Lor crowded behind him. "Let me go, my father—"
"You'll follow." Boone clipped it. "You've got a job; me—I don't matter."
On, up the ladder; then through other hatches.
Still silence. Still no sign of crewmen.
At last, the control room. Boone's heart pounding, pounding.
He stepped through the entrance.
But this cell, too, lay empty.
Slick-palmed, taut nerves quaking, Boone waved on the others.
They came in. Their breathing rasped loud in the stillness. Boone tightened his grip on the blaster.
Lor moved to the rear, to the converter chamber. "Perhaps here—" He pushed open the hatch-door.