Explorers We

Explorers We is a science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick. First published in Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine, January 1959.

In this story some aliens come to Earth as perfect replicas of a group of astronauts who died during a mission to Mars. The astronauts seem to be utterly convinced they are humans and they do not understand why the FBI chases them after they have 'come back' to Earth. Humans only know that these astronauts are not the same as those who originally left for Mars, and nothing more. The original astronauts could have been saved and/or cloned by the aliens. The disguise could be a way to try to communicate more easily with the earthlings. Still other factors could explain these perfect copies of human beings, but the earthlings have no intention of investigating them. Above all, the possible threat must be eliminated, and only then questions can be asked. At the end of the story, Wilks, an FBI agent, poses the central question raised by the story:

"If it was up to me, Wilks asked himself, what would I do? Try to find out what they want? Anything that looks so human, behaves in such a human way, must feel human... and if they - whatever they are - feel human, might they not become human, in time?"

After this brief meditation Wilks goes on to kill the last of the six astronauts, but he soon realizes that he did it only because he was afraid of an alien invasion: "That's what we are told... they are plotting against us, are inhuman, and will never be more than that". He also realizes that the cycle will only continue. At the end of Explorers We the beginning is repeated. Another spaceship with the same six astronauts aboard lands on Earth.

Explorers We is a thematic precursor to A Little Something For Us Tempunauts, and was reprinted as a limited edition booklet to commemorate Dick's appearance at the Second International Festival of Science Fiction at Metz, France, September 1977. It was written in 1958, one of only two short stories that Dick wrote in the seven years between 1956 and 1962.


