Rip broke the silence with a question aimed at the tech. "Can you signal below?"
"Going to give up?" The fellow brightened. "Yes, there's an inter-com I can cut in."
Rip stood up. He unbuckled the belt about his waist and laid it on the table—disarming himself. Without words Ali and Dane followed his example. They had played their hand—to prolong the struggle would mean nothing. The acting Captain of the Queen gave a last order:
"Tell them we are coming down unarmed—to surrender." He paused in front of Hovan. "You'd better stay here. If there's any trouble—no reason for you to be caught in the middle."
Hovan nodded as the three left the room. Dane, remembering the trick he had pulled with the riser, made a comment:
"We may be marooned here—"
Ali shrugged. "Then we can just wait and let them collect us." He yawned, his dark eyes set in smudges. "I don't care if they'll just let us sleep the clock around afterwards. D'you really think," he addressed Rip, "that we've done ourselves any good?"
Rip neither denied nor confirmed. "We took our only chance. Now it's up to them—" He pointed to the wall and the teeming world which lay beyond it.
Ali grinned wryly. "I note you left the what-you-call-it with Hovan."
"He wanted one to experiment with," Dane replied. "I thought he'd earned it."