Radiance

The Invisible Hussar: Zachariah von Leipold

Doctor Gruel: Benedict Sol

Guest Star: Wadsworth Shevchenko as the Maroon Marauder

ANNOUNCER: Good Evening, Listeners, if it is indeed Evening where you are. BBC Radio is proud to present to you a Sunday night drama you won’t soon forget. We’ll see you here every week at seven in the evening for rollicking stories of derring-do and breathless excitement. Journey back to the early days of planetary settlement. Join the brave men and women of the Pioneer Age as they explore a Venus untouched by man! Gather in, pour yourself a cup of something nice, and sit back for the first thrilling instalment of the solar system’s newest tale of adventure, romance, and intrigue on How Many Miles to Babylon?

Babylon is a joint production of the United/Universal All-Worlds Wireless Broadcom Network (New York, Shanghai, Tithonus) and BBC Radio, recorded at Atlas Studios, London.

This evening’s programme is brought to you by Idun’s Apples Cosmetics, makers of fine soaps, hair oils, cold creams, lip rouges, and foundations, prepared lovingly from a secret blend of soothing botanicals, exotic scents, and ambergris from the finest Venusian sources. Additional promotional consideration provided by Prithvi Deep Sea Holdings Cooperative, a Family Company; Branston Pickle; Kerykeion Premium Coffees, Roasted on Mercury, Served at Your Table; the East Indian Trading Company; and Edison Teleradio Corp.

[Cue wind effects, hollow, haunting, wild breezes echoing through space. Fade into electronic background noise, beeps #445, 23, 71, and 101.]

TYBAULT: Oh, Vespertine, heart of my heart! When you open the door of this stalwart rocket which has been home and hearth to us for so long, we will behold the surface of a virgin world! Who knows what we may find on the shores of watery Venus? What marvels, what perils?

VESPERTINE: They will be our marvels, my beloved, our perils! We will make a new home, hewn from the tree of our love!

[Door creak #6, footsteps #11 and 12.]

VESPERTINE: [aside] When I looked upon that new world, splendid in every way and in every way terrible, I looked upon a tiger with stars falling from his striped tongue. I looked and saw my true bridegroom—but would it also be my grave?

TYBAULT: A sea as red as a rose garden stretches out before us—but what are those strange shapes on the horizon? We shall investigate on the morrow! Ah, how marvellously the cacao-trees soar into the rosy sky! I shall build you a house of these fine planks. How rich the violet fruit on every bough! We will never starve, my darling!

DOCTOR GRUEL: But perhaps you will BURN!

VESPERTINE: Oh no! Who are you, masked sir?

DOCTOR GRUEL: I am Doctor Gruel, and Venus is mine! I am the Wizard of the Whales! I command their awesome power and ride upon their backs as on a pirate galleon! I will allow no man to dwell upon this Eden planet but me and mine!

TYBAULT: I warn you, Doctor Gruel, I am a strong man—I am not without powers of my own! And I am but the first. More ships follow behind in a great silver wave!

DOCTOR GRUEL: And my banditos and I will DESTROY THEM ALL! AH HA HA HA HA!

His Master’s Voice

Transcript from 1946 debriefing interview with Erasmo St. John, property of Oxblood Films, all rights reserved.

Security clearance required.

CYTHERA BRASS: Are you ready to start again?

ERASMO: I don’t know why you ask that when you’ve already begun recording. Obviously, we have started, whether I like it or not. Is it in a handbook somewhere?

CYTHERA: Actually, yes.

ERASMO: I would love to see that handbook.

CYTHERA: Perhaps after we finish here. Begin session two, day one. Let’s roll it back a little. How would you describe the general mood that first night at the Adonis base camp? Before you ventured into the village itself. December first, 1944.

ERASMO: Let me ask you something. Have you ever worked on a movie?

CYTHERA: [short laugh] I am the Chief Security Officer of the biggest film studio on the Moon.

ERASMO: I know that. But have you ever worked on a movie? As a script girl or a gopher or a rigger or a costumer, or, hell, even as an actress? Actually been part of a crew, not just signed checks and kept out riffraff and called in tactical strikes on Plantagenet lots.

CYTHERA: As a matter of fact, I have.

ERASMO: Oh?