The Green And The Gray

by Timothy Zahn

  "Only this guy was doing it without assistance," Fierenzo said.

  "Unless he had something hidden under his coat."

  "Maybe," Fierenzo said, looking down the street. "Regardless, he's given the Whittiers a nice little head start on the day."

  "So they've been lying the whole time," Powell said sourly. "Damn. I'd been hoping they really were just innocent bystanders."

  "Don't give up on them just yet," Fierenzo cautioned. "People smart enough to successfully lie to experienced cops like us should also be smart enough not to make their getaway in a cab with big numbers plastered all over it."

  "Good point," Powell said, frowning. "It's almost like they didn't even know we were here."

  Fierenzo nodded. "Which suggests our friend with the noisemaker may have been running interference without their knowledge."

  "Cyril?"

  "Or Aleksander, or Sylvia, or someone whose name we haven't heard yet," Fierenzo said. "Take your pick."

  Powell grimaced. "Who the hell are these people, anyway?"

  "I don't know, but we're going to find out," Fierenzo promised, trudging around the car and climbing into the driver's seat. "Come on, let's see if we can get this thing unstuck."

  "Nothing, I take it?" Roger asked as the cab pulled away from the curb.

  Caroline shook her head, trying hard not to berate herself for not trying to find Melantha last night.

  She tried equally hard not to blame Roger for talking her out of doing so. "If she was there, she isn't anymore."

  "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I guess we should have gone looking for her last night."

  Caroline didn't answer.

  It was still early in the morning, with traffic sparse by New York standards, and the cabby got them down to 14th Street in probably close to record time. After that, it was a straight shot west to Jackson Square.

  They didn't ride the entire way, though. Remembering yesterday's traceable cab ride, Caroline insisted they get off at Fifth Avenue and walk a couple of blocks north before turning west and making for their true destination. It was too early to go knocking on apartment doors, so again at her suggestion they found a deli and went inside for breakfast.

  The meal was a quiet one. Somehow, everything Caroline saw around her—from the cheeses to the thin-sliced meats to the serving girl's dark hair—reminded her of Melantha. Roger was equally quiet as he plowed through his bagel and coffee, but whether he was thinking along the same lines she didn't know.

  They emerged from the deli a little after eight to find that the early-morning sunshine had disappeared behind a ceiling of dark clouds and a light rain was falling. "Perfect," Roger muttered, glancing around and heading for a street vendor with a rack of compact umbrellas prominently displayed beside his magazines and packaged snack foods.

  "You don't need to buy that for me," Caroline told him as he picked out a black one and dug into his pocket for some cash.

  "It's not just for you, sweetheart," Roger assured her, taking her arm with his free hand and popping open the umbrella with the other. "See?" he said, lifting it over their heads and pulling her close beside him. "Instant anonymity."

  "Ah," she said, finally understanding. "Good idea."

  "Thank you," Roger said. "Let's just hope the rain keeps up."

  Velovsky's building turned out to be an old brick structure right across the street from the Jackson Square park. They found the proper intercom button, and with only a slight hesitation Roger pushed it.

  The reply came with surprising promptness. "Yes?"

  "We're looking for Otto Velovsky," Roger said into the grille.

  "You've found him," the voice said briskly. A middle-aged voice, Caroline guessed, belonging to a man probably in his mid-fifties. "Who are you?"

  "Roger and Caroline Whittier," Roger said. "We were told—"

  "Apartment four-twelve," the other cut him off.

  The door buzzed, and Roger pushed it open. The staircase was off to the side, and they climbed to the fourth floor. One of the doors opened as they approached, and a man stepped into the doorway.

  He wasn't the fifty-something man Caroline had expected. He was in fact at least thirty years older than that, with a lined face, a slender build, and a fringe of pure white hair.

  "Come in," he said, beckoning with bony fingers, and Caroline revised her estimate upward even further. Lower nineties at the youngest, possibly even pushing ninety-five, but apparently still quite spry. With Roger's hand gripping her arm nervously, they stepped past him and went inside.

