Part 1

THE LAST MARTIAN

By RAYMOND VAN HOUTEN

The great pumps of Mars were slowly stopping. Unless the strange being from far-off Gamtl could renew their life-giving flow, a once-mighty planet would die.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Peetn drew his cloak more firmly about his furry shoulders as the sun began to sink through the Martian sky and the wind throbbed a deeper note in the gathering darkness. He stood gazing silently as the fading light painted the sky in somber colors, preparing to disappear for another night of screaming wind and penetrating sub-zero cold.

He watched until the twilight deepened to purple and then stalked laboriously into the wind, up the gentle slope toward the little hollow where he went each night.

His tall, articulated form strode across the dusty plain. By the time he had reached the foot of the bank the sky was totally blank, except for the stars, and he could barely propel himself forward against the raging world-wide currents of atmosphere. The last few yards he crawled on his bellyplates. He tumbled into the central hollow and lay exhausted, his lungs sucking in and out--

The cry of a Martian _odlat_ would not be audible to human ears, but the screech which emanated within an inch of Peetn's ear-cupulas sent paralyzing waves of terror washing to the tip of his spiny tail. He skirled in agony as inch-long teeth crunched savagely into his shoulder, and the _odlat_, startled, let go. Peetn's tentacles shot beneath the flapping folds of his cloak and the night-dark was shattered in a hissing blaze of light. The headless corpse of the _odlat_ thudded to the ground. Black reaction smote Peetn a blow somewhere inside, and the Martian lost consciousness.

It was after midnight that he awoke to the agonizing throb of his poisoned shoulder. His faculties returned somewhat, and he crawled painfully over to a little niche in the rocks, where he kept his scant stores. Extracting a few pieces of twisted root which had a slight medicinal quality, he plugged the holes left by the _odlat's_ fangs. Soon, under the soporific influence of the whining wind, he dropped off into a feverish, agitated sleep.

The Martian awoke just before noon of the next day and found that the crude poultices he had applied to his wounds had been more effective than he had expected. The shoulder still hurt, but with the gentle ache of healing tissues rather than the savage bite of newly-torn nerves. The effect of the _odlat_ poison had worn off, and outside of a slight weakness and dizziness, Peetn felt nothing amiss in his interior. He slowly unwound from where he lay and stretched to his full height.

The body of the _odlat_ lay where it had fallen the night before, headless and beginning to stiffen. The dominant race of Mars could use little of this altogether useless and dangerous beast, namely the ears and eyeballs, and if the animal were not too old, the tail. This fierce old reprobate was entirely worthless therefore, and Peetn dragged it out into the desert and threw it into a pit. It could not be left lying near his hollow to draw other _odlats_ to the spot.

He returned from his errand and prepared for another day at his appointed duties.

The routine of caring for a Martian water-station is neither complicated nor arduous, being hardly more than a daily inspection tour. No Martian alive understood the methods or mechanisms which drew and pumped water from the massive ice-cap into the pool of the colony; no one could alter the flow of liquid through the pipes, or shut it off, for the valves had long ago corroded into their seats. Even the inspection was a mere gesture.

* * * * *

Peetn always started his rounds in the underground pump room, partly because most of the machinery was there, but mostly because of a subconscious certainty that there something was wrong. Somehow the conglomeration of squeaks, hisses, and shudders suggested things that shouldn't be. Day after day he had gone over the maze of pipes and cylinders, looking for a dreaded break, but always he found everything the way he had left it the night before. He couldn't know of oilless bearings burning slowly out during the centuries. The Martian artificers had built for incredible durability in that long-gone age of Martian glory, but they had not anticipated the mining of the last drop of oil or the last flake of graphite, which had occurred millennium before Peetn's time.

