Title: The Hermit of Mars
Author: Bartholomew, Stephen
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Hermit of Mars" ***


                          THE HERMIT OF MARS

                        BY STEPHEN BARTHOLOMEW

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                    Worlds of Tomorrow October 1963
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]



                       He was the oldest man on
                    Mars ... in fact, the only one!


When Martin Devere was 23 and still working on his Master's, he was
hurt by a woman. It was then that he decided that the only things
that were worthwhile in life were pure art and pure science. That, of
course, is another story, but it may explain why he chose to become an
archeologist in the first place.

Now he was the oldest human being on Mars. He was 91. For many years,
in fact, he had been the _only_ human being on Mars. Up until today.

He looked through the transparent wall of his pressurized igloo at the
puff of dust in the desert where the second rocket had come down. Earth
and Mars were just past conjunction, and the regular automatic supply
rocket had landed two days ago. As usual, Martin Devere, taking his
own good time about it, had unloaded the supplies, keeping the things
he really needed and throwing away the useless stuff like the latest
microfilmed newspapers and magazines, the taped TV shows and concerts.
As payment for his groceries he had then reloaded the rocket with the
written reports he had accumulated since the last conjunction, plus a
few artifacts.

Then he had pushed a button and sent the rocket on its way again, back
to Earth. He didn't mind writing the reports. Most of them were rubbish
anyway, but they seemed to keep the people back at the Institute happy.
He did mind the artifacts. It seemed wrong to remove them, though he
sent only the less valuable ones back. But perhaps it couldn't be
helped. One time, the supply rocket had failed to return when he pushed
its red button--the thing was still sitting out there in the desert,
slowly rusting. Martin Devere had happily unloaded the artifacts and
put them back where they belonged. It wasn't his fault.

The puff of dust on the horizon was beginning to settle. This second
rocket had descended with a shrill scream through the thin air, its
voice more highly pitched than it would have been in denser atmosphere.
Martin Devere had looked up from his work in time to see its braking
jets vanish behind the low Martian hills a few kilometers distant.

It was much too large to be an automatic supply rocket, even if there
had been reason to expect another one. Martin Devere knew it could mean
only one thing--someone was paying him an unannounced visit.

He waited, watching through the igloo wall to see who had come to poke
around and bother him after all these years.

At first he was annoyed that the people at the Institute hadn't let him
know visitors were coming. Then he reminded himself that it had been
years since he'd taken the trouble to listen to his radio receiver, or
to read the messages they sent him along with supplies.

After a long time, he made out a smaller dust-puff, and then a little
sandcat advancing slowly across the desert. Riding on top of it were
two men in space suits.

       *       *       *       *       *

Everyone on Earth who reads popular magazines or watches TV knows the
story of Martin Devere, "The Hermit of Mars." Over the years, now that
he is dead, he has become a sort of culture hero, as Dr. Livingston or
Albert Schweitzer once were. Though Martin Devere could not be called
a humanitarian in any sense of the word. After his divorce from his
first and only wife, at the age of 45, he never gave much thought again
either to women or any other kind of people--except for his long-dead
Martians.

But everyone should know by now how Martin Devere first came to Mars
at the age of 50. Even then he was the oldest man on the planet,
and Mars sustained quite a large research colony at the time. Only
Martin Devere's unchallenged scientific reputation, together with his
apparent good health, enabled him to leave Earth as head of a five-man
archeological team. This turned up the first fossil ruins far beneath
the desert sand.

Then there came a day when the Space Institute of the United
Governments decided to abandon Project Mars. It was getting too
expensive to maintain. Everything of value to space research had
already been learned about the planet, and the archeological site,
though yet barely scratched, did not properly come under space
research. Closing Project Mars would mean more funds for solar
research, on Mercury, for the Lunar colony and for work on the
interstellar drive.

So the hundred-odd inhabitants of the Project received orders to leave
the igloos and other equipment behind and come back to Earth.

Martin Devere, however, had been on Mars for three years now. When the
Project physician gave him his routine exam, it was discovered that a
valve in Martin Devere's aorta had developed a faint flutter. Nothing
too serious, really. But enough to greatly reduce his chances of
surviving another rocket lift-off.

Martin Devere smiled at the news and volunteered to remain behind,
alone on Mars. Under the circumstances, the Institute was forced to
agree.

On the day that the strange rocket came down behind the desert hills,
Martin Devere had been on Mars for a total of 38 years. For the past 35
of them he had been The Hermit--and quite happy about it....

