Read Ebook: The Hermit of Mars by Bartholomew Stephen Finlay Virgil Illustrator

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Ebook has 90 lines and 5665 words, and 2 pages

ottle 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 ..."

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.

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