"And lost all this?" she asked. "Lost the easy living. The good drinking. The fellowship of lost souls. And the hope. Don't forget that. Always the hope that Kimon can be cracked."
"Can it?"
"I don't know. But if I were you, Buster, I wouldn't count on it."
"But it's no kind of a life for decent - "
"Don't say it. We aren't decent people. We are scared and weak, every one of us. And with good reason."
"But the life - "
"You don't lead a decent life, if that was what you were about to say. There's no stability in us. Children? A Few of us have children and it's not so bad for the children as it is for us, because they know nothing else. A child who is born a slave is better off, mentally, than a man who once knew freedom."
"We aren't slaves," said Bishop.
"Of course not," Maxine said. "We can leave any time we want to. All we got to do is walk up to a native and say "I want to go back to Earth." That's all you need to do. Any single one of them could send you back - swish - just like they send the letters, just like they whisk you to your work or to your room."
"But no one has gone back."