"We'll have them on their knees in—huh? What was that you just said? What was that?" Desperation appeared in the colonel's voice.
West repeated his words.
"Then why didn't you warn us?" Zen felt each word sting as it left his lips. "Why didn't you warn us? Why did you let so many of us die so unnecessarily?"
West did not answer.
The silence in the room grew deeper. Cold had begun to appear in the air. On the screen, the silent figures continued busily engaged in the building of their bomb.
"Don't you realize that your failure to report what you knew is high treason?" Zen continued.
The silence grew. West sat as solid and as immobile as a mountain. Nedra seemed to have shrunk in upon herself still farther. More than ever she looked like a very small girl who had somehow managed to intrude into a world of adults and was tremendously confused and hurt by what was happening here.
"Don't you hear me?" Zen said.
"I hear you," West answered. "Your loyalty to your country does you credit, colonel. It is to be expected from a person in your stage of development. However, you seem to have forgotten that I am not a citizen of your country. Or perhaps you did not know this?"
"Not a citizen?" Zen said. "But this mountain exists in America. I don't know whether it is actually on Canadian ground or lies in the United States, but this does not matter. By mutual treaty, the countries have become one nation. A citizen of one is automatically a citizen of the other."