Timothy Zahn - The Green And The Gray

"I'll hold onto them for now," Fierenzo said. "If your friends want to see them, they're welcome to come down here and discuss it."

"I'll tell them that," Green said, circling the table. "I can find my own way out."

"I'm sure you can," Fierenzo said, stepping out of his way. "The officer down the hall will make sure you don't get lost. Good-bye, Mr. Green."

Silently, Green pulled the door open and left the room, leaving it ajar behind him. Fierenzo watched long enough to make sure the duty cop down the hall was escorting him to the exit, then returned to his chair and sat down. Swiveling the sketches around to face him, he spread them out again.

There had been something about the boy's picture that had been nagging at him earlier. Now, having given his subconscious time to mull it over, it practically leaped off the paper at him.

The boy was a younger version of his new houseguest Jonah. Brothers, most likely, or at least close cousins.

He leaned back in his chair, scowling. Yet another puzzle piece that didn't seem to connect with any of the others in his collection. This kid was almost certainly the Jordan that Jonah had been talking to back in his kitchen, the Jordan who was apparently sitting somewhere near Canal Street collecting traffic reports.

Only from the way the rest of the conversation had gone, he had the feeling that it was actually Jonah, not Jordan, who was supposed to be on spotter duty out there.

But what it was all ultimately about, he still didn't have a clue.

With a sigh, he gathered the sketches back into a pile. He might not know what was going on, but he would bet dollars to donuts that Jonah did. Actually, from the way the other had been behaving earlier, he'd rather expected him to have shown up here already. Apparently, he'd decided catching up on his sleep was a higher priority.

Which was fine with Fierenzo. He was going to have to spend the next couple of hours here anyway, trying to come up with something plausible to write about this case.

Once the paperwork was done, though, there was definitely going to be an earnest little conversation back at the apartment. Folding the sketches lengthwise, he slid them into his inside coat pocket and headed back to his desk.

"Before we continue," Aleksander said when they were all seated in the living room, "I'd like to apologize to you, Roger, for Sylvia's behavior yesterday morning. I'm afraid she was a bit overzealous in her desire to obtain your cooperation. Please understand that what we do, we do for the best."

"I'm not sure 'overzealous' even begins to cover it," Roger countered, his heart pounding painfully in his ears. Aleksander, the Persuader. Was that how they intended to get Melantha back? "She was trying to use the Persuader's Gift on me, wasn't she?"

" 'Trying' being the operative word," Aleksander said, smiling faintly. "At best, it was pure intimidation. At worst, it was probably fairly ludicrous. Sylvia has no more ability to persuade than a three-year-old finger-painter could reproduce a Renoir masterpiece."

"Unlike you?" Caroline asked, her voice tight.

Aleksander shook his head. "I'm not going to try to persuade you," he said. "For one thing, I'm not even sure it would work. Particularly on you, Caroline, now that you've successfully resisted one attempt. Besides—" the lines in his face deepened "—you don't know where Melantha is anymore, do you?"

Roger felt Caroline's hand tighten in his. "Of course we do," he insisted.

"There's no need to lie," Aleksander said. "People like you would never have simply deserted her in the park last night or this morning."

Roger sighed. "You win," he said, ignoring Caroline's sudden stiffness. "So what happens now?"

"We have dinner, of course," Aleksander said, sounding surprised. "That is why you were invited."

"I thought you just wanted Melantha," Caroline said.

"Melantha is the key to our survival," Aleksander said. "But that doesn't mean we can't pause to thank those who have been our friends."

"Are you sure we're your friends?" Roger asked bluntly.

"You took in a helpless child and protected her as best you could," Aleksander said. "Those are the actions of a friend, whether you understood that or not."

"And if we'd rather leave?" Caroline asked.

Aleksander shrugged. "You'd miss a good dinner. But no one will try to stop you, if that's what you mean."

Roger looked sideways at Caroline. But her face held no cues. "Personally, I'm too hungry to go hunting for a different restaurant," he decided. "Besides, I'd kind of like to see how this tree thing of yours works."

"Then you shall," Aleksander promised, standing up. "But first things first. Dinner is ready."

"Thanks," Powell said, dropping the phone back into its cradle and scribbling a final note. "Bingo, Tommy. They found the Parks truck."

Fierenzo looked up from his report. "Where?"

"Way the hell down in Chelsea, near Pier 59," Powell said. "The branch was still in back, too, which pretty well proves picking it up was just a pretext to get something else. You want to get down there before they take it back to the garage?"

Fierenzo hesitated. But at this point, finishing his report and having that talk with Jonah were higher priorities. "No, I'd better stay here. You can go check it out if you want."

"What's the trouble?" Powell asked, craning his neck to see what Fierenzo was doing.

"Oh, it's this report," Fierenzo said, waving at the papers in front of him. "It wasn't until I started writing it down that I realized how insane the whole thing sounds. I need to find a way to phrase it so it'll be taken seriously."

"Good luck," Powell said, standing up and snagging his coat from the back of his chair. "I guess I'll go take a look at that truck."

"Thanks," Fierenzo said, looking at his watch. "And after that, you might as well go home. It's already past five, and you weren't even supposed to be working today. Say hi to Sandy for me, and have yourselves a nice quiet evening."

"If it's all the same to you, I think I'll leave your name out of it," Powell said dryly. "Just make sure you get some sleep, too." Threading his way between the desks, he left the squad room.

"Yeah," Fierenzo muttered after him. "Right." Taking a sip of room-temperature coffee, wishing he'd paid more attention during his lone creative writing course in college, he turned back to his report.

"The first few years were the hardest," Aleksander said, taking a sip of dark red wine from the delicately sculpted glass beside his plate. "Velovsky had helped us through the Ellis Island experience, but once we were on our own there was little he could do."

"I can imagine," Roger said. "Buildings were something brand new to you, weren't they?"

"They were certainly new to our generation," Aleksander said. "The Others had lived in buildings, though, and our Pastsingers had preserved those memories. Of course, our own short time in the transport had also given us a taste of what it was like to live with a roof over our heads."

"And of course, those of us who grew up here are quite comfortable with it," Iolanthe added. "There are times, especially in the winter, when our children would rather stay indoors than go out to their trees."

"Though I suspect the existence of video games has something to do with that," Vasilis murmured.

"Is that why you don't want to leave Manhattan?" Roger asked. "Because you've become accustomed to this way of living?"

"We don't want to leave Manhattan because it's our home," Aleksander said, a little tartly. "We fought for a place here; fought to learn the language and the culture; fought for jobs and livelihood and a safe place to raise our children. Why should we let ourselves be pushed out?"