Once again he began to go over the machinery which he didn't vaguely understand. In the center of the floor squatted a huge, inscrutable mass of metal from which plumed the beginning of all the pipes. Peetn traced with his sight organs the spidery lengths of hard, grey tubing to where they disappeared into the housings of the chugging pumps. It was the pumps which emitted the disturbing noises most of all. Peetn stuck his head close and listened to the discords in their tune. It sounded like rasping, like two raw bones being rubbed together under the flesh. He shook his bald head sadly and let his tentacle-tips flicker lightly over the smooth metal. As long as they didn't stop--

He watched the four bulky pipes crawl along the floor and up the wall, where they pushed through the ceiling into the valve-house above. He glanced over the gauges, meaningless to him, but still faithfully recording the surge of water passing through the pipes. It had lessened by about four-fifths since this station had been in operation, but nobody noticed the difference. Those that had seen the greater flow were less than dust these ages past.

He trudged back up the stairs counting them mechanically, and was in the outer air again. The change from semi-darkness to light brought his multiple eyelids winking shut, screening his sight. He squinted toward the southern horizon, seeing nothing but wastes.

What was that?

From the tail of his eye he thought he saw a flash of light far out toward the west, but although he gazed at the spot for several minutes, it did not repeat. Dismissing it as a result of the glare, he stopped and entered the valve-house, which stood in the shadow of the towering reservoir.

He finished his useless routine, touching gently the same things and looking in the same places as every day, and came outside.

This time it was unmistakable. Something flashed in the sunlight out in the desert to the west, a piece of polished metal or glass. Or a weapon. Somebody was on the desert!

He was immediately prompted to run atop the knoll, whistle and wave his tentacles so that they would not miss him, but some primal caution held him back until reason took hold of his chaotic mind.

Out there was either a friend or an enemy. If it were a friend, it could only be his relief, and he wasn't due for another three years. Besides, he would be coming from the south. Therefore it was an enemy, some members of another colony coming to raid the water station!

Bending low, he raced up the hill and threw himself into the central hollow, facing west. He drew from its holster the flash gun, which had killed the _odlat_, and cradled it beside him. His eyes strained on their stalks across the western wastes, ready for the first hint of suspicious movement.

Intra-mural war had again broken out on Mars! It disturbed Peetn to have the first responsibility fall on him, but recollecting the tales that the oldsters used to tell him, he was a little proud too. The little band of water-station defenders had been heroes in those days of the past, not useless, forgotten automatons. There had been a real and vital reason for their bitter existence in the north. Peetn's presence, up till now, had been a formality.

For a long time he lay sweeping the desert before him, waiting for another glimpse of his attackers, until suddenly he realized that another night was near. The sky had already begun to edge toward the dark end of the spectrum, and the light was lessening visibly. Peetn grew uneasy as the shadow of the box-like reservoir left its source and began a sinister march to the horizon behind him. The rising nightwind send cold _odlat_-tongues up and down his spindly back, and although he knew that no living thing could stand on the open desert during a Martian night, the coming of darkness brought fear rather than a sense of security.

* * * * *

The dusky sun touched the western plains and the wind howled higher in anticipation of the darkness. Abruptly, from out of the dull glare in the west, a figure, small from distance, moved. Peetn's limbs and tentacles tensed as he watched, and amazement riveted his gaze.

That small, chunky, ballooning figure was no Martian!

Carried onward by the wind, staggering weakly on its thick legs, the figure came on, weaving from side to side, blundering over the bare rock and hard-packed sand.

Peetn made no move to lift the projector as the thing came within range. Possibly the sight of this apparition had driven all thought of it from his mind; or possibly his analytical subconscious had reasoned that all the menace of the unknown attacker had vanished, since this was obviously no raiding Martians from another colony.

Whatever it was, it seemed in no way belligerent. In fact, Peetn guessed that the creature was in trouble, possibly dying. It made no effort to hold back against the driving wind, as he would have done, and the erratic course which it followed bespoke numbed faculties.

