"Morrie also knocked Bill Drake into the machinery," she said. She was calling Morrie by a single name and me by my full name. Suddenly I sensed that in using my complete name she was not being formal. On the contrary, she had turned it into a term of endearment. It was as if she savored the full name, rather than any kind of abbreviation. "Humph! And are you sure you never, at any time, encouraged Mr. Grover to make these--uh--advances?" "Of course not!" Spartan turned to Morrie. "What do you have to say?" It was obvious that he hoped Morrie could successfully refute the story told by Gail. Morrie shrugged, his whole manner noncommittal. "I want an answer," said Spartan. "Is she telling the truth?" He was driving for the answer he wanted. Morrie breathed deeply. "What is the truth, Dr. Spartan?" he asked. "Surely you know the truth." An incredulous look sprang to his face. "Don't act so damned dogmatic. The truth can be a dozen different things. Right now I don't know what's real and what isn't. Nothing is the same out here as it was on the earth. Everything familiar is millions of miles away. Even the earth looks like a star in the sky and it takes a telescope to see the moon. Stars whirl like a merry-go-round and the sun is smaller and has a corona, which we never see at home except during an eclipse. We travel in something different from any vehicle ever dreamed of, powered by something nothing else runs by. We don't wear clothes, we wear gym suits. Our meals are dehydrated food and hybrid vegetables. And our drinking water is distilled from urine! We have centrifugal force for gravity and we even have a marriage that isn't real." "The rest of us have adjusted ourselves to these conditions," said Spartan sternly, obviously disappointed at the turn the conversation had taken. "Do you really think so?" Morrie asked. "I'm not so sure. We're living under conditions that are decidedly upsetting. It wouldn't take much to push any of us over the edge into a psychosis. Nothing is real, not even our thoughts, because our world is totally different." Spartan's lips pressed together. Then he asked: "Is this your excuse?" "Gail Loring is the only real thing aboard. That's because she's a woman and I'm a man. The only thing traveling with us that we knew on earth is sex." Having had his say, he took on a hangdog look, as if putting himself on the mercy of the court. "Bah! A flimsy defense." Spartan's tone was not convincing. He was too much aware of sex himself. "Then if it's not a defense or an excuse, it's a reason why I went mad for a few minutes," Grover said. "Perhaps I'm not justified by earth standards, but those standards don't exist here. You said so yourself. All I thought of was that she was a woman. I didn't think of the consequences. I thought of myself."