Timothy Zahn - The Green And The Gray

"Let's take a walk," Torvald suggested, stepping to his side and gesturing him ahead. "A walk around a park is always a pleasant way to pass the time."

"You do enjoy pushing the envelope, don't you?" Roger asked, eyeing the trees as they started off, slowing from his usual pace to stay with Torvald and his limp. "How did you find me, anyway?"

"Halfdan's surveillance network spotted Velovsky leaving his home last night and going to your hotel, though of course no one understood the significance of it at the time," Torvald said. "Under the assumption that you, at least, might return there for the night, I sent Garth to watch the place. He overheard you mention the Municipal Building, so I came down to await your appearance."

"I see," Roger said. "How is Garth doing, by the way?"

"Mostly fine," Torvald said, smiling faintly. "Mad enough to chew granite, though."

Roger glanced up at the buildings towering around them. Was Garth up on one of them right now pointing a hammergun in his direction? "I hope he realizes it wasn't personal."

Torvald nodded; agreement or simple acknowledgment, Roger couldn't tell which. "You fooled us all," the Gray said. "You and Jonah both. I take it his whole family is in on this?"

"That's not really something I can discuss."

"And that policeman, too, of course," Torvald continued. "Detective Fierenzo. Yes, you had us nicely fooled. My congratulations on an excellent job."

His eyes met Roger's. "But I need her back," he said, his voice quiet but earnest. "It's the only chance the city has. If the Greens get hold of her, we're all going to die."

"All of us?" Roger countered pointedly. "Or just all of you Grays?"

Torvald's lips compressed into a thin line. "So much for the compassion of Humans," he said, an edge of bitterness in his voice. "Yes, it will be mostly Greens and Grays who will die. Does that make you feel better?"

"Not especially, no," Roger said, his face warming with embarrassment. It had been a stupid thing to say. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way."

"How did you mean it?"

"I was mostly questioning your sales pitch," Roger said. "I don't especially want anyone to die, on either side. But threatening me and the city isn't the way to earn my cooperation."

Torvald shook his head. "It wasn't a threat," he said. "It was a statement of fact. Yes, the Greens are coming mainly for us; but don't think you and your fellow Humans will escape unscathed.

Aleksander and Nikolos fully intend to wipe us out; and if they have to order Damian to bring down every building in Manhattan to accomplish that, they will."

Roger felt his stomach tightening. "I thought you didn't believe Damian was still alive."

"What I never believed was that a Command-Tactician like Nikolos would stand meekly by and let his ultimate weapon be destroyed," Torvald countered darkly. "I knew there was something else going on behind those earnest Green expressions, which is why I never trusted the agreement Halfdan and Cyril worked out to sacrifice Melantha. I simply didn't know what exactly the trick was that the Greens had up their sleeve. Now, we do."

Roger stared at him, the conversation with Jonah and Jordan about competing Groundshakers flashing to mind. "Is that why you snatched her from the courtyard Friday night?" he asked. "You knew about Damian and knew that Melantha was the only person who might be able to counter him?"

"No, on both counts," Torvald said. "I never had even a hint that Damian might be alive until you dropped his name Sunday night." He grimaced. "As for Melantha standing up to him, there's very little chance of that, either. She's far too young to counter an adult Groundshaker."

"Then why take her?" Roger persisted. "So you could kill her and blame it on the Greens?"

Torvald snorted. "You persist on getting things backwards, Roger. Halfdan is the one who worked out this Peace Child plan with Cyril. I never agreed to it."

"Because you wanted war?"

"Because I wanted us to have this out like soldiers, not politicians," Torvald bit out. "What kind of soldier demands the death of a young girl to give himself a battlefield advantage?"

"But you put a tracer on me," Roger protested, feeling his assumptions threatening to slide out from under him. Torvald, the alleged bloodthirsty warmonger, concerned about the method by which victory was obtained? "And then you snatched Melantha away from us."

"What else could I do?" Torvald demanded, his voice still charged with emotion. "Halfdan's sons were perched on the back of one of the buildings and Cyril had half a dozen Greens in trees down the street, all of them patiently waiting for the police to finish up and leave. If Garth and Wolfe hadn't gotten there first, Melantha would have been dead by morning."

"Are you trying to tell me," Roger said slowly, "that you've been holding her in protective custody?"

Torvald exhaled heavily. "What's the point?" he muttered. "She didn't believe me. Why should I expect you to be any smarter?"

Roger stared at him, feeling more adrift than ever. Could Torvald be telling the truth? Melantha had certainly been in good shape when they'd burst in on her a few hours ago; not tied or gagged, looking clean and more or less comfortable, with the remains of a good meal on a tray over on one side of the room. True, her guards had fired on them; but if Torvald was right, the most likely intruders would have been Halfdan's people, who would have taken her away to be killed. "Tell me something," he said. "Why did you move into Manhattan in the first place?"

Torvald smiled tightly. "Don't you really mean, why did I move into Manhattan a block away from a Green homestead?"

"Consider the question rephrased," Roger said. "Why did you?"

Torvald's eyes shifted past him, to the trees rustling in the breeze in the park. "The first few weeks after the unexpected contact between our peoples were very strange," he said, his voice oddly meditative. "Like a combination of cold-war posturing and slow-motion ballet. Both sides were feeling out the other, looking for strengths and weaknesses, maneuvering politically and geographically for future advantage. It seemed to me that we were heading toward the sort of frozen trench warfare that gripped Europe in the first World War."

His eyes came back to Roger's face. "People can't live like that, Roger," he said. "It saps the energy and the will, weaving an element of distraction and fear into both sides' psyches and daily lives.

Worse, it sets the stage for animosities that may never be eliminated. You've seen it happen in a hundred different places on your world. I didn't want that for my people or for the Greens."

He gestured toward the north. "So I decided to force the issue, one way or the other. I moved my family into MacDougal Alley, a street that was probably half owned by Greens at the time. I hoped that would either precipitate a full-fledged shooting war, which would settle things once and for all, or force us to learn to live in peace the way we had in the Great Valley. Either way, it would have been over."

"With one side possibly destroyed?"

"I was hoping we would find wisdom before that happened." Torvald grimaced. "Instead, the Greens found Melantha."

For a minute they walked together in silence. "All right," Roger said at last. "So you say you're on Melantha's side."

"I'm on the Grays' side," Torvald corrected him tartly. "But I also have no interest in seeing her slaughtered like a sacrificial goat." He shook his head. "But matters are out of our hands now, yours and mine both. Your upstate Greens seem to be on the move."

Roger felt his breath catch. "What do you mean?"

"There's a police alert out on five white cargo vans presumably heading this direction from the Catskills," Torvald told him. "Whatever Nikolos was building or preparing up there, he's bringing it to the city. And history suggests that Command-Tacticians never begin something until they're ready to follow through."