Free Equilateral by Ken Kalfus

that when we behold Mars, we’re witnessing the manifestation of Darwin’s theories on the grandest planetary scale. In demonstrating that Earth’s terraqueous state is but a phase of planetary evolution, Mars permits us a vision of our own future, existential and moral. Our planet too is destined to lose its oceans and great lakes. Earth’s orbit runs closer to the sun, so our sphere will become even hotter and drier than Mars. The deserts will spread like an infection, until water becomes as precious for us as it is for our neighbors. What will civilized man do in that event? Following the Arab’s example, he may fall into dissolution, unable to survive the climactic transformation. He may turn barbarous, atavistic, and idle. He may forget the sciences and arts that he invented, just as the Arab lost his mastery of mathematics and astronomy.
    Or he may choose not to. After proving his capabilities in excavating the Equilateral, man will be ready to learn fromMars how to assemble the social, spiritual, and material resources necessary to survive a dehydrating planet. Mars may well be the force that makes us truly civilized, truly kind to each other, wise, prudent, responsible to the natural world, courageous in facing our global challenges, and, paradoxically, truly human. Contact and communication with Mars must be the next step in human evolution. This is what Thayer believes and what he has told his audiences.

Thirteen
    The heat demands that they travel after the sun goes down. Two lines of camels transport the swaying, muttering fellahin. He rides among them, dozing in his Bedouin saddle. Every so often the beast’s missteps jolt him awake, and Thayer is momentarily surprised to find himself there, the animal beneath him skeletal, sinewy, and hideous. The dead country is hideous too. No token of intelligence lies within his sight …
    … Until he lifts his head. The Milky Way spills across the sky in a riot of light, its component stars rampaging from Sagittarius to Cassiopeia. Thayer wishes that he was already returned to Point A, where he can open the observatory. The plodding steps of his dromedary reminds the astronomer that on his own planet man lives as solitary as an anchorite on a wave-battered rock. His only companions are the animals over which he holds dominion: he can ride them, he can harness them, he can pet them, he can expect loyalty from some, and he can eat and skin them. But he can’t converse with them, not profitably.
    Yet each of these stars may illuminate a world on which dwell creatures no less conscious than man; they may enjoy an intelligence and an appreciation of existence more advancedthan our own, perhaps far more advanced. Their worlds may have been in contact since men lived in caves. The sky may be congested with intellects and as lively and swarming and raucous as the Soho Bazaar on the Saturday before Christmas. We can’t hear their voices, but at this very moment sophisticated minds call to each other across the tangled, overgrown sky: instructing, inspiring, debating, and sharing their joys and sorrows.
    The dragoman murmurs, “I believe it has been written so. The Forty-second sura.”
    Thayer was unaware that he was speaking. He thought the translator riding alongside him was asleep. The man’s a young Cairene, with a jet-black beard and a neatly pressed galabiya, yet his eyelids are heavy and creased, heightening the typical impression of shiftiness. As dragomen go, he’s been competent enough, though Thayer can’t trust him to render fully what he’s said to the fellahin or what the fellahin have replied.
    “The Prophet,” the dragoman says, taking note of Thayer’s confusion. “The verse in the Quran: ‘And one of His signs is the creation of the heavens and the Earth and what He has spread forth in both of them of living beings.’”
    “I doubt that applies,” Thayer snaps. “Mohammed was an illiterate trader nine hundred years before Copernicus. He