When Mike got inside the house, he went straight upstairs to his room, closed the door, got on the bed, assumed the foetal position, rolled up his eyes, swallowed his tongue, and slowed his heart almost to nothing.  He knew that Jill did not like him to do this in the daytime, but she did not object as long as he did not do it publicly.  There were so many things that he must not do publicly, but only this one really aroused her ire.  He had been waiting to do this ever since he had left that room of terrible wrongness; he needed very badly to withdraw and try to grok all that had happened.  For he had done something else that Jill had told him not to. He felt a very human urge to tell himself that it had been forced on him, that it was not his fault; but his Martian training did not permit him this easy escape.  He had arrived at a cusp, right action had been required, the choice had been his.  He grokked that he had chosen correctly.  But his water brother Jill had forbidden this choice - but that would have left him no choice.  This was contradiction; at a cusp, choice is.  By choice, spirit grows.