The Last Horsell Martian
SECOND PRIZE
The Last Horsell Martian by Claire Marie Suzanne Dane
When a population comes into contact with a new infection, the effects can be devastating. In medieval times, the Black Death carried off half the people in Western Europe and, in the early sixteenth century, over eighty percent of the Taíno people on Hispaniola were wiped out by the first smallpox outbreak. Nor is this pattern restricted to humanity: in the second half of the twentieth century, Dutch Elm Disease killed around 30 million trees in Great Britain alone and a few decades later the chytrid fungus began to sweep through amphibian populations across the planet, and has caused the extinction of over 100 species. These events are rightly viewed as humanitarian or ecological disasters, with one sole exception: the destruction of the Martian invasion at the beginning of the twentieth century by contact with Earth bacteria, which was celebrated as a great victory and the salvation of humanity by Mr Wells in his now-famous chronicle.
What of the survivors? They are the hope of their species. Their genome contains the information necessary to combat and defeat these deadly diseases. There is a strong chance that their offspring will be similarly resistant: if a viable number of individuals survive a plague, they might just be able to rebuild a stronger, healthier population. Did the last Horsell Martian recognise its own importance for the future of its kind on Earth? Its very survival owed something to its position in the vanguard: remaining on Horsell Common, it avoided the tsunami of human germs that engulfed its compatriots. Yet even this restricted exposure to Earth bacteria was very nearly fatal. During the initial agony of sickness, its thoughts were only of pain and hatred; the conflict between the urge to survive and longing for the oblivion of death; but later, when recovery was certain, the weight of responsibility must surely have weighed heavily upon its shoulders. If it had had shoulders, that is.
After the others had left Horsell Common, this Martian remained at the Sandpits, tasked with monitoring their progress and relaying reports to the Home Planet. It began constructing a communications array from the remains of the first Cylinder. Working alone, in the stifling Earth air, this laborious task took four Earth days. Although confident in its innate superiority to the Earthlings, this was an anxious time for the creature, too distant to communicate by thought with its fellows, and it was a relief once contact with the landing parties was re-established and reports of their continued triumphs began to flood in. It was strange how anxiety made the days seem long, even though in reality they were a fraction shorter than the rotation of Mars. It was another day before the Martian was able to link to the Home Planet and begin transmitting reports; more anxious hours of waiting for a response until finally a terse ‘message received’ code lit up the array, and the creature’s leathery brown skin pulsed with the relief of a job satisfactorily done.