The strange figure passed Peetn's hillcrest hollow a few rods to the north and brought up with a thud against the sheer side of the reservoir, where it toppled limply over and lay still on the ground. Banks of sand began to accumulate against the windward sides of the bloated legs and body.

Peetn hesitated only long enough to jam the flash pistol back into its holster, where it would be safe from the blasting sand, before he scuttled, bent double, toward the mysterious intruder's prone body. The thought that it was a corpse flashed through the Martian's mind, but the chance that a living being lay in travail decided him in favor of the risk.

He was down on his tentacles and knees when he reached the reservoir wall, and he burrowed down behind the inert form for a moment before attempting the more arduous trip back with the dead weight dragging behind. He found to his surprise that it was covered by a case of metal!

Inch by inch, minute by minute, he conquered the two-score feet back to the small safety of his hilltop. Keeping the limp form between himself and the wind, he strained against the uphill drag until finally he topped the crest and slid down into the familiar haven. Dizzy from exertion and gulping air and sand indiscriminately, he relaxed on the fringes of oblivion while the Martian wind bawled in Jovian defeat.

Returning vigor brought renewed interest in his prize of war, and he raised himself on his bony knees, peering breathlessly into the transparent faceplate of the metal suit. Nausea, fear, and amazement flooded his brain at the sight of the alien face which returned his stare with sightless, open eyes. It was the face of a Martian nightmare; square, with jutting chin-bone; straight long nose, pierced under the lobes by wide slits; hideous blue eyes with single skin-like lids; and a mouth--a long, gaping crack rimmed with soft red flesh and filled with gleaming teeth, like a carnivorous beast's!

And that mouth breathed! It was not dead!

Peetn's tentacles fumbled with the unfamiliar drawcatch of the creature's locked faceplate, until with a grating of sand crystals between metal, it slid out, and he lifted the glass off. A puff of evil-smelling vapor flew into the Martian's face, and he recoiled.

The awful face beneath writhed, and a low groan from the pulpy lips made Peetn's eye-sacs pale in terror. He watched fascinated as the returning light of consciousness slowly dissolved the glaze over the bluish eyes. One metal-clad hand raised feebly to the open faceplate and then dropped like lead as if the owner had used the last bit of energy in his storm-beaten body for the effort. The monstrosity lay panting for breath and making murmuring sounds. Peetn bent closer to listen, submerging his revulsion with curiosity.

"Water! Water!" it was saying over and over.

A wave of deep compassion engulfed Peetn's twin hearts as he looked into that twisted face beneath its mat of stiff bristly black fur. He realized instantly that this thing was suffering, probably from lack of the things which kept it alive. He closed the faceplate again to keep out the whirling sand and rummaged out the last of his _merrl_ root and a small quantity of water, on the chance that his food might be suitable to the alien tastes of this being.

An avid light sparkled in the cloudy eyes as Peetn held the food and water close, and in a spasmodic burst of energy it grasped the metal container and splashed the precious fluid into its sucking mouth. Peetn averted his eye-stalks from the horrible, yet pitiful sight. The _merrl_ root was snatched from his tentacle and crammed between the red lips with revolting smacking sounds and gasps of pleasure.

Strength seemed to flow back into the stranger, and he assayed to sit up. He slumped into Peetn's supporting tentacles with a weak grin and closed his eyes, dropping immediately into a deep sleep.

Peetn lay the inert figure back on the ground and gazed fascinated at the face, now relaxed in repose. From whence had this stranger come? Mars could never have spawned such a creature! This was a being from another world, maybe from _Gamtl_ itself! Peetn thrilled at the thought as he lay himself down to a food-and-water-less bed.

* * * * *

Long, long ago the savants had predicted the death of Mars, the gradual wasting away of its ability to support life, until finally the last Martian would die alone. They pointed with eagerness and envy in their telescopes at the soft green sphere of the third planet, picturing it as the Martian Eden, teeming with life-giving food and water.

