"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."
"And now here comes what we've earned--" Rip cut in as the hum of the
riser came to their ears.
"Should we take to cover?" Ali's mobile eyebrows underlined his demand.
"The forces of law and order may erupt with blasters blazing."
But Rip did not move. He faced the riser door squarely and, drawn by
something in that stance of his, the other two stepped in on either side
so that they fronted the dubious future as a united group. Whatever came
now, the Queen's men would meet it together.
In a way Ali was right. The four men who emerged all had their blasters
or riot stun-rifles at ready, and the sights of those weapons were
trained at the middles of the Free Traders.
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