Stranger in a Strange Land

'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 words for it before they can do it?"
                "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-SOr1~Y, 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 knows a certain word . . . which might be like asking a two-year-old to define 'calculus.' Proves nothing. I'd like to stick to facts for a moment. Sven? About Agnew?"
                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 bad 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.
                "Both say that they heard a shot. One says that he reached this opening in time to glimpse Agnew past the Martian, who pretty well filled the space between the rocks; they're so big. And then he didn't see him. The second man says that when he got there the Martian was just exiting, simply sailed on past them and went his way-which is characteristically Martian; if he has no business with you, he simply ignores you. With the Martian out of the way they could both see the space between the two rocks . . . and it was a dead end, empty.
                "That's all, gentlemen ... except to say that Agnew might have jumped that rock wall, under Mars' low surface gravity and the impetus of fear-but I could not and I tried-and to mention that these two crewmen were wearing breathing gear-have to, on Mars-and hypoxia can make a man's senses quite unreliable. I don't know that the first crewman was drunk through oxygen shortage; I just mention it because it is an explanation easier to believe than what he reported . . . which is that Agnew simply disappeared~ in the blink of an eye. In fact I