While the two were talking, Zen was watching a youth in a loin cloth across the room. Standing erect against the wall, looking as if he were being crucified there, but without making any sound, the youth was slowly vanishing.
While the youth was sliding away, the violin note throbbed softly in the air. As he vanished, it went into silence, ending on a note of triumph.
The lieutenant became suspicious. He scanned the people against the wall.
"I thought there were more—" he muttered. Slowly he counted them. "Thirty-eight," he said. As if to engrave the number on his memory, he repeated it.
Simultaneously, one of the Asian soldiers spoke to him in a swift flow of sound.
Zen could not understand what was being said, but he guessed from the way the soldier pointed to the spot where the fat youth had stood that he was reporting what he had seen happen.
While they were talking the face appeared again in the air high in the middle of the room. The face was that of a man. He was wearing a mustache and he looked around the room with alert brown eyes. Nodding to himself with apparent satisfaction, he vanished.
Down the wall from Zen, a young woman vanished.
She went rapidly, in the flicker of an eye.
A youth standing next in line to her, followed suit.