That settled it, he thought. Stephen Lathrop, archaeologist, really was inside this ship, had really seen the things that lay in outer space. Stephen Lathrop finally was going home to Mars.
Would Charlie still be there? His lips twisted a bit at the memory. Charlie must have hunted for him for a long time — and when he didn’t find him, did he go back to the green Earth he always talked about, or did he return to the city site to carry on the work they had done together? Or might Charlie have died? It would be funny — and hard — to go back to Mars and not have Charlie there.
He pressed his hand hard against the metal once again, just to be sure. It still was there, solid and substantial.
He turned back to look at the dead thing on the floor.
“I wish,” he said wistfully, “I’d found out what it was.”
Dr. Charles H. Carter knew he had done a good job. The book was a little dogmatic here and there, perhaps, a little anxious to prove his hypothesis — but after a man had dug and burrowed in the midden heaps of Mars for over twenty years he had a right to be a bit dogmatic.
He picked up the last page of the manuscript and read it over again:
There is, I am convinced, good reason to believe the Martian race may not be extinct, although where it is or why it went there is a question we cannot answer on the basis of our present knowledge. Perhaps the strongest argument to be advanced in support of the contention the Martians still may be extant is that same situation which has held our knowledge of them to a minimum — the absolute lack of literature and records. Despite extensive search, nothing approaching a Martian library has been found. That a people, regardless of the manner in which their extinction came about, either slowly and only through final defeat by a long-fought danger, or swiftly by some quickly-striking force, should be able or should wish to destroy or conceal all records seems unlikely. Even if the wish had been present, the exigencies of fighting for survival would have made it difficult of accomplishment. In any event, it would seem far more logical that a people, faced with extinction, would have made every effort to leave behind them some enduring record which might at least save their name from the annihilation which they themselves knew they were about to suffer. The better supposition, it would seem, is that the Martians went somewhere and took their records with them. Nor do we find in the architecture or the art of Mars any hint of a situation which may have ended in the extinction of the race. That the Martians must have realized their planet was not equipped for the continued support of large populations is shown by many trends in art, particularly the symbolism of the water jug. But nowhere is there evidence of any violent, overshadowing danger. Martian art and architecture pursue, throughout their many periods, a natural development that reflects nothing more than the steady growth of a mature civilization. It is regrettable more cannot be learned from that unique residuary personality, popularly called the Martian Ghost, still residing within the one Martian city which appears to be of comparatively recent date. In my contacts with the Ghost I have received the definite impression that he, if he wished, might provide the key we seek, that he might furnish definite information concerning the present whereabouts and condition of the Martian race. But in dealing with the Ghost one deals with a form of life which has no parallel in modern knowledge, with understanding further complicated by the fact that it is in substance the image of an alien mind.
Carter laid the page down on his desk, reached for his pipe.
The metallic thing that squatted in one corner of the study moved slightly.