  "We appreciate you seeing us on such short notice, Mr. Velovsky," Caroline said, glancing around the living room as the old man closed the door behind them. The decor was quite homey, with antique-style furniture, a dark carpet, and tasteful wallpaper patterned with small abstract figures.

  There were a couple of framed prints on the wall, and a computer hummed away in a rolltop desk in the far corner. Beside the computer was a mug of gently steaming coffee. "I hope we're not intruding."

  "Not at all," Velovsky assured her, waving them toward a couch with lace-fringed throw pillows scattered around it. "Can I get you some coffee?"

  "No, thanks," Roger put in, his voice sounding a little strained as he glanced around. "You and Aleksander must use the same decorator."

  "Like minds run in like ways," Velovsky said, retrieving his mug from the computer desk and settling into a wing-backed chair across a low coffee table from the couch. "Please; sit down."

  "What exactly did Aleksander tell you about us?" Roger asked as they sat down together on the couch.

  "Nothing at all," Velovsky said. "He simply told me I was to tell you everything." His bright eyes shone as he looked back and forth between them. "I trust you recognize the honor implicit in that request. Aside from me, you'll be the first humans to hear the whole story."

  Caroline felt a shiver run through her. She and Roger had speculated about who the Greens and Grays might be, and had more or less concluded they weren't human. But she hadn't really accepted that conclusion, at least not on a gut level.

  Until now.

  "We're listening," Roger prompted.

  "I'm sure you are." Velovsky took a sip from his mug and set it down on the table. "The year was

  1928," he said, his eyes taking on a faraway look as he leaned back in his chair. "Shiploads of Europeans were pouring weekly into the immigration office on Ellis Island, where I was a very junior forms processing clerk. At about ten-thirty in the morning on a rather warm July twentyseventh, I was sent downstairs to one of the storerooms for a fresh box of medical release forms. I was heading down the hallway when I saw the door to one of the other storerooms standing wide open and a line of dark-haired people coming out of it."

  "Not fellow employees, I presume?" Roger hazarded.

  "Worse than that," Velovsky said. "That particular room wasn't much bigger than a broom closet.

  Clown cars might have been all the rage at Ringling Brothers; but ten people had already come out, and I knew you couldn't get that many people in there.

  "Well, they saw me the same time I saw them, and they weren't any happier about it than I was. The first two in line—big, slender fellows, but with plenty of muscle—came toward me like a pair of lions sizing up the gazelle du jour. They did something with their hands, and suddenly each was sporting a long-bladed and very nasty-looking knife. That was when I realized I was in serious trouble."

  "And they killed you, of course," Roger murmured under his breath.

  "Shh!" Caroline murmured back. "Let him tell it his own way."

  "Yes, Roger, do be patient," Velovsky said. "I've been rehearsing this tale for over seventy-five years, and this is the first time I've been allowed to tell it. Let me savor it a little."

  Roger waved a hand. "Sorry."

  "Thank you," Velovsky said. "At any rate, an older man in the group said something in a foreign language and beckoned me over to where he and a young boy—his twelve-year-old son, I f
ound out later—were standing. With all those knives around me, I decided I'd better do what he wanted. As I came up, he reached out a hand to my forehead and... touched me."

  Velovsky stopped, his eyes drifting to the cityscape outside the window. "I've been trying ever since then to put words to what happened," he said, his voice as distant as his gaze. "But I still haven't found the proper way to do it. It was like I was inside his mind, and he was inside mine, and we were speaking together in the basic underlying core language of the human soul. I could remember his memories; image and sound, smell, touch, and taste. I was looking over his shoulder as he thought, watching his logic and his multiple trains of thought. It was exhilarating and terrifying, alien beyond imagination, twisted and confusing and yet as comfortable as an old sweater."

  Reluctantly, Caroline thought, he brought his eyes back to focus. "They called themselves the Greens. There were sixty of them, refugees from another world."

  "Which one?" Caroline asked.

  "They don't know," Velovsky said. "The stars here are nearly identical to those they could see from their home, though there are a number of subtle differences."

