The dog was gone. Bridge tables unfolded from the walls of the patio. Playing cards fluttered onto pads. Martinez appeared on an open bench. But the tables were silent. The cards untouched. Seven o'clock, eight o'clock. Dinner was made, ignored, flushed away. Dishes were washed. Lady the tobacco stand produced a cigar with half an inch of gray ash upon it, smoking, waiting, waiting. The heart fire bloomed out of nothing. The beds began to warm their hidden circuits and the phonograph spoke from beside the fireplace. Mrs. McClelland, what poem would you like to hear this evening? Since you express no preference, I shall select it random from among your favorites. There will come soft rains. There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground and swallows circling with their shimmering sound and frogs in the pool singing at night and wild plum trees in tremulous white. Robbins will wear their feathery fire whistling their whims on a low fence wire and not one will know of war. Not one will care at last when it is done. Not one would mind neither bird nor tree if mankind perished utterly and spring herself when she woke at dawn would scarcely know that we were gone. The phonograph finished the poem. The empty chairs faced each other between the silent walls. At ten o'clock that evening, the house began to die. The wind blew the bow of a falling tree into the kitchen window smashing it. A bottle of cleaning fluid crashed on the stone. But the solvents spread onto the doors, making fire as it went, other voices in other rooms taking up the alarm. Those broke with the heat and the wind blew in to help the fire. The fire crackled upstairs at paintings, lay hungrily on the beds, devoured the rooms. The house began to shudder. The baird skeleton began to cringe in the heat. The wires revealed as if a surgeon had torn the skin off. Voices screamed in every room. Like the interior of a clock shop at midnight, all the clocks were striking, making a merry-go-round of squeaking, whispering and rushing. In the kitchen, the stove hissing hysterically was making breakfasts of a cyclopantic rate, ten dozen pans. There was silence. The film spools were burned out. The wires withered and the circuits cracked. Then the house began to breathe its last. The beams began to give at the foundations. Long cracks appeared in the concrete. The seams were burst from the heat. And finally, with a huge rumble, it crashed into dust and rubble. The house only one wall remained standing. And within the wall, even as the sun rose to shine upon the burning rubble, a voice spoke again and again and again. No one would mind, neither bird nor tree, if mankind perished utterly. And spring herself, when she woke and dawned, would scarcely know that we were gone. That we were gone. That we were gone. That we were gone. Is this how the end will come for mankind? With ten thousand explosions and a flash of radioactive gas? Or will destruction come more subtly, extended to us gently and innocently, in, let's say, the hand of a child? Who knows in what manner zero hour may arrest the world we know? Summer day in the year 1985. The streets were lined with green, peaceful trees. Businessmen sat in their quiet offices, taping their voices or watching televisors. Rockets hovered like darning needles in the blue sky. There was the universal quiet conceit and easiness of men accustomed to peace, quite certain that there would never be war or trouble again. There were no traitors among men, no unhappy ones, no disgruntled ones. The world was upon stable ground. Sunlight illumined the suburbs, and the town drowsed on a tide of warm, sunlit air. On the lawns the children played, catapulting this way and that across the green grass, shouting at each other, holding hands, flying in circles, climbing trees and laughing. And in the homes, busy mothers prepared for the evening arrival of their husbands. Heaven's make, what's all the excitement? We're playing a game, mommy. The most exciting game ever. What are you doing in that cabinet? I need some tools from daddy's kid. You're following me not long. Oh, I'll take good care of them, mom, I promise. Very well. Don't you lose anything. Oh, thank you, mom. You want a glass of milk? Can't start now, mom. What's the name of the game, Mink? Invasion. Invasion. What will they think of next? It's Joseph Connors. Oh, don't worry, I won't. What you playing, Mink? None of your business, smarty pants. I want to play. Can't. Why not? You're too old. Just because you're old, you can't draw the invasion. Make him go away, Mink. Oh, who wants to play with you and your old fairies anyway? Glad you didn't let him play, Mink. He'd only laugh. Now, we better talk to Drill and get some more instructions, Art. Now, here's your pad and pencil. Where is Drill? The rose bush, I think. I'll talk to him myself, and you write it down in the pad. Okay. Drill? Drill wants you to write down triangle. What's a triangle? Never mind. Drill will tell us when he wants us to know. It helps the invasion. How do you spell it? Well, that's Drill. Drill, how do you spell it? Mink, here's your mother. Egg and old troupey. Choke on that soup. What's the matter of life and death? The invasion. What invasion is that? Well, just some silly game the children have been playing. Well, whatever it is, Mink, it'll wait until you've finished your supper, I'm sure. I don't want any more. You barely touched anything. Oh, but Drill is waiting for me, Daddy. Drill? Who's Drill? He lives in a rose bush in our backyard. Imagination, Henry. Such nonsense. I've got to run now. You'll sit through dessert, young lady. Oh, gee, Daddy. And while you're at it, tell me more about this new game. It's Martians invading Earth, Daddy. What? Where Martians, Daddy, they're from? And from inside that little head of yours. You would, you'll kill Drill and... What? I didn't know you could kill a Martian. Only a