Space ships were built. There was not nearly enough room for the entire population of Mars aboard, so it was agreed that they should act as ferries, shuttling back and forth until Mars was evacuated.

The first contingent departed one day on the long trek to another world, and the people left behind waited with renewed hope for their turn to go. Hope turned to uneasiness as a second fleet of ships rocketed toward Paradise, many years after the first ones should have returned. A third and fourth fleet followed at ever-lengthening intervals, and with ever-lessening numbers, but all vanished into obscurity with the same finality.

Weakening civilization soon could no longer strain the necessary resources from the perishing planet to send another fleet; Gamtl, the lush, life-choked pleasure-laden Paradise, became a myth of the past, and then even the myth became dim and half-remembered.

Life was a sodden series of hungry days and frigid nights. The energies of each individual were strictly circumscribed to activities designed to give his colony one more day, one more hour of life. Birth, when it was allowed at all, was limited to the replacement of necessary personnel to carry on the food gathering of the community. All contact, outside of occasional meetings between scouts searching for new patches of _merrl_ bushes, was lost between the colonies, which had settled on the dust-covered sites of the ancient cities because of the trickle of water which still issued from the massive pipes. Even the sporadic raids made on the water stations were abandoned, and as the danger of attack lessened, small and smaller numbers of guards were spared from the duties of procuring _merrl_ from the desert wastes, until finally only one made the food-and water-less trip into the northern steppes of the polar region. Every fifth year another was sent to relieve him, but the oldest man in the colony could not remember when one had returned. What privation, what utter loneliness these martyrs endured would never be known. What acts of heroism they might perform would go forever unsung.

Peetn had been very young when he had set out for the far north and five years of Martian hell at the water station, but the two years that had passed so far had left him a dead-hearted, middle-aged Martian. Wrinkles had appeared on his eye-sacs, and his fur had become sparse and gray. His mind, too, had turned gray, had withered from watching too many sunsets. He came to feel inside that he would never see his colony again, just like the others.

* * * * *

In spite of his activity the day before, Peetn was up and about early the next morning and went into the desert for _merrl_. Before he left, however, he placed the metal container half-full of water beside the still-sleeping figure in the metal suit. An intermittent buzzing sound issuing from its mouth startled him, and he opened the faceplate. The sonorous sound stopped abruptly with a snort, and the stranger mumbled a few words and squirmed in his sleep. Peetn hastily but softly closed the lid and ambled off into the sea of rock and sand.

When he returned, his visitor was standing shakily on his feet, watching him stilt across the plain toward him. Peetn emptied his pockets of the succulent _merrl_ he had gathered and faced the stranger with a whistle of greeting, extending a friendly tentacle. It was grasped by the prehensile tip of the creature's queer tentacle and gently oscillated up and down. Peetn interpreted the gesture as meaning friendship and enthusiastically entered into the spirit of it, pumping the thick arm up and down until the being cried out. The Martian, noticing that his companion's eyes were fastened on the _merrl_ root which he had brought, snatched up one of the tubers and offered it to him.

They broke their fast in genial camaraderie, this decadent Martian and his un-Martian visitant, so utterly divergent in form, so different in many ways. But such is the yearning of loneliness and bewilderment that all this was forgotten.

Peetn was about to leave on his daily inspection when a gentle hand restrained him. The stranger was making sounds at him, meaningless and unfamiliar, but it was apparent that he wanted Peetn to stay and listen. So the Martian stayed and listened solemnly, strange thoughts milling through his head.

"I know you're not going to understand a word of this," his companion was saying, "But I'm going to tell it to you, anyway--just for luck. My name is Harrison Clark, late of San Francisco, U.S.A., Earth. I cracked up, like a damn fool, in the first rocket to reach Mars about two hundred miles out there in the desert. My food and water gave out, and the air inside my ship was getting bad, so I crawled into my can and started out, looking for God knows what! I was about done when you must have found me, for I don't remember anything for a long time back. You saved my life, and now I want to do something for you. Got any lawns you want mowed, or houses I can haunt? I'll bet I'm quite a fright in these parts!" He grinned broadly.