The little sandcat was getting closer. Martin Devere smiled to himself,
watching the two men in their clumsy space gear. It was high noon, and
a nice comfortable ten degrees centigrade outside. If the two newcomers
thought they needed full spacesuits to get around out there, Martin
Devere wasn't going to tell them any different. Actually, though the
atmospheric pressure was about the same as at the top of Mount Everest,
on a beautiful day like this a man could get along easily outdoors with
nothing more than an oxygen mask. But let them clomp around in their
rubberized long-johns if they wanted to.

In a few minutes they would be coming in through the igloo's airlock.
Martin Devere turned away, scowling now. He hoped the Institute hadn't
decided to reopen Mars Project. There was plenty of room in all these
igloos and connecting tunnels that had been left behind, but with a new
expedition here it might get pretty crowded. Mainly, Devere didn't want
a bunch of amateurs poking around his diggings, breaking things.

His thumb rubbed slowly across the long stubble on his chin. He
wondered if he had made some slip in that last report, or in some of
the pictures of the ruins he'd sent back. He'd rather the Institute
didn't find out about those fossilized machines he'd dug up. He didn't
understand the gadgets himself, but some of the people at the Institute
just might decide they were interesting enough to be worth sending up
an expert.

The Institute, Devere knew, was interested in machinery, not art
objects.

       *       *       *       *       *

One of the men held an automatic pistol pointed at Martin Devere while
the other was stripping off his space gear. Then the pistol changed
hands while the first man removed his own suit. Martin Devere could
have told them that he wasn't afraid of the gun. He didn't actually
care much, one way or the other: let them point it if it made them
happy. Martin Devere figured that he had already lived a lot longer,
here in this feeble gravity and germ-free, oxygen-rich air, than his
tricky heart would have allowed him on Earth. Let them point the gun if
they wanted to.

"If you make one move toward the radio transmitter I'll blow your head
off," the taller man said. He had black wavy hair that hung over his
brow. The other man was completely bald.

"I don't even know if the radio works," Martin Devere answered. "I
haven't turned it on in years. I should warn you, though, that if you
shoot that thing inside the igloo here, it will puncture the plastic
wall and let all the air out. I always keep the pressure up high
indoors so I can boil water for coffee."

The tall man frowned in confusion and blinked at the weapon in his
hand. Then he stared at the transparent dome above him, as if realizing
for the first time that only a thin bubble of plastic separated him
from near-vacuum, now that he had removed his suit.

"I was just making some coffee when you showed up," Martin Devere said,
turning away. "Have some? I'm afraid it's instant. I've given up trying
to get the Institute to send me a can of real coffee in the rocket.
They think I need canned TV shows more."

"He's harmless," the bald man said. "You can see he's just an old
senile nut. Leave him be, we've work to do."

The tall man lowered his weapon, then let it fall into the holster at
his hip.

"No big hurry. I think I'd like some of that coffee first. Say, Pop,
how about cooking us a meal in a couple of hours?"

Martin Devere was spooning brown powder into three cups.

"Sure thing. What would you like--beans and franks, or franks and
beans?"

       *       *       *       *       *

"I suppose you wonder what we're doing, Pop?" The tall man held the
disassembled pieces of his gun in his lap. He was carefully polishing
each part with a chemically treated cloth.

It was three days since they had landed, and the tall metal skeleton
was beginning to take shape out in the desert. At the moment, the
bald man was out alone, testing circuits. Usually the two went out
together--they had apparently decided it was safe to leave Martin
Devere unguarded, though they had smashed his radio transmitter just in
case.

The two men worked steadily during the daylight hours, came back at
sunset to eat and sleep, then went out again at dawn. The towering
lacework of steel was growing like an ugly flower.

The tall man held the trigger assembly of his gun up to the light.
He turned it slowly between his thumb and forefinger. It cast an odd
crescent-shaped shadow over the muscles of his jaw.

"No, I don't wonder what you're doing," Martin Devere answered. He was
sitting at his workbench, crouched over an ancient metal plate as thin
as paper.

The tall man began to put his weapon back together again. He snapped
the trigger assembly into the receiver. He pulled the hammer back and
then released it; it made a sharp, hard click.

"Not even curious, Pop? Okay, then tell me what _you're_ doing. What's
that piece of tinfoil you've been staring at the past two hours?"

