The Hermit of Mars

The last man on Mars didn't ask for solitude. He inherited it. Martin Devere is sixty-three years old and the sole human left on a world humanity quietly abandoned. For decades he has walked the red deserts alone, uncovering the remnants of a civilization that once thrived here a people who built their empire on art and science but lacked the technology that might have saved them. Their cities stand silent. Their artifacts speak only to him. Then two strangers arrive with dangerous ambitions and a bomb that could reshape the solar system. They didn't account for an old man with nothing left to lose and an ancient digging tool that still carries the weight of a dead world. This is a story about what we choose to preserve and what we choose to destroy, told through one man's quiet defiance against the hunger of his own species.