Peetn listened gravely to this address, and when it was over, he extended a tentacle and shook hands.

"I get it, pal!" laughed Harry Clark. "We're friends no matter what I look like. You'd be a sixteen cylinder haunt back on Earth yourself!"

Peetn disengaged his tentacle-tip and strode off down the slope to the subterranean entrance of the pump room. Clark hesitated a moment and then followed, more slowly because of his wasted strength, Peetn turned and waited for him at the head of the steps, and they entered the cavern together.

Clark could not see for a few minutes in the gloom, and he stood still, while Peetn, with his more adaptable sight organs, moved about with ease in the familiar surroundings. The multiple noises which rebounded in the enclosed space beat through the Earthman's open faceplate, betraying the secret of the darkly looming masses.

"Machinery," he said softly.

Peetn went through his customary routine, conscious of the stranger's eyes watching his every move, and conscious also of a pitying wonder in them. They quit the underground room, Peetn gently tugging Clark away from the four gauges which measured the water-flow through the monster pipes, and entered the valve-house.

Peetn's tentacles caressed the valve-wheels and giant housings reverently--and uselessly--while the stranger once again watched with interest. Peetn was suddenly startled by a gusty, explosive sound from the alien.

"What a hell of a mechanic you are!" laughed the Earthman. "I don't believe you know the first thing about all this, and yet you're obviously the caretaker around here. The pumps down there are in a bad way. Why don't you oil them?"

Peetn stuck out his tentacle and they shook hands.

"Yeah, we're pals, but I still think you're a bust. Look," he walked over to one of the valve wheels and grasped it by the rim, "there's hardly a trickle going through the pipes. Why don't you open her up, like this--" The valve creaked protestingly and moved a fraction of an inch under the Earthman's effort. Gauges on the wall quivered slightly and advanced an imperceptible amount along their calibrated scales.

Peetn went suddenly berserk. He lashed out with his tentacles and caught Harrison Clark's straining figure about the waist, flinging him across the narrow room with a metallic clangor. He stood over the cowering figure, his tentacles poised threateningly. This creature was meddling with the machinery!

"Hey, wait a minute!" shouted the shaken Earthman, raising himself on an elbow and looking up into the inscrutable face of the Martian. "I'm not trying to hurt anything! Sorry if I've done anything wrong. Here, shake hands!"

He extended his hand and reluctantly the Martian took it.

They went back to the little hollow, Clark limping a bit from his fall. Peetn enclosed himself in a shell of reticence after the episode in the valve-house, and it was only by dint of hard labor that the Earthman was able to coax him out of it.

* * * * *

The days went by, and sandwiched between them were the Martian nights with their savage fury. Slowly the two mis-matched companions evolved a crude method of making themselves understood to each other, and a dawning comprehension of the incredible state of Martian life came to Harry Clark. He spent much time in wandering about the water station, and slowly he pieced together the puzzle. He knew that it was water which was contained in the pipes almost the first day he had been there. The intake pipes burrowed under the ground toward the north direction of the ice cap, while the outlets stretched away to the south to an unknown destination. This, then, must be some kind of intermediary, where the ice of the polar cap was transformed into water and then pumped south to some place where it was needed. Examination of the huge machine in the center of the pump cavern convinced him that this must be where the ice was turned into water. How the ice was transported over the five hundred miles from the polar cap he could not discover. Water came out, however, so ice must go in.

The pumps carried the water up into the high-sided reservoir, from where it started its journey south after passing through the main valves.

But something was missing. Where did the trickle of water go? Why was it so small? Why had the Martian gone off the deep end when he had tried to increase the volume of water flowing through _the_ pipes? He made up his mind to worm the answers out of Peetn at the first opportunity.