Martian, Mom. Imagine. They couldn't figure out a way to attack the Earth. We are impregnable. Impregnable, dear. Well, that's the word Drill said. Well, anyway, that was the word, Mom, the same word. Anyway, so we're helping them. Who's helping who? The kids are helping the Martians. A fifth column, eh? Drill says in order to make a good fight, you've got to have a new way of surprising the people. That way you win. And he says also you've got to have help from your enemy. Pretty slick, those Martians, using the kids for a fifth column, eh, Mary? Hiding under rose bushes, too, Henry. Don't forget that. Well, that's because grown-ups never look under rose bushes. Only kids. Oh, I see. Well, finish your fruit, darling. You can play for an hour afterward. Mary. Oh, it's so nice out, Henry. And there's no school tomorrow. Very well. Till eight o'clock. Drill says after the invasion, we can stamp as late as we want. No more bats, either. Oh, is that so? We can watch all the grown-up televisors show. I don't wonder this invasion is caught on among the kids. Well, some of the kids are giving us trouble. Like Dale Brits and P.D. Jerrick. They're growing up so they won't believe in the invasion. They make fun. Worse than parents, even. I hate them worst. But first... I hope you're saving your father and me for that. But Drill says you're dangerous. What? But I... I think they'll let me keep you, because I'm helping so much. I'll talk to Drill. Maybe we won't have to kill you. Mary, I think this nonsense has gone far enough. Can I go out now, please? Well, run along, dear. I think the child's taking this game entirely too seriously. Invasion. Now, Henry, you know how mink is. Besides, all children have their aggressions. Better to get them out in the open, I suppose. Maybe you're right. I was wondering about bridge with the Jacksons tonight, Mary. All right. You look tired, dear. Why don't you sit in the relaxer for a while and get a massage? I'll soak for a while until it's time to... Oh, I wanted to call my sister Helen. Oh, good. Find out when her husband's going to return my golf clubs. Connect me with Mrs. Helen Rodgerson on Channel 7, 2-Z, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. What is your channel, please? 817-X, New Rochelle, New York. Thank you. Thank you, too. My boy Tim is... Mink likes him, too. Why do you have to be in Schiller and Boston and she says her kids are wild about it? Remember when it was the Roomba? Oh, please, Minky. I'm on the televisor. Come on, see you're at Helen. Hello. Where did you get it, dear? She okayed it to me, Mom. Mink, I'll talk to you. The child's never been so unruly. Nothing. Just a wild fault. Say, the reason I called, I want to get that black-and-white cake recipe. And Henry wants his golf clubs. I don't know what he'll do. One of the children must have been hurt. I'll have to run and see. All right, what happened? What? Did you hit her? She's a scared baby, anyway. We won't let her play anymore. She's getting too old. Now, Mink, tell me why she cried. No, I can't. Mink, you'll answer me this instant or come inside. I've had enough of this nonsense. Gee, I can't quit now, Mom. It's almost zero hour. Then tell me what frightened Peggy Ann. Okay, she saw Drill. Drill? He almost came through. He was just testing. Through what? Those pipes and things we set up. She looked into one of the pipes and screamed. I guess she saw Drill. And no one hit her. Uh-huh. Very well, Mink. I'll call Peggy Ann's mother and see how she is. And I'll call you for your bath in half an hour. Your father and I want to go out tonight. You won't be able to go out, Mom. Why not? It's zero hour. Mix a little before we went to the theater. Where's the little one? They've got a stack of pipes and hammers and spoons a mile high out there. Children, children, why do we have them? They are strange little creatures, aren't they? She's the main Henry. She's a part of us. And yet, what do we really know about how she thinks and feels? I didn't mean to start a philosophic discussion. Kids are such a queer mixture of love and hate, though. Even normal healthy kids. They need you and they're dependent on you, yet they resent that dependence. You sound like a child psychology course I want you to. I wonder if they ever really forgive the whippings and the commands we have to give them sometimes. I wonder if we ever forgot them when we were children. Look, I'd like to discuss this with you, dear, but we do have a theater date and it's almost five o'clock now. What's happened to the kids? They're so quiet. When children are quiet, you know there's some mischief. What's that sound? I don't know. Those kids aren't playing with anything electrical, are they? I'm sure they are. At least I know. That's the same. I'd better go out and see. Henry, tell them to put off the invasion. Mary, don't get upset. It's just a game. You're shaking. What did you see? Henry, quick. Up to the attic. They aren't in the attic. Yes, yes, the attic. Quick. There's nothing up here. What is wrong with you? Mary, come to your senses. Heaven's sake, let's get down out of this attic and talk this over sensibly. I want to find out if Mink is all right. She's all right. I saw her. She was leading them around the corner of the house. Featured in the first story as narrator with your host Norman Rose. The leading players in Zero Hour were Denise Alexander as Mink and Rita Lynn as the mother, Roger DeCoven as the father. Music by Albert Berman, engineer Don Abbott. Dimension Axe is produced by Van Woodward and directed by Edward King. Robert Warren speaking. Well in detective listening, join the saint tomorrow as he reaps a harvest of criminals in a thrilling adventure with the underworld. Make the saint a Sunday-listening habit and keep tuned thereafter for adventures of the greatest detective of them all, Sam Spade. Tomorrow here, High Adventure, now Truth or Consequences on NBC.