Martin Devere straightened and turned to look at the other.

"It's an ancient Martian scroll. It's nearly a million years old. I
found it in a new pit I've been digging, five hundred meters down. It's
the longest and perhaps most important bit of Martian writing I've
found so far."

"Yeah? What's it have to say?"

Martin Devere shook his head. "Their language, their whole frame of
reference, was fundamentally different from ours. It's something like
higher mathematics, you'd have to learn the language to understand it.
But I suppose you might say that this is a poem.... Yes, an epic poem."

The tall man laughed. He shoved an ammunition clip into his weapon,
pumped a round into the chamber, slipped the gun back into its holster.
He got up and began pacing the floor of the igloo. The floor was
cluttered with dozens of artifacts.

He stopped and nudged one specimen with his toe.

"What's this thing, Pop? An ancient Martian meatgrinder?"

"I hardly think so. They were vegetarians." He squinted at the object.
"I'm afraid I have no idea what it is. It's some sort of machine, but
I'm no engineer, I can't imagine what its function was. They--don't
build many machines, you know."

The man with the gun turned to stare at Martin Devere.

"You mean _didn't_ build, don't you?"

"Yes, of course.... Past tense." And Devere turned again to peer at the
million-year-old poem before him.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Damn it to hell. This might hold us up a week." The bald man flung the
shatterproof helmet of his suit against the igloo wall. His tone of
voice was matter-of-fact emotionless. Even the way he threw the helmet
betrayed no real emotion. Still wearing the rest of his suit he sat
down at Martin Devere's work bench and clenched his fists. His face was
smooth, blank.

"What's the matter?" His partner put down some drawings and came over.

"The modulator circuit doesn't check out. I'll have to take the whole
works apart and start over again." The bald man spoke--when he did
speak--with a faint accent that Martin Devere could not identify.

"It doesn't matter." The other rubbed at his chin. "We're still ahead
of our schedule."

"Hey. Old man." The bald man pointed at Devere. "You have anything to
drink in this cave of yours?"

Martin Devere frowned, thinking. He remembered a bottle he'd been
saving for some special occasion--he couldn't recall what, just now.

"I think I have some bourbon," he said at last. "If I can find it."

"Find it. Mine straight, on the rocks."

When Martin Devere returned awhile later, the bald man was still
wearing his helmetless space suit. He and his friend were studying a
complex wiring diagram spread out on the work bench.

Martin Devere put two plastic cups down on the bench and poured them
full. Neither of the men looked up from their diagram until he had set
the bottle down.

"Pour one for yourself, Pop," the tall man said.

"Thanks. Don't mind if I do." Devere went to get another cup. Over his
shoulder he said, "Hope you boys don't mind crushed ice instead of
cubes. I just set a bucket of water in one of the unheated tunnels for
a couple minutes. Then I hit it with a hammer."

It was four hours past sunset, the temperature outside was far below
freezing.

"One thing you don't need on Mars is a refrigerator!" Pouring himself
a drink, the old man suddenly laughed. It was a brief, senile giggle,
that made the tall man turn to stare at him.

"Could be uncomfortable, though, if you were ever stuck out there at
night." Martin Devere's face was sober once more as he lifted his
cup and looked deeply into it. All trace of senility had vanished as
suddenly as it had appeared. "Like, say, if you were out there long
enough for your suit power to go dead. You'd freeze to a hunk of ice
in a few minutes.... Me, I never go outside at night."

"Shut up," the bald man said.

       *       *       *       *       *

All day the bald man had been out alone, working on his electronic
circuits. Evidently this left his partner nothing to do except study
schematics.

Now Martin Devere was aware that his guest had been staring at him for
several minutes without speaking. Martin Devere went on polishing the
green crystal vase he held in his hand. The vase looked ordinary at
first glance, until you noticed that it wasn't quite symmetrical. There
was a studied and careful asymmetry about its form, barely discernible,
that would disturb you the more you looked at it--until you knew
suddenly that no human brain could have created that shape.

The polishing cloth moved rhythmically across the vase's curving
surfaces. The green crystal reflected light in a way that made you
begin to think about boundless seas of water.

"I'll be glad when this job is over with," the tall man said, half
aloud.

"When it is, will you go away?" Martin Devere turned the vase slowly in
his hands.

"Not for a while yet, Pop." The man with the gun on his hip got to his
feet and stretched.

