Stranger in a Strange Land

do you mean, it can't? It already did." Harshaw added, "If we I had used doppler-radar in place of each of those cameras, I wonder what ~ they would have shown?"
                "How should I know? I'm going to take both these cameras apart."
                "Don't bother."
                "But-"
                "Don't waste your time, Duke; the cameras are all right. What is exactly ninety degrees from everything else?"
                "I'm no good at riddles."
                "It's not a riddle and I meant it seriously. I could refer you to Mr. A. Square from Flatland, but I'll answer it myself. What is exactly at right angles to everything else? Answer: two dead bodies, one old pistol, and an empty liquor case."
                "What the deuce do you mean, Boss?"
                "I never spoke more plainly in my life. Try believing what the cameras see instead of insisting that the cameras must be at fault because what they saw was not what you expected. Let's see the other films."
                Harshaw made no comment as they were shown; they added nothing ~ to what he already knew but did confirm and substantiate. The ash tray when floating near the ceiling had been out of camera angle, but its leisurely descent and landing had been recorded. The pistol's image in the:' stereo tank was quite small but, so far as could be seen, the pistol had done just what the box appeared to have done: shrunk away into the far distance~ without moving. Since Harshaw had been gripping it tightly when it had shrunk out of his hand, he was satisfied-if "satisfied" was the right word, he added grumpily to himself. "Convinced" at least.
                "Duke, when you get time, I want duplicate prints of all of those."
                Duke hesitated. "You mean I'm still working here?"
                "What? Oh, damn it! You can't eat in the kitchen, and Duke, try to cut your local prejudices out of the circuit and just while. Try really hard."
                "I'll listen."
                "When Mike asked for the privilege of eating my stringy old carcass, he was doing me the greatest honor that he knew of-by the only rules he knows. What he had 'learned at his mother's knee,' so to speak. Do you savvy that? You heard his tone of voice, you saw his manner. He was paying me his highest compliment-and asking of me a boon. You see? Never mind what they think of such things in Kansas; Mike uses the values taught him on Mars."
                "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 cannibal. Hell, I didn't need it; I've always known it was a sin-a nasty one. Why, the mere thought of it makes my stomach do a flip-flop. It's a basic instinct."
                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 cannibals and missionaries, cartoons, fairy tales, horror stories, endless little things. But it has nothing to do with instinct. Shucks, son, it couldn't possibly be instinct . . . because cannibalism is historically one of the most widespread of human customs, extending through every branch of the human race. Your ancestors, my ancestors, everybody."
                "Your ancestors, maybe. Don't bring mine into