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"I think I'll take Kansas."
"Well," admitted Jubal, "so do I. But it is not a matter of free choice for me, nor for you - nor for Mike. All three of us are prisoners of our early indoctrinations, for it is hard, very nearly impossible, to shake off one's earliest training. Duke, can you get it through your skull that if you had been born on Mars and brought up by Martians, you yourself would have exactly the same attitude toward eating and being eaten that Mike has?"
Duke considered it, then shook his head. "I won't buy it, Jubal. Sure, about most things it's just Mike's hard luck that he wasn't brought up in civilization - and my good luck that I was. I'm willing to make allowances for him. But this is different, this is an instinct."
"'Instinct,' dreck!"
"But it is. I didn't get any 'training at my mother's knee' not to be a ca
Jubal groaned. "Duke, how could you learn so much about machinery and never learn anything about how you yourself tick? That nausea you feel - that's not an instinct; that's a conditioned reflex. Your mother didn't have to say to you, 'Mustn't eat your playmates, dear; that's not nice,' because you soaked it up from our whole culture - and so did I. Jokes about ca
"Your ancestors, maybe. Don't bring mine into it."
"Um. Duke, didn't you tell me you had some Indian blood?"
"Huh? Yeah, an eighth. In the Army they used to call me 'Chief.' What of it? I'm not ashamed of it. I'm proud of it,"
"No reason to be ashamed - nor proud, either, for that matter, But, while both of us certainly have ca
"Why, you bald-headed old-"
"Simmer down! You were going to listen; remember? Ritual ca
"But- All right, all right, I should know better than to argue with you, Jubal; you can always twist things around your way. But suppose we all did come from savages who didn't know any better - I'm not admitting it but just supposing. Suppose we did. What of it? We're civilized now. Or at least I am."
Jubal gri
"Huh?"
"Obvious. If we didn't have a tribal taboo about the matter so strong that you honestly believed it was an instinct, I can think of a long list of people I wouldn't trust with my back turned, not with the price of beef what it is today. Eh?"
Duke grudged a grin. "Maybe you've got something there. I wouldn't want to take a chance on my ex-mother-in-law. She hates my guts."
"You see? Or how about our charming neighbour on the south, who is so casual about other people's fences and live stock during the hunting season? I wouldn't want to bet that you and I wouldn't wind up in his freezer if we didn't have that taboo. But Mike I would trust utterly - because Mike is civilized."
"Huh?"
"Mike is utterly civilized, Martian style. Duke, I don't understand the Martian viewpoint and probably never shall. But I've talked enough with Mike on this subject to know that the Martian practice isn't at all dog-eat-dog� or Martian-eat-Martian. Surely they eat their dead, instead of burying them, or burning them, or exposing them to vultures. But the custom is highly formalized and deeply religious. A Martian is never grabbed and butchered against his will. In fact, so far as I have been able to find out, the idea of murder isn't even a Martian concept. Instead, a Martian dies when he decides to die, having discussed it with and been advised by his friends and having received the consent of his ancestors' ghosts to join them. Having decided to die, he does so, as easily as you close your eyes - no violence, no lingering illness, not even an overdose of sleeping pills. One second he is alive and well, the next second he's a ghost, with a dead body left over. Then, or maybe later (Mike is always vague about time factors) his closest friends eat what he no longer has any use for, 'grokking' him, as Mike would say, and praising his virtues as they spread the mustard. The new ghost attends the feast himself, as it is sort of a bar mitzvah or confirmation service by which the ghost attains the status of 'Old One' - becomes an elder statesman, if I understand it."
Duke made a face of disgust. "God, what superstitious junk! Turns my stomach."
"Does it? To Mike it's a most solemn - but joyful-religious ceremony."
Duke snorted, "Jubal, you don't believe that stuff about ghosts, do you? Oh, I know you don't. It's just ca
"Well, now, I wouldn't go that far. I admit that I find these Martian 'Old Ones' a little hard to swallow - but Mike speaks of them as matter-of-factly as we talk about last Wednesday. As for the rest - Duke, what church were you brought up in?" Duke told him; Jubal nodded and went on: "I thought it might be; in Kansas most belong to yours or to one enough like it that you would have to look at the sign out in front to tell the difference. Tell me� how did you feel when you took part in the symbolic ca
Duke stared at him. "What the devil do you mean?"
Jubal blinked solemnly back. "Were you actually a church member? Or were you simply sent to Sunday School as a kid?"
"Huh? Why, certainly I was a church member. My whole family was. I still am� even though I don't go much."
"I thought perhaps you weren't entitled to receive it, But apparently you are, so you know what I'm talking about, if you stop to think." Jubal stood up suddenly. "But I don't belong to your church nor to Mike's, so I shan't attempt to argue the subtle differences between one form of ritual ca
" Duke frowned. "Reckon I'll stay."
"Suit yourself. Because from this moment forward I wash my hands of any responsibility for your safety. You saw those movies; if you're bright enough to hit the floor with your hat, you've figured out that this man-Martian we've got staying with us can be unpredictably dangerous."