 Why is there a microphone in Craig's hotel room?
Rootless and footloose, a man in space can't help but dream of coming home. Flight Officer Robert Craig surrendered the tube containing his service record tapes and stood waiting while the bored process clerk examined the seal. He felt anxiety as the much-handled card refused for a time to match the instrument's metal contact points. He crossed the long, dreary room, knowing the eyes of the other men were upon him. "No specific destination," supplied the man as he punched a key on a small instrument, "Air-lock ahead and to your right. The knowledge that much of it was motivated by envy soothed him as he clumsily let himself into the lock. "Place your clothing in the receptacle provided and assume a stationary position on the raised podium in the center of the lock." Craig obeyed the robot voice and began reluctantly to remove his flight jacket. "Insert your right arm into the instrument on the central table," commanded the same voice he had heard before. He was uncomfortable; Wyandotte seemed to know all about him. "Mr. Craig, I suppose you've guessed that the next step in our little torture system here is psych." It helps suppress certain physiological reactions to an entirely new set of conditions. Channels of the ear, for example. During the days that followed, the psychologist seemed to Craig to become progressively more didactic. He had weathered difficult landings on worlds with rip-tide gravities, had felt the pull of the incredible star-tides imparted by twin and even triple star systems.
 Terran society has become increasingly controlling of its citizens.
 Terran society has become increasingly controlling of its citizens.  The hotel manager bugs all the rooms to blackmail the guests.  Wyandotte put the microphone there to monitor Craig's adjustment to Terran society.  The Intergalactic Space Service put the microphone in Craig's room to keep tabs on him.