  "An astrophysicist might be able to pin it down," Roger suggested. "They could draw up some star maps for comparison."

  "They could also announce their presence on the eleven o'clock news," Velovsky said tartly.

  "They're trying to keep a low profile, if you hadn't already guessed."

  "But if they don't know where they are, how did they get here?" Caroline asked. "Did they lose their charts afterward?"

  "They didn't have any charts," Velovsky said. "Or navigators, either, at least not the way we use the term. Back on their world their remaining Farseers had been able to pull up images of Earth, and their Leaders decided this was where they would go. The Farseers and remaining Groundshakers were able to throw the transport through space to Earth, bringing it out in the Atlantic somewhere off Long Island."

  "How long did the trip take?" Roger asked.

  Velovsky shrugged. "Apparently instantaneous. The transport was capable of underwater travel, so they brought it to the base of Ellis Island, buried it partway in the silt, and dug a tunnel up to the storage room."

  "Have you seen this transport yourself?" Caroline asked.

  Velovsky nodded. "I was feeling woozy after that contact—so was the Leader, for that matter—so they took us back to the transport to rest while the Lifesingers did some quick healing. I've been down several times since then, just visiting. They use it as a sort of hydroponics farm to grow some of their native herbs and spices."

  "What's it like?" Roger asked.

  "Relatively small, but nicely laid out," Velovsky said. "The fact that it matched with the mental images I'd just been given helped convince me that everything else he'd shown me was genuine, too."

  He smiled. "My boss chewed me out royally when I finally got back upstairs," he added. "He was particularly mad that he couldn't figure out where I'd disappeared to. If he'd only known."

  "Sounds like a lot of unnecessary risk, sneaking into Ellis that way," Roger pointed out. "Why not just come in along the coast of Maine or something?"

  "I don't know how the decision was made," Velovsky said. "I do know they chose the United States deliberately, and I can only assume they'd decided that if they were going to live here they should be official about it. The Greens always look at the long-term aspects."

  "Is Aleksander the Leader you met?" Roger asked.

  "Aleksander's a Persuader, not a Leader," Velovsky said.

  "Can't he be both?"

  "Actually, no, he can't," Velovsky said. "Or rather, a Leader is a Persuader, but the Persuader Gift has to be combined with the Gift of Visionary. They don't have any true Leaders or Visionaries at the moment, and Persuaders are next in line. It's not ideal, but it's the best they have right now."

  "But the one you met was a true Leader?" Caroline asked.

  Velovsky nodded. "Leader Elymas, who unfortunately died within a week of reaching New York.

  I've often wondered if the strain of sharing his mind with me was part of what killed him." His lip twitched. "Or maybe I absorbed a share of his strength and stamina along with those thoughts. I've certainly aged more gracefully than most of my contemporaries."

  "So if Aleksander is their acting leader, what's the story with Cyril?" Roger asked.

  Velovsky grimaced. "Unfortunately, the lack of a true Leader has allowed two factions to form among the Greens," he said. "Aleksander and Cyril each lead one of them."

  "And what's Cyril's job?" Roger continued. "Is he a Persuader, too?"

  "They're Gifts, not positions, "Velovsky corrected. "Special talents Greens are born with that define what they're going to be as adults. And yes, Cyril is also a Persuader."

  "What did you mean by the remaining Farseers and Groundshakers?" Caroline asked. "Was there some sort of catastrophe on their world?"

  "There was indeed," Velovsky said, the corners of his mouth tightening. "Their entire civilization was nearly wiped out in a devastating war."

  "Let me guess," Roger said, his voice graveyard dark. "They were at war with a people who called themselves the Grays."

  "Very good," Velovsky said bitterly. "The same Grays, in fact, who now threaten to destroy everything the Greens have spent the last seventy-five years building. They want to begin the war all over again, to finish what they started on their home world.

  "And to perhaps destroy this world in the process."

  14

  For a long minute the only sound in the room was the quiet popping of the radiator beneath the window. "But why now?" Caroline asked. "Why, after all these years?"