"I don't mind telling you what it's all about, Pop. You're all
right. It's simple. My partner and I were sent here by a certain
national power that doesn't like being told how to run its own
affairs by the United Governments. We're striking the first blow for
Freedom. That thing we're putting together out there is a bomb. It
could--disable--most of Earth. It has a new kind of nuclear rocket
engine behind it that could carry it across 200 million miles in a few
hours.

"You get the idea, Pop? Here on Mars, they won't even find it. And if
they did, we could deliver the bomb before they got a missile halfway
across.... So I hope you won't mind if my partner and I stay a while,
Pop."

It was several seconds before Martin Devere answered. He set the
crystal vase carefully inside a case and regarded it a moment.

"As long as you don't go messing up my diggings or break any of the
artifacts, it's no business of mine."

"And what if I did, Pop?" The tall man walked closer to Martin Devere.
He stood over the old man, his shadow on him. His hand rested lightly
on the butt of his gun. "What if I were to take all your vases and
statues and pots and tablets and smash them to bits, one by one? What
would you do then?"

Martin Devere's eyes slowly closed and opened, he made no other move
for a minute. Then he got to his feet without looking at the other man.
He turned and began to move away, toward a tunnel door that led to the
diggings.

Probably the tall man thought that he had finally put the fear of God
into Martin Devere. But as he turned back to his pile of schematics he
heard the old man's whisper:

"You might regret it."

The man with the gun did not answer.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Tell us about it, Pop."

"Yes, why don't you tell us about it."

They meant Martin Devere's work. The two men had finished their own
job. The assembled bomb rested in the desert, silent but alive, like
some abnormal growth.

Because of sunspot activity they hadn't yet been able to radio their
employers on Earth. The bald man expected conditions to clear in two
or three days. When they did clear, he would signal, "The bird is
nesting." Then the nation he had mentioned would be ready to deliver
its ultimatum to the United Governments.

For the first time since landing on Mars, the two men were idle. They
were waiting. They looked as if they were willing to wait a long time
if necessary.

Meanwhile, Martin Devere's artifacts were the only amusements available.

Perhaps the old man knew they were making fun of him. But he seemed
to take their question seriously. When he began to speak, they found
themselves listening.

"We don't know exactly what happened." Martin Devere faced the two
men across the cluttered workbench like a lecturer addressing his
students. He held in his hand a small bronze statue that might have
been a portrayal of one of the old Martian people or, just as likely,
some long-extinct animal. In the diffuse sunlight that came through
the igloo wall, it cast a shadow on the work bench that was even more
disturbingly alien in shape.

"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?"

"No, I'm afraid not," Devere said. "There was only that one bottle."

"Too bad. We should have a little celebration." The bald man began
sealing himself into his spacesuit.

"I'll wait for you here," his partner said. "I'd better start burning
those plans."

Martin Devere looked up from the fragment of ceramic he was cleaning.

"You're going to send the message now?"

Neither of the men bothered to reply, since the answer was
self-evident. The bald man tested the air and power equipment of his
suit, then turned to his partner a moment before sealing his helmet.

"You checked the sandcat's power supply?"

"Yes, but you'd better take another look at it. I think the battery's
leaking."

The bald man nodded and went out the airlock. Martin Devere watched in
silence as the other man began to gather up his diagrams and plans and
tie them into a neat bundle.

"I guess we can take it easy now, Pop. As soon as that telegram's sent
and I get this stuff burned, my partner and I are unemployed. Of course
we'll have to hang around a while longer in case they want us to shoot
off Baby out there, but there's nothing to that. In the meantime maybe
I can help you dig up some more of those old pots and statues."

Martin Devere seemed to be thinking. He watched as the tall man checked
to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything, then carried the bundle of
plans over to the electronic oven.

"_Baby._ You mean your bomb, out there. You think you might actually
shoot it off then."

"Oh, maybe, maybe not."

"Couldn't they fire it from Earth by radio?" Devere asked.

"Nope. Somebody might try jamming."

"Oh, I see...."

Martin Devere was silent again until the tall man opened the oven and
removed a bundle of gray ash. He dumped the ashes into a bucket and
began stirring them with his hand.

"Something else I was wondering about," Devere said. He began cleaning
the fragment of ceramic again, his hands working in a slow circular
motion.

"Supposing the United Governments find out where it--the bomb is. They
might send a missile to blow it up."

"Told you, Pop. Baby can out-run anything else that flies. Wouldn't do
them any good."

