Timothy Zahn - The Green And The Gray

"What happens if you do?" Roger asked. "Nikolos said Melantha isn't at her full strength yet."

"No, but merely the threat she poses might be enough," Aleksander said. "If we can convince the Grays that we would be willing to create a wholesale slaughter—which, of course, we aren't—

perhaps we can make them leave New York of their own accord."

"Why don't you just leave?" Caroline asked. "There's a huge country out there just waiting for you."

"Because this is our home," Iolanthe said. "How do you just pick up and leave your home?"

"You did it once before," Caroline reminded her.

"It's not that simple."

"Why not?" Caroline persisted, starting to sound a little cross. "I'm still waiting to hear a good reason."

"No offense, Caroline, but it's really none of your business," Vasilis said, sounding a little cross himself. "If we choose to stay here—"

"It's all right, Vasilis," Aleksander interrupted him quietly. "We've told them this much. We might as well tell them the rest."

He looked back at Roger. "It has to do with our transport, the one buried under Ellis Island," he said.

"We still use it to grow some of the herbs and spices we knew back on our own world."

"Yes, Velovsky mentioned that," Roger said. "Is there a problem with it?"

Aleksander sighed. "Just the rather awkward fact that we can't move it."

"Its propulsion systems don't work anymore?"

"They work just fine," Aleksander said dryly. "Unfortunately, so does Human sonar."

Roger grimaced, suddenly understanding. "Oh."

" 'Oh,' indeed," Aleksander agreed heavily. "It was probably risky enough bringing it into New York harbor through all the traffic back in 1928. Now, with modern underwater detection, we couldn't move it a hundred yards without triggering an early-warning system somewhere."

"Especially after 9/11," Roger said.

"Indeed," Aleksander said. "So now you know the truth. We can't move the transport, and we also can't abandon it to the risk of being found by the Humans or, worse, by the Grays."

"Which leaves us only one choice," Iolanthe said. "We have to stand and fight."

"And the only way to do that is with Melantha," Aleksander concluded. "I'm convinced that if I can talk to her, I can bring her onto our side—" He broke off. "Ah—I see we're ready for bed."

Roger turned. Vasilis and Iolanthe's son and daughter had returned, along with the four other children who had been at dinner that evening. All were clothed in leotard-like outfits of various shades of green, with dark brown half-boots of a soft-looking material on their feet. "Nice pajamas," he commented.

"Has everyone cleaned their teeth?" Iolanthe asked, standing up. Six heads nodded silently. She nodded back, then turned to Roger and Caroline. "Would you like to come, too?" she invited. "You, especially, Roger, said you wanted to know more about the tree thing."

"Definitely," Roger said, getting to his feet. "Come on, Caroline. This should be interesting."

At first, Fierenzo's legs wouldn't work at all. He sagged in the middle of the sidewalk, muscles trembling uncontrollably as his attackers held him up by his arms like a puppet with broken strings.

"You can do it," Nose said encouragingly. "You want to be here all night?"

"Go to hell," Fierenzo gritted out, fighting to get his feet under him. This time his knees held as he cautiously put a little of his weight on them. He tried taking a step, and collapsed again into his captors' grip as he let the joints buckle again.

Curly swore in an unfamiliar language. "Come on, Fierenzo—we didn't hit you that hard."

"Maybe you've never hit a diabetic before," Fierenzo snarled back. "Give me a chance, will you?"

"We're wasting time," Curly growled. "I say we go in and get them ourselves."

"Patience is a