"No, we don't know what happened to them," the old man said. "The last of them died nearly a million years ago, before the first Homo Sapiens walked the Earth. From what we—I—have found we know a little about what they were like. But we don't know why they died.
"We do know, for instance, that they never had much interest in technology. Not that they lacked intelligence. They could build a machine when it suited their purposes, whatever those may have been. And I don't say they weren't interested in science. They had a highly developed theoretical science, as sophisticated as their art. You might say they were theoreticians. They were concerned with pure art and pure science—but not with applied technology, or commercialized art.
"My own theory is that they had no need for technology. In the first place, they were vegetarians, not carnivorous. So that their earliest men had no need for hunting weapons—or other gadgets. Probably they never developed the aggressive instincts which in humanity led to warfare with its subsequent impetus to applied technology. The Martians never got around to making cars or airplanes or bombs. They dedicated themselves, gentlemen, to the contemplation of beauty.
"Then, nearly a million years ago, something happened to them. Perhaps Mars began to lose her atmosphere then. Her oceans evaporated, the air could no longer retain her heat at night, the farmlands parched and froze. A few of the plant types were able to adapt and survive. But within a few years, all animal life died out. One day, there were suddenly no more Martians left."
Martin Devere's dry, withered hand caressed the small statue he held.
"Who knows? If they'd had time to develop space travel they might have saved themselves. Then again, with a technology like yours, they might have blown themselves up long before the natural catastrophe ..."
"What do you mean like yours?" the tall man said. "You mean like ours, don't you?"
But Martin Devere turned away without answering.
"Do you have another bottle of bourbon, old man?"