“Just a moment,” Caxton protested. “Captain, even so—Mars attack us? Mars? You know more about these things than I do, but wouldn’t that be about like us attacking Jupiter? I mean to say, we have about two and a half times the surface gravity that Mars has, just as Jupiter has about two and a half times our surface gravity. Somewhat analogous differences, each way, on pressure, temperature, atmosphere, and so forth. We couldn’t stay alive on Jupiter… and I don’t see how Martians could stand our conditions. Isn’t that true?”
“Close enough,” admitted van Tromp.
“Then tell me why we should attack Jupiter? Or Mars attack us?”
“Mmm… Ben, have you seen any of the proposals to attempt a beach head on Jupiter?”
“Yes, but—Well, nothing has ever gotten beyond the dream stage. It isn’t practical.”
“Space flight wasn’t practical less than a century ago. Go back in the files and see what your own colleagues said about it—oh, say about 1940. These Jupiter proposals are, at best, no farther than drawing board—but the engineers working on them are quite serious. They think that, by using all that we’ve learned from deep ocean exploration, plus equipping men with powered suits in which to float, it should be possible to put human beings on Jupiter. And don’t think for a moment that the Martians are any less clever than we are. You should see their cities.”
“Uh—” said Caxton. “Okay, I’ll shut up. I still don’t see why they would bother.”
“Captain?”
“Yes, Jubal?”
“I see another objection—a cultural one. You know the rough division of cultures into ‘Apollonian’ and ‘Dionysian.’”
“I know in general what you mean.”
“Well, it seems to me that even the Zuni culture would be called ‘Dionysian’ on Mars. Of course, you’ve been there and I haven’t—but I’ve been talking steadily with Mike. That boy was raised in an extremely Apollonian culture—and such cultures are not aggressive.”
“Mmm… I see your point—but I wouldn’t count on it.”
Mahmoud said suddenly, “Skipper, there’s strong evidence to support Jubal’s conclusion. You can analyse a culture from its language, every time—and there isn’t any Martian word for ‘war.’” He stopped and looked puzzled. “At least, I don’t think there is. Nor any word for ‘weapon’ nor for ‘fighting.’ If a word for a concept isn’t in a language, then its culture simply doesn’t have the referent the missing word would symbolize.”
“Oh, twaddle, Stinky! Animals fight—and ants even conduct wars. Are you trying to tell me they have to have
“I mean exactly that,” Mahmoud insisted, “when it applies to any verbalizing race. Such as ourselves. Such as the Martians—even more highly verbalized than we are. A verbalizing race has words for every old concept… and creates new words or new definitions for old words whenever a new concept comes along. Always! A nervous system that is able to verbalize cannot avoid verbalizing; it’s automatic. If the Martians know what ‘war’ is, then they have a word for it.”
“There is a quick way to settle it,” Jubal suggested. “Call in Mike.”
“Just a moment, Jubal,” van Tromp objected. “I learned years ago never to argue with a specialist; you can’t win. But I also learned that the history of progress is a long, long list of specialists who were dead wrong when they were most certain—sorry, Stinky.”
“You’re quite right, Captain—only I’m not wrong this time.”
“As may be, all Mike can settle is whether or not he
Nelson answered, “It’s up to you, Captain.”
“Well… this is still private conversation among water brothers, gentlemen. Lieutenant Agnew was our junior medical officer. Quite brilliant in his line, Sven tells me, and I had no complaints about him otherwise; he was well-enough liked. But he had an unsuspected latent xenophobia. Not against humans. But he couldn’t stand Martians. Now I had given orders against going armed outside the ship once it appeared that the Martians were peaceful—too much chance of an incident.
“Apparently young Agnew disobeyed me—at least we were never able to find his personal side arm later and the two men who last saw him alive say that he was wearing it. But all my log shows is: ‘Missing and presumed dead.’
“Here is why. Two crewmen saw Agnew go into a sort of passage between two large rocks rather scarce on Mars; mostly it’s monotonous. Then they saw a Martian enter the same way… whereupon they hurried, as Dr. Agnew’s peculiarity was well known.