  Velovsky sighed. "That's one of the genuine ironies of this whole situation," he said. "I helped get the Greens get through immigration, figuring they would do best in northern New England or Colorado. But they apparently liked the idea of living in a city for a change, so at Leader Elymas's insistence I set them up in Manhattan. There were certainly enough trees in Central Park for a colony that small."

  "Yes—the trees," Roger pounced. "What's that all about?"

  "The Greens' bodies aren't like anything found on Earth," Velovsky said. "Their cells are much smaller, their whole physical structure far more mutable. They also have a strange—well, let's be honest; a rather parasitic relationship with trees. They can melt their way through the bark and settle into the core of the tree, wrapping themselves into a much smaller volume than you'd expect. While inside, they're able to draw nourishment and strength from the tree's own biological processes."

  "Doesn't sound very efficient," Roger said, sounding doubtful.

  "Efficiency isn't the only consideration," Velovsky pointed out. "A few milligrams of Vitamin C

  make a world of difference for a man with scurvy, after all. If you need something, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, you still need it. In the Greens' case, they need periodic contact with trees."

  "Can they also be healed that way?" Caroline asked, thinking back to Melantha's bruises.

  "To a certain extent," Velovsky said. "Spending time inside trees also nurtures growth, particularly in the children."

  "A block east of Jackson Square," Roger said suddenly.

  "What?" Velovsky asked.

  "I was just remembering how Aleksander described your location," Roger said. "Not Greenwich at Eighth, or the West Village, but across from Jackson Square."

  "Typical Green directions," Velovsky agreed. "They always think in terms of parks and trees."

  Caroline nodded. "And Melantha told me she lived in Inwood Hill Park—"

  "Melantha?" Velovsky cut her off, his eyes widening, his voice suddenly intense. "You know where Melantha is?"

  "Yes, let's talk about Melantha," Roger jumped in before Caroline could answer. "Why does everyone want to kill her?"

  Velovsky hesitated, his eyes shifting back and forth between them. "If you know where Melantha is, it's absolutely vital you tell
Aleksander."

  "So we've heard," Roger said. "You were telling us about Ellis Island?"

  Velovsky eyed him a moment longer, then lowered his gaze. "I got some jobs lined up and found them a nice little building off Central Park for their—well, call it their headquarters. A couple of apartments was all they needed, since they really only used them for official residence purposes.

  Mostly of their off-work time was spent in the park itself."

  "Is that the building on 70th near Central Park West?" Caroline asked. "I saw a lot of Greens listed at that address."

  "Yes," Velovsky confirmed. "They've also spread out over the years."

  "How many of them are there now?" Caroline asked.

  "About eight hundred and fifty," Velovsky said. "Anyway, they settled in, and I'll admit I was feeling pretty proud of myself. Savior of a whole race, and all."

  His lips compressed into a thin line. "I got to feel that way for exactly one week. Seven days after they all moved to Manhattan, forty Grays arrived at Ellis."

  "Through a different storage room, I presume?" Roger asked.

  "Actually, they came in much less dramatically," Velovsky said. "They'd simply parked their transport and waited until a likely refugee ship sailed past. They climbed up the side, mingled with the rest of the passengers, and walked down the gangway half an hour later."

  "They can climb ships, too?" Caroline asked.

  "Ships, buildings, mountains—you name it," Velovsky said. "Anything with enough metal traces in it. They were originally cliff-dwellers back on the Greens' world, you know. Well, no, you probably didn't. Anyway, I recognized them immediately from the images I'd gotten from Leader Elymas's mind, and made sure to deal personally with their case."

  "Sounds like they're the ones who should have gone to Colorado," Caroline suggested.

  "And I tried," Velovsky told her, shaking his head. "Believe me, I tried. But they were as stubborn as the Greens, and they also insisted on New York. It was partly the tall buildings, but I also got the impression they thought they could hide better in the city's ethnic mosaic than someplace where the population was more homogenous. Maybe that's why the Greens wanted New York, too, now that I think about it."