The Martian War Read Online Free PDF Page A

across his face. The immense line in the sand stretched into a shimmer of mirage. Just a ditch, many miles long, extending to meet two others in what his surveyors guaranteed would be a perfect equilateral triangle … .
    Looking at the plans in the tent with Moreau on their first night, he thought their symbol looked laughably small when viewed in perspective against the backdrop of the whole African continent. Lowell despised the thought that his work might prove to be insignificant. “Even if we achieve our goals, Moreau, we have accomplished little more than a gnat, compared to what the Martians have done.”
    “Nonsense!” Moreau always talked too loudly, as if he hadnever learned a normal conversational tone. “Their task would have been much simpler, given that Martian gravity is only a third of Earth’s.” He thumped his fingers on the top of the small worktable. Moreau’s numerous notebooks lay around the tent. “Based on current theories of evolution, such Martians could be twenty-one times as efficient and have eighty-one times the effective strength of an Earthman.” He held the kerosene lamp closer to the map. “For such a species, the project of planetary canals seems neither difficult nor unlikely.”
    Lowell had done the excavation mathematics himself, letting the engineers double-check his work. Three trenches, each ten miles long, five yards wide, filled with liquid to a depth of an inch or so, equaled thousands and thousands of gallons of petroleum distillate, naphtha, kerosene. Convoys traveled endlessly across the Sahara.
    Although it was a huge investment, what better way could Lowell spend his money, than to make a mark upon the Earth itself—and upon history?
    But they had to hurry. Hurry.
    * * *
    Finally.
    Finally. Lowell had never been a man of extraordinary patience, but the last week of waiting for the trenches to join at precise corners had seemed the most interminable time of his life.
    Now, under the starlight and residual heat that wafted off the sands, Lowell stood with torch in hand like a tribal shaman, ready to send a symbol of welcome to aliens fromanother world. Moreau would be standing at a second distant corner of the triangle, along with his work crew supervisor.
    The stench of petroleum distillates stung his eyes and nostrils. The convict workers had all been shipped back to Algiers or distant Saharan outposts. The chemical smell had driven off the camels and most of the workers. A few European foremen had stayed to watch the spectacle, and curious Tuaregs gathered by their tents to observe. This would be an event their tribal storytellers would repeat for generations.
    Lowell turned to the telegraph operator beside him. Miles of overland cable had been run to the vertices of the great triangle. “Signal Dr. Moreau and Mr. Lewisham at the intersections. Tell them to light their channels.”
    The telegraph operator pecked away at his key, sending a brief message. When the clicks fell into silence, Lowell stepped to the brink of his canal in the sand. He stared into the bitumen-lined trench at the foul-smelling black mass that was now pooled with kerosene and gasoline.
    Lowell tossed his torch into the fuel, then watched the fire rush down the channel like a hungry demon. The inferno devoured the petroleum, its flames hot enough to ignite the sticky bitumen liner so that the triangular symbol would burn for a long time.
    Across the desert night, rifle shots rang out, signaling to torch-bearers stationed along the miles of each canal, who also tossed their burning brands into the ditch.
    Lowell’s family had amassed its fortune in textiles, in landholdings, in finance. His maternal grandfather was Abbott Lawrence, minister to Britain. His father, Augustus, was descended from early Massachusetts colonists. But Percival Lowell himself would make the greatest mark—on two worlds instead of one.
    An unbroken wall of flame roared into the night. He prayed the Martians were