We approached the ground very fast. Snowbird and a few others reacted, but I assumed the Others hadn’t gone to all this trouble just to smash us into a planet. It was too fast, though, to get a good idea of what surrounded the landing site. Just a hint of regular architectural structure, and we were on the ground, and the floor window irised shut.

“The abrupt landing was necessary because of the physics involved,” Spy said. “We will observe from low altitude later.”

It had warned us that we would have to “suit up” before we left the ship, so Snowbird and I had not removed our footgear, and it was only a matter of donning four gloves and letting the protective cloaks form around our bodies. So we were the first two out the air lock, the human crew following by a few minutes.

Carmen would later say that it was “beautiful in a horrible tragic way,” which juxtaposes three contradictory ideas in what I realize is a standard human ironic frame. About beauty I have no opinion, and horribleness and tragedy are just dramatic observations about the fact that the universe runs downhill.

This is what I saw: on a plain that extended to the horizon in every direction, there were regularly spaced objects that we were told had once been space vehicles. The outer shells had mostly been eroded or corroded away; a lacy framework of some more durable metal remained, a gleaming cage for more corrosion within.

I wondered whether everybody else was thinking what I was thinking: The fleet that humans were building to protect the Earth might as well be paper airplanes.

“This was an invasion fleet,” Spy said. “It was poised to attack the planet of the Others.”

“How long ago?” Paul asked.

“It was about thirty thousand of your years ago. The planet was more hospitable to you then, more like Earth than Mars. A world with plentiful liquid water and oxygen; you could have survived here without protection.”

“We couldn’t now?” Carmen said.

“That’s correct. All the plant life died. Things oxidized and dried out.”

“And how did that happen?” Namir asked.

“Things got very hot for a short time. When it cooled down, it left mostly ash and carbon dioxide.”

“The Others fried the planet,” Namir said.

“I think ‘baked’ would be more accurate. They raised the surface temperature, as I said. I think for only a few minutes.”

“Enough to kill everybody,” Namir said.

“Every thing, I think. There is nothing alive now.”

“This is what they wanted to do to Earth,” Carmen said.

“Not quite as extreme. Though few humans would have survived.”

“The ones on Mars would have,” I said.

“The Others knew that,” Spy said. “And eventually they might have wound up coming here.”

“And met the same fate,” Namir said.

“Who can say? Let’s return to the ship.”

“Wait,” Paul said. “Can’t we look around for a while?”