Dwellers in Silence (DIMX)

Martian colonists decide to send an exploratory mission back to war-torn Earth, 20 years after the atomic wars. To their amazement, the crew discover that a scientist and his family have survived on the radioactive planet. Even more amazing, the scientist's family seems not to have aged at all.

Sci-fi writes often require that you swallow some really oversized suspension-of-disbelief pills. When it is suggested in this episode that radiation could halt aging, I love how one scientist responds with a totally casual, "It's possible, of course."

This story was first published as The Long Years in Maclean's, September 15, 1948, and later appeared in The Martian Chronicles.

Dimension X #40
Dwellers in Silence
19 July 1951
19510719(040)_DIMX_DwellersInSilence
Albert Buhrman (music), Fred Collins (announcer), Fred Weihe (director, transcriber), George Lefferts (adaptor), Gertrude Warner, Norman Rose (host), Peter Capell, Ray Bradbury (author), William Griffis, William Welch (producer), Fred Collins (announcer), John McGovern