The weapon passed through the face without harming it. "You fool! That's a projection, not a real person!" Cuso shouted. He grabbed the officer by the shoulder and spun him backward to the floor. "Who are you?" he demanded of the face. It smiled at him. Zen repressed the impulse to shout. He knew what was going to happen next. "I said, _Who are you?_" Cuso shouted again. The crash of something in the gallery jerked his attention away. Twisting his head around, he saw that one of the soldiers engaged in carrying the loot of this cavern out to the plane waiting to hurry it to Asia, had collapsed on the floor. Under ordinary circumstances, Cuso would have had the man summarily executed. But with that face smiling at him out of nothing, these circumstances were not ordinary. Zen, knowing what was going to happen, forgot the pain of his burned fingers and toes. He could feel it creeping over him in waves. This time he did not resist it: He let his eyes close. When he opened them, the torturer was snoring beside him. Every Asian in the big gallery was sound asleep. People were crowding around him. The new people. In a sweeping glance, he recognized every person he had met here, except Nedra, and he did not see her at first because she was busy bandaging his hands. West was smiling down at him with an expression that was somehow grandfatherly. But back of West's smile was perturbation. Zen started to get to his feet and discovered they had not as yet removed the ropes from his legs. As one did this, Nedra clucked reprovingly at him and tried to tell him that he was wounded. He said this did not matter. Faces were here that he did not recognize. This did not matter either. "You did this?" he said to West. "Yes. I designed and built the equipment. Others were operating it in this instance." West had something else on his mind. "Thanks," Zen said. "Why didn't you take me with you when you went--wherever it was you went?" "We couldn't," West answered. "You haven't had the training." "Why did you come back?" "To rescue you. Kurt--" West had something that he wanted to say. "Nedra, will you stop fussing with me? I'm all right." "But your poor hands and feet." "I don't even feel them. I won't have them to feel at all unless action is taken. Don't you understand. Somewhere in Asia they're getting ready to launch a super bomb. Or maybe it's already on its way." "I didn't know," the girl said. "The big one?" "Yes." A flicker of pain crossed her face and she shook her head. "I always wondered what it would be like to live on a mud flat. I wonder if we will be oysters, or eels. Or maybe crabs." "What the hell are you talking about?" Zen demanded. "After the bomb goes off," the girl said. "What then?"