He didn't like where this was taking him. His hand slid toward the tangle gun in his pocket. "Maybe I should die, too."
She nodded. "That would be one solution." She added harshly: "They shouldn't have taken you. Legally speaking, you're not a criminal. But I couldn't investigate you personally before I put the circuit in."
Why not? Was she an automaton that reacted in response to a button? In a way she was, but the button was psychological.
"That doesn't help me," he said tiredly. "The police wanted to catch Burlingame through me. That's right, isn't it?"
She indicated that it was.
"I did, without knowing what I was doing," he went on. "Now I want out. Even if I cooperated with the cops, which I'm not going to do, I'm of no further value to them. Every criminal on Venus knows about me by now."
"That's part of it," she said. "But there's more. You've tied up the machine and neither I nor the police can use it."
Explanations were coming faster. It was no wonder the police wanted him badly. They had a perfect device to use against criminals, which was all they were concerned with, and they couldn't use it as long as the circuit was in him. It made sense, but that kind of logic was deadly—for him.
"I'll face it," he said. "I'll take whatever charge they hang on me. It shouldn't be more than a few years. You can use the time to take this damn thing out of me. Only I want a guarantee first."