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 washurt by a woman. It was then that he decided that the only thingsthat were worthwhile in life were pure art and pure science. That, ofcourse, is another story, but it may explain why he chose to become anarcheologist 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 thepuff of dust in the desert where the second rocket had come down. Earthand Mars were just past conjunction, and the regular automatic supplyrocket had landed two days ago. As usual, Martin Devere, taking hisown good time about it, had unloaded the supplies, keeping the thingshe really needed and throwing away the useless stuff like the latestmicrofilmed newspapers and magazines, the taped TV shows and concerts.As payment for his groceries he had then reloaded the rocket with thewritten reports he had accumulated since the last conjunction, plus afew artifacts.
Then he had pushed a button and sent the rocket on its way again, backto Earth. He didn't mind writing the reports. Most of them were rubbishanyway, but they seemed to keep the people back at the Institute happy.He did mind the artifacts. It seemed wrong to remove them, though hesent only the less valuable ones back. But perhaps it couldn't behelped. One time, the supply rocket had failed to return when he pushedits red button—the thing was still sitting out there in the desert,slowly rusting. Martin Devere had happily unloaded the artifacts andput them back where they belonged. It wasn't his fault.
The puff of dust on the horizon was beginning to settle. This secondrocket had descended with a shrill scream through the thin air, itsvoice more highly pitched than it would have been in denser atmosphere.Martin Devere had looked up from his work in time to see its brakingjets vanish behind the low Martian hills a few kilometers distant.
It was much too large to be an automatic supply rocket, even if therehad been reason to expect another one. Martin Devere knew it could meanonly one thing—someone was paying him an unannounced visit.
He waited, watching through the igloo wall to see who had come to pokearound and bother him after all these years.
At first he was annoyed that the people at the Institute hadn't let himknow visitors were coming. Then he reminded himself that it had beenyears since he'd taken the trouble to listen to his radio receiver, orto read the messages they sent him along with supplies.
After a long time, he made out a smaller dust-puff, and then a littlesandcat advancing slowly across the desert. Riding on top of it weretwo men in space suits.
Everyone on Earth who reads popular magazines or watches TV knows thestory of Martin Devere, "The Hermit of Mars." Over the years, now thathe is dead, he has become a sort of culture hero, as Dr. Livingston orAlbert Schweitzer once were. Though Martin Devere could not be calleda humanitarian in any sense of the word. After his divorce from hisfirst and only wife, at the age of 45, he never gave much thought again