After entering the city beneath the pyramids, all they could see was a field of ruins. Although all the houses were made of metal, they had not withstood the test of time. The extensive corrosion made it difficult even for the researchers accompanying the team to identify what kind of metal they were made of.
All the rooms were completely empty. Not even much furniture remained, and most of what was left had rotted and fallen apart, making it worthless to collect.
However, marks from chiseling and chopping could be seen on the houses and furniture. It was clear that a war had once taken place in this city, though no one knew why.
There were no bones anywhere in the city, nor had any records of the lives who once lived there survived. "Empty buildings after everyone had left" was the best way to describe the scene.
But on closer consideration, even though the pyramids above blocked the dust carried by sandstorms and most of the wind, as if providing a protective membrane, the day-night temperature swings still remained. During Martian summer, daytime temperatures reached over 30 degrees Celsius, while nighttime temperatures dropped below minus 70. The city seemed to have some temperature-control measures, but they only narrowed the upper and lower limits by ten degrees each: daytime temperatures in summer were still over 20 degrees, while nighttime temperatures fell below minus 60. With such extreme temperature swings, even if there had been bones, they would likely have gradually disintegrated over time.
There were no defensive facilities in the city, nor any operational equipment far beyond Blue Star's technological level. In particular, they had not seen a single one of the automatic-defense robots that occasionally appeared in ruins on Blue Star—not even a broken one lying on the ground.