Works of Philip K. Dick
Novels
1950s
  • Gather Yourselves Together
  • Voices from the Street
  • Vulcan's Hammer
  • Dr. Futurity
  • The Cosmic Puppets
  • Solar Lottery
  • Mary and the Giant
  • The World Jones Made
  • Eye in the Sky
  • The Man Who Japed
  • A Time for George Stavros
  • Pilgrim on the Hill
  • The Broken Bubble
  • Puttering About in a Small Land
  • Nicholas and the Higs
  • Time Out of Joint
  • In Milton Lumky Territory
  • Confessions of a Crap Artist
1960s
  • The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike
  • Humpty Dumpty in Oakland
  • The Man in the High Castle
  • We Can Build You
  • Martian Time-Slip
  • Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb
  • The Game-Players of Titan
  • The Simulacra
  • The Crack in Space
  • Now Wait for Last Year
  • Clans of the Alphane Moon
  • The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
  • The Zap Gun
  • The Penultimate Truth
  • Deus Irae
  • The Unteleported Man
  • The Ganymede Takeover
  • Counter-Clock World
  • Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
  • Nick and the Glimmung
  • Ubik
  • Galactic Pot-Healer
  • A Maze of Death
  • Our Friends from Frolix 8
1970s
  • Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
  • A Scanner Darkly
  • Radio Free Albemuth
1980s
  • VALIS
  • The Divine Invasion
  • The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
  • The Owl in Daylight
Short story collections
1950s
  • A Handful of Darkness
  • The Variable Man
1960s
  • The Preserving Machine
1970s
  • The Book of Philip K. Dick
  • The Best of Philip K. Dick
1980s
  • The Golden Man
  • Robots, Androids, and Mechanical Oddities
  • I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon
  • The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick
  • Beyond Lies the Wub
  • The Dark Haired Girl
  • The Father-Thing
  • Second Variety
1990s
  • The Days of Perky Pat
  • The Little Black Box
  • The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford
  • We Can Remember It for You Wholesale
  • The Minority Report
  • Second Variety
  • The Eye of the Sibyl
  • The Philip K. Dick Reader
2000s
  • Minority Report
  • Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick
  • Paycheck
  • Vintage PKD
Short stories
1950s
  • "Beyond Lies the Wub"
  • "The Gun"
  • "The Skull"
  • "The Little Movement"
  • "The Defenders"
  • "Mr. Spaceship"
  • "Piper in the Woods"
  • "Roog"
  • "The Infinities"
  • "Second Variety"
  • "The World She Wanted"
  • "Colony"
  • "The Cookie Lady"
  • "Impostor"
  • "Martians Come in Clouds"
  • "Paycheck"
  • "The Preserving Machine"
  • "The Cosmic Poachers"
  • "Expendable"
  • "The Indefatigable Frog"
  • "The Commuter"
  • "Out in the Garden"
  • "The Great C"
  • "The King of the Elves"
  • "The Trouble with Bubbles"
  • "The Variable Man"
  • "The Impossible Planet"
  • "Planet for Transients"
  • "Some Kinds of Life"
  • "The Builder"
  • "The Hanging Stranger"
  • "Project: Earth"
  • "The Eyes Have It"
  • "Tony and the Beetles"
  • "Prize Ship"
  • "Beyond the Door"
  • "The Crystal Crypt"
  • "A Present for Pat"
  • "The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford"
  • "The Golden Man"
  • "James P. Crow"
  • "Prominent Author"
  • "Small Town"
  • "Survey Team"
  • "Sales Pitch"
  • "Time Pawn"
  • "Breakfast at Twilight"
  • "The Crawlers"
  • "Of Withered Apples"
  • "Exhibit Piece"
  • "Adjustment Team"
  • "Shell Game"
  • "Meddler"
  • "Souvenir"
  • "A World of Talent"
  • "The Last of the Masters"
  • "Progeny"
  • "Upon the Dull Earth"
  • "The Father-thing"
  • "Strange Eden"
  • "Jon's World"
  • "The Turning Wheel"
  • "Foster, You're Dead!"
  • "Human Is"
  • "War Veteran"
  • "Captive Market"
  • "Nanny"
  • "The Hood Maker"
  • "The Chromium Fence"
  • "Service Call"
  • "A Surface Raid"
  • "The Mold of Yancy"
  • "Autofac"
  • "Psi-man Heal My Child!"
  • "The Minority Report"
  • "To Serve the Master"
  • "Pay for the Printer"
  • "A Glass of Darkness"
  • "The Unreconstructed M"
  • "Misadjustment"
  • "Null-O"
  • "Explorers We"
  • "Recall Mechanism"
  • "Fair Game"
  • "War Game"
1960s
  • "All We Marsmen"
  • "Stand-by"
  • "What'll We Do with Ragland Park?"
  • "The Days of Perky Pat"
  • "If There Were No Benny Cemoli"
  • "Waterspider"
  • "Novelty Act"
  • "Oh, to Be a Blobel!"
  • "The War with the Fnools"
  • "What the Dead Men Say"
  • "Orpheus with Clay Feet"
  • "Cantata 140"
  • "A Game of Unchance"
  • "The Little Black Box"
  • "Precious Artifact"
  • "The Unteleported Man"
  • "Retreat Syndrome"
  • "Project Plowshare"
  • "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale"
  • "Holy Quarrel"
  • "Your Appointment Will Be Yesterday"
  • "Return Match"
  • "Faith of Our Fathers"
  • "Not by Its Cover"
  • "The Story to End All Stories"
  • "The Electric Ant"
  • "A. Lincoln, Simulacrum"
1970s
  • "The Pre-persons"
  • "A Little Something for Us Tempunauts"
  • "The Exit Door Leads In"
1980s
  • "Chains of Air, Web of Aethyr"
  • "Rautavaara's Case"
  • "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon"
  • "The Alien Mind"
  • "Strange Memories of Death"
  • "Cadbury, the Beaver Who Lacked"
  • "The Day Mr. Computer Fell Out of Its Tree"
  • "The Eye of the Sibyl"
  • "Stability"
  • "Goodbye, Vincent"
Film and television adaptations
1980s
  • Blade Runner
1990s
  • Total Recall
  • Confessions d'un Barjo
  • Screamers
  • Total Recall 2070
2000s
  • Impostor
  • Minority Report
  • Paycheck
  • A Scanner Darkly
  • Next
  • Screamers: The Hunting
2010s
  • Radio Free Albemuth
  • The Adjustment Bureau
  • Total Recall
  • King of the Elves

Famous quotes containing the word explorers:

    “The forests are held cheap after the white pine has been culled out; and the explorers and hunters pray for rain only to clear the atmosphere of smoke.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)