"Why'd you take the job?" I asked.
"Money. I'm sick of the Belt. I want to go back home, to Earth." Her eyes were quite dry by now, and there was a choked sort of fear in them. "I hate it out here. There's death all around you all the time; sometimes it's just outside your skin, on the other side of the fabric of your vac suit. I wanted to get back home. But all the money is out here in the Belt. Back there, it's all eaten up in taxes and welfare, and nobody has a chance to get a job that really pays. So when they offered me the money—" She stopped and closed her eyes. "I'm scared, that's all. I've been scared ever since I came out here. And now—" She shuddered. "And now we're at the mercy of this idiot machine. I get so scared that I get mad, every time I hear his voice."
If somebody had set a thermonuclear bomb off inside my skull, there couldn't have been more sudden illumination.
I patted her on the shoulder. "You may get your money and more besides," I said.
She shook her head. "I wouldn't take their money now."
I stood up. "I think I can talk you into changing your mind, but right now, I think I have a way of getting McGuire to listen to me, thanks to you."
She looked up at me. "What did I do?"
"You threw a book," I said. "That's enough to win you a pardon as far as I'm concerned. You sit tight and don't let on that I know anything. Nobody else knows anything at all. Not even Brentwood. So keep quiet."
She dried her face quickly and stood up, too. "All right. Whatever you say."