Carmichael appeared beside him, puffing and red-faced. "Interesting, these towers. This was an automatic sighting station. Fixed the take-off for supply transports. The population was already gone." Carmichael slapped at the ruined control board. "These supply ships continued to take off, loaded by machines and dispatched by machines, after all the Martians were gone."
"Sure was. The minerals team says there's not a damn thing left here. Nothing but dead sand and rock and debris. Even the water's no good. They took everything of value."
"Judde says their escape world is pretty nice."
"Virgin." Carmichael smacked his fat lips. "Never touched. Trees and meadows and blue oceans. He showed me a scanner translation of a cylinder."
"Too bad we don't have a place like that to go. A virgin world for ourselves."
Carmichael was bent over the telescope. "This here sighted for them. When the escape planet swam into view a relay delivered a trigger charge to the control tower. The tower launched the ships. When the ships were gone a new flock came up into position." Carmichael began to polish the encrusted lenses of the telescope, wiping the accumulated rust and debris away. "Maybe we'll see their planet."
In the ancient lenses a vague luminous globe was swimming. Halloway could make it out, obscured by the filth of centuries, hidden behind a curtain of metallic particles and dirt.
Carmichael was down on his hands and knees, working with the focus mechanism. "See anything?" he demanded.
Halloway nodded. "Yeah."
Carmichael pushed him away. "Let me look." He squinted into the lens. "Aw, for God's sake!"
"What's wrong? Can't you see it?"
"I see it," Carmichael said, getting down on his hands and knees again. "The thing must have slipped. Or the time shift is too great. But this is supposed to adjust automatically. Of course, the gear box has been frozen for --"
"What's wrong?" Halloway demanded.
"That's Earth. Don't you recognize it?"
"Earth!"
Carmichael sneered with disgust. "This fool thing must be busted. I wanted to get a look at their dream planet. That's just old Terra, where we came from. All my work trying to fix this wreck up, and what do we see?"
"Earth!" Halloway murmured.
He had just finished telling Young about the telescope.
"I can't believe it," Young said. "But the description fitted Earth thousands of years ago..."
"How long ago did they take off?" Halloway asked.
"About six hundred thousand years ago," Judde said.
"And their colonies descended into barbarism on the new planet."
The four men were silent. They looked at each other, tight-lipped.
"We've destroyed two worlds," Halloway said at last. "Not one. Mars first. We finished up here, then we moved to Terra. And we destroyed Terra as systematically as we did Mars."
"A closed circle," Mason said. "We're back where we started. Back to reap the crop our ancestors sowed. They left Mars this way. Useless. And now we're back here poking around the ruins like ghouls."
"Shut up," Young snapped. He paced angrily back and forth. "I can't believe it."
"We're Martians. Descendants of the original stock that left here. We're back from the colonies. Back home." Mason's voice rose hysterically. "We're home again, where we belong!"
Judde pushed aside the scanner and got to his feet. "No doubt about it. I checked their analysis with our own archeological records. It fits. Their escape world was Terra, six hundred thousand years ago."
"What'll we tell Davidson?" Mason demanded. He giggled wildly. "We've found a perfect place.
A word untouched by human hands. Still in the original cellophane wrapper."
A word untouched by human hands. Still in the original cellophane wrapper."
Above them, the cold sky glittered. In the bleak light the barren plains of Mars stretched out, mile after mile of empty, wasted ruin.
"At that," Halloway said. "You know what it reminds me of?"
"A picnic site."
"Broken bottles and tin cans and wadded up plates. After the picnickers have left. Only, the picnickers are back. They're back -- and they have to live in the mess they made."
"What'll we tell Davidson?" Mason demanded.
"I've already called him," Young said wearily. "I told him there was a planet, out of the solar system. Someplace we could go. The Martians had a drive."
"A drive." Judde pondered. "Those towers." His lips twisted. "Maybe they did have an outer space drive. Maybe it's worth going on with the translation."
They looked at each other.
"Tell Davidson we're going on," Halloway ordered. "We'll keep on until we find it. We're not staying on this God-forsaken junkyard." His gray eyes glowed. "We'll find it, yet. A virgin world. A world that's unspoiled."
"Unspoiled," Young echoed. "Nobody there ahead of us."
"We'll be the first," Judde muttered avidly.
"It's wrong!" Mason shouted. "Two are enough! Let's not destroy a third world!"
Nobody listened to him. Judde and Young and Halloway gazed up, faces eager, hands clenching and unclenching. As if they were already there. As if they were already holding onto the new world, clutching it with all their strength. Tearing it apart, atom by atom...
Prominent Author
"My husband," said Mary Ellis, "although he is a very prompt man, and hasn't been late to work in twenty-five years, is actually still some place around the house." She sipped at her faintly scented hormone and carbohydrate drink. "As a matter of fact, he won't be leaving for another ten minutes."
"Incredible," said Dorothy Lawrence, who had finished her drink, and now basked in the dermalmist spray that descended over her virtually unclad body from an automatic jet above the couch. "What they won't think of next!"
Mrs Ellis beamed proudly, as if she personally were an employee of Terran Development. "Yes, it is incredible. According to somebody down at the office, the whole history of civilization can be explained in terms of transportation techniques. Of course, I don't know anything about history. That's for Government research people. But from what this man told Henry --"
"Where's my briefcase?" came a fussy voice from the bedroom. "Good Lord, Mary. I know I left it on the clothes-cleaner last night."
"You left it upstairs," Mary replied, raising her voice slightly. "Look in the closet."
"Why would it be in the closet?" Sounds of angry stirring around. "You'd think a man's own briefcase would be safe." Henry Ellis stuck his head into the living-room briefly. "I found it. Hello, Mrs Lawrence."
"Good morning," Dorothy Lawrence replied. "Mary was explaining that you're still here."
"Yes, I'm still here." Ellis straightened his tie, as the mirror revolved slowly around him. "Anything you want me to pick up downtown, honey?"
"No," Mary replied. "Nothing I can think of. I'll vid you at the office if I remember something."
"Is it true," Mrs Lawrence asked, "that as soon as you step into it you're all the way downtown?"
"Is it true," Mrs Lawrence asked, "that as soon as you step into it you're all the way downtown?"
"A hundred and sixty miles! It's beyond belief. Why, it takes my husband two and a half hours to get his monojet through the commercial lanes and down at the parking lot then walk all the way up to his office."
"I know," Ellis muttered, grabbing his hat and coat. "Used to take me about that long. But no more." He kissed his wife good-bye. "So long. See you tonight. Nice to have seen you again, Mrs Lawrence."