"At least, they do not seem to be here," the craggy man answered. Again his voice had the deep boom of a bell in it. "That is interesting," Cuso said. "I find it so," West answered. "How was it done?" West spread his hands in a gesture that said something, or nothing. "Perhaps it would be best to ask them." "You know." The words were a statement, not a question. "It could be," West answered. "Then how?" Cuso's words sounded like the snap of a bear trap closing. "I want to know how it was done. No alibis. No evasions. No excuses. Just the truth." The tone of his voice carried the threat of violence with it. West smiled. "Have I alibied or evaded? Did you not see everything in our center here?" "I saw many things. That I saw all I do not know." "You saw what the colonel here--" the craggy man nodded toward Zen, "--called my super radar." "Did you show him that?" Zen demanded. "Of course. I have no secrets from the great Asian. Besides, has he not promised me a commission as a marshal in the armed forces of his land?" The words were easily spoken but Zen knew that West was actually stalling for time. What was he waiting for? Was it the appearance again of the face that had looked from the air in the center of the room? Were the vanished people to reappear, armed with new weapons, and take the Asians prisoners? "To hell with his commission!" Zen shouted. "He'll never make good on his promise." "Shut up, both of you!" Cuso shouted. His voice was a bull bellow of sound that roared back from the walls of the gallery and was echoed from the tunnels that led outward. "You are stalling. You are trying to trick me." West was silent. "My dog here says the people vanished." Cuso kicked his lieutenant again to indicate who was meant. "Howl, dog!" The lieutenant obeyed. He was in such a state of mind that if Cuso had told him to die, he would probably have obeyed, as a result of terror and suggestion. "Do you want to howl like a dog too?" Cuso said to West. "Really, the possibility does not concern me," the craggy man answered. "Did you have that in mind for me?" The tone was conversational. "West, this is no time to go over," Zen growled. "I have no such intention, colonel." "You admitted once that what you wanted most to do was to join the bronze youth. I'm asking you--" "_Shut up!_" Cuso screamed. "The next person to open his mouth without my permission I will have shot out of hand." "Ah," West said. The Asian leader started to shout an order at his soldiers to shoot the craggy man, then changed his mind as he realized that even though he had the weapons and the men, there was nothing he could gain by killing the goose that might possibly lay a golden egg. As much as he wanted to have West killed, for defying him, he knew he would have to save this pleasure until later.