Or, perhaps in time, we can rationalize it all away. Perhaps so soon as during that long journey back.
It wasn't our fault, we shall begin to say. They were as much to blame as we. Sure they were!
More to blame! They were more to blame than we!
Why didn't they come out of their holes and fight us? With their fists if they didn't have any guns? Any red-bloodied—er, red-blooded—Amuri—well, whatever they are—ought to have enough guts to come out and fight, to defend home, flag and mother!
We'll probably get around to that. It's the normal attitude to take after vandalism. It's the human way.
But as of now, our only thought is to slink away.
On our abandoned Martian landing field there hangs a man's discarded spacesuit, suspended from the desensitized prongs of a Come-to-me tower. It is stuffed with straw filched, no doubt, from packing cases which brought out so many more delicate, sensitive, precision instruments than we take back.
Although we have not been entirely irresponsible in our head-long flight back home.
We do bring back some of what we took out; the more valuable of the instruments. We have been most selective in this.