"Do you want to return?" Beth asked. "Your future lies here. With us."
Harris considered that. After a long moment he nodded. "Very well. Give me back the gun. I'll handle the five Darruui outside."
Coburn handed him the disruptor he had dropped. Harris grasped the butt of the weapon, smiled, and said, "I could kill some of you now, couldn't I? It would take at least a fraction of a second to stop me. I could pull the trigger once."
"You won't," Beth said.
He stared at her. "You're right."
He rode down alone in the gravshaft and made his way down the street to the place where his five countrymen waited. It was very dark now, though the lambent glow of street-lights brightened the path.
The stars were out in force now, bedecking the sky. Up there somewhere was Darruu. Perhaps now was the time of the Mating of the Moons, he thought. Well, never mind; it did not matter now.
They were waiting for him. As he approached Carver said, "You took long enough. Well?"
Harris thought of the squirming ropy thoughts that nestled in the other's brain like festering living snakes. He said, "All dead. Didn't you get my signal?"