Philip Dick: Survey Team

“We’ll know soon enough,” Young said.

Van Ecker laughed. “Maybe they trapped one of our robot rockets. Maybe they’re expecting us.”

Halloway was silent. It was too close to be funny. The red planet was growing rapidly. He could see white spots at the poles. A few hazy blue-green ribbons that had once been called canals . Was there a civilization down there, an organized culture waiting for them, as they drifted slowly down? He groped at his pack until his fingers closed over the butt of his pistol.

“Better get your guns out,” he said.

“If there’s a Martian defense system waiting for us we won’t have a chance,” Young said. ‘‘Mars cooled millions of years ahead of Earth. It’s a cinch they’ll be so advanced we won’t even be—”

‘Too late now,” Mason’s voice came faintly. “You experts should have thought of that before.”

“Where are you?” Halloway demanded.

“Drifting below you. The ship is empty. Should strike any moment. I got all the equipment out, attached it to automatic jump units.”

A faint flash of light exploded briefly below, winked out. The ship, striking the surface . . .

“I’m almost down,” Mason said nervously. “I’ll be the first . . .”

Mars had ceased to be a globe. Now it was a great red dish, a vast plain of dull rust spread out beneath them. They fell slowly, silently, toward it. Mountains became visible. Narrow trickles of water that were rivers. A vague checker-board pattern that might have been fields and pastures . . .

Halloway gripped his pistol tightly. His brake-units shrieked as the air thickened. He was almost down. A muffled crunch sounded abruptly in his earphones.

“Mason!” Young shouted.

“I’m down,” Mason’s voice came faintly.

“You all right?”

“Knocked the wind out of me. But I’m all right.”

“How does it look?” Halloway demanded.

For a moment there was silence. Then: “Good God!”

Mason gasped. “A city!’*

“A city!” Young yelled. “What kind? What’s it like?”

“Can you see them?” van Ecker shouted. “What are they like? Are there a lot of them?” They could hear Mason breathing. His breath rasped hoarsely in their phones. “No,” he gasped at last. “No sign of life. No activity. The city is—it looks deserted.”

“Deserted?”

“Ruins. Nothing but ruins. Miles of wrecked columns and walls and rusting scaffolding.” “Thank God,” Young breathed. “They must have died out. We’re safe. They must have evolved and finished their cycle a long time ago.”

“Did they leave us anything?” Fear clutched at Halloway. “Is there anything left for us?” He clawed wildly at his brake-units, struggling frantically to hurry his descent. “Is it all gone?”

“You think they used up everything?” Young said. “You think they exhausted all the—”

“1 can’t tell,” Mason’s weak voice came, tinged with uneasiness. “It looks bad. Big pits. Mining pits. I can’t tell, but it looks bad . .

Halloway struggled desperately with his brake-units.

The planet was a shambles

“Good God,” Young mumbled. He sat down on a broken column and wiped his face. “Not a damn thing left. Nothing.”

Around them the crew were setting up huts and emergency defense units. The communications team was assembling a battery-driven transmitter. A bore team was drilling for water. Other teams were scouting around, looking for food.

“There won’t be any signs of life,” Halloway said. He waved at the endless expanse of debris and rust. “They’re gone, finished a long time ago.”

“I don’t understand,” Mason muttered. “How could they wreck a whole planet?”

“We wrecked Earth in thirty years.”

“Not this way. They’ve used Mars up. Used up everything. Nothing left. Nothing at all. It’s one vast scrap-heap.”

Shakily Halloway tried to light a cigarette. The match burned feebly, then sputtered out. He felt light and dopey. His heart throbbed heavily. The distant sun beat down, pale and small. Mars, was cold, a lonely dead world.

Halloway said, “They must have had a hell of a time, watching their cities rot away. No water or minerals, finally no soil.” He picked up a handful of dry sand, let it trickle through his fingers.

“Transmitter working,” a crew member said.

Mason got to his feet and lumbered awkwardly over to the transmitter. “I’ll tell Davidson what we’ve found.” He bent over the "microphone.

Young looked across at Halloway. “Well, I guess we’re stuck. How long will our supplies carry us?”

“Couple of months.”

“And then—” Young snapped his fingers. “Like the Martians.” He squinted at the long corroded wall of a ruined house. “1 wonder what they were like.”

“A semantics team is probing the ruins. Maybe they’ll turn up something.”

Beyond the ruined city stretched out what had once been an industrial area. Fields of twisted installations, towers and pipes and machinery. Sand-covered and partly rusted. The surface of the land was pocked with great gaping sores. Yawning pits where scoops had once dredged. Entrances of underground mines. Mars was honeycombed. Termite-ridden. A whole race had burrowed and dug in trying to stay alive. The Martians had sucked Mars dry, then fled it.

“A graveyard,” Young said. “Well, they got what they deserved.”

“You blame them? What should they have done? Perished a few thousand years sooner and left their planet in better shape?” “They could have left us something,” Yoyng said stubbornly. “Maybe we can dig up their bones and boil them. I’d like to get my hands on one of them long enough to—”

A pair of crewmen came hurrying across the sand. “Look at these!” They carried armloads of metal tubes, glittering cylinders heaped up in piles. “Look what we found buried!”

Halloway roused himself. “What is it?”

“Records. Written documents. Get these to the semantics team!” Carmichael spilled his armload at Halloway’s feet. “And this isn’t all. We found something else— installations.”

“Installations? What kind?” “Rocket launchers. Old towers, rusty as hell. There are fields of them on the other side of the town.” Carmichael wiped perspiration from his red face. “They didn’t die, Halloway. They took off. They used up this place, then left.”

Doctor Judde and Young pored over the gleaming tubes. “It’s coming,” Judde murmured, absorbed in the shifting pattern undulating across the scanner.

“Can you make anything out?” Halloway asked tensely.

‘They left, all right Took off. The whole lot of them.”

Young turned to Hallo way. “What do you think of that? So they didn’t die out,”

“Can you tell where they went?”

Judde shook his head. “Some planet their scout ships located. Ideal climate and temperature.” He pushed the scanner aside. “In their last period the whole Martian civilization was oriented around this escape planet. Big project, moving a society lock, stock and barrel. It took them three or four hundred years to get everything of value off Mars and on its way to the other planet.” “How did the operation come out?”

“Not so good. The planet was beautiful. But they had to adapt. Apparently they didn’t anticipate all the problems arising from colonization on a strange planet.” Judde indicated a cylinder. “The colonies deteriorated rapidly. Couldn’t keep the traditions and techniques going. The society broke apart. Then came war, barbarism.”

“Then their migration was a failure.” Halloway pondered. “Maybe it can’t be done. Maybe it’s impossible.”