"Yes, yes.... Still, the missile would hit Mars, wouldn't it? I mean,
it would destroy all this--the igloos, my diggings ..."

The tall man gave a laugh.

"Don't worry so much, Pop. We'd have plenty of time to get in the ship
and clear out. We might even take you with us."

"Still ..." But the old man lapsed again into thought.

       *       *       *       *       *

An hour later, the short-range radio gave a shrill beep. The tall man
went over and flipped the _talk_ switch.

"Yeah?"

"Hello. Listen, I did something stupid."

Martin Devere looked up at the sound of the bald man's voice. Devere's
hands still held the piece of ceramic. He had polished it until a
complex geometric design was visible, etched in reds and blues. It
might have been equally a decoration or some mechanical diagram.

"Did you get the message sent?" the tall man asked.

"Yes, that part's all right. I got to the ship and contacted
headquarters. I think they're going to deliver the ultimatum right
away. Now we just wait for orders. The only thing is, the sandcat's
power went dead on me while I was halfway down a hill. It started to
roll, and I forgot I was wearing a spacesuit. I jumped out. This low
gravity fooled me too. I think I've broken my ankle, it hurts like
hell."

The tall man cursed in a low voice.

"All right, all right," he said after a moment. "Just take it easy.
I'll have to come out and get you."

"I think the sandcat is all right. Stupid of me to jump like that,
wasn't thinking. Better bring a spare battery with you.... Oh, and
you'd better bring a light too. It will be getting dark in another half
hour."

"Okay, just wait for me. I'll home in on your suit radio."

The tall man switched off the receiver and went to his own suit locker.
Martin Devere watched as he removed the holster and weapon from his
hip. He pulled the heavy plastic trousers over his denim jumper and
then buckled the gun back again before starting on the rest of the
spacesuit.

"Nothing serious, I hope?" Martin Devere put the ceramic down carefully
and picked up another object from a stack of artifacts.

"You heard, didn't you? You any good at setting a broken ankle, Pop?"

"Oh, I could manage, I guess. Broke my arm down in the diggings once.
Had to set it myself. Twenty years ago, I think it was. I've been more
careful since then." He gave a laugh. It started as a normal laugh,
then broke to a senile giggle. Then his face was serious again. He
carried the new artifact closer to the man with the gun.

"You know, I was telling you.... The Martians were vegetarians. They
never made any weapons for hunting. They did know about explosives,
though."

"What's that thing?" The tall man, struggling with the buckles of his
breathing equipment, glanced at the object in Devere's hands. It looked
like badly corroded bronze, and consisted of a long tube with a large
bulb at one end.

"This? Oh, this is some kind of a tool I found. I think it was a
digging tool, used for breaking up rocks. They _did_ build canals, you
know.... As I was saying, they knew about explosives. This tool, for
instance. It worked by means of a small, shaped charge inside this
bulb here. The explosion was so well-focused that there was almost no
recoil. A high-energy shock wave was emitted from the barrel--very
effective at short range. But the most amazing thing about this tool is
that the chemical explosive is still potent after lying underground for
nearly a million years....

"Oh, by the way. There's nothing wrong with your sandcat's battery. It
was the motor I sabotaged."

Then Martin Devere pointed the ancient digging tool at the tall man and
blew him into two neat pieces.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Hermit of Mars never did get around to walking out to the space
ship and using his visitor's radio to tell Earth what had happened. He
really intended to, but he forgot. The ultimatum that was delivered to
the United Governments failed, of course, but no one knew exactly why
until the next Earth-Mars conjunction.

The United Governments was prevailed on by the World Television Service
to send out someone to interview the Hermit, if he were still alive.

That interview was unfortunate. It might have established Martin Devere
as the world hero that he was, and he might have been awarded some kind
of medal. As it went, his rude and insulting answers to the young man's
questions made him unpopular for years.

His last answer in the interview was the worst. The young man, already
sweating, looked in desperation at the green crystal vase that Martin
Devere insisted on holding in front of the television lens. (Back at
the Institute, a dozen faces were flushing red with indignation as
their owners realized what the old man had been holding back.)

"Tell me, Dr. Devere," the young man asked. "You seem--er--a very
modest man. Doesn't it make you the least bit proud to know that you've
saved the world?"

Martin Devere lowered his vase and gave the young man a puzzled look.

"You mean Earth? Tell me, why should I want to save _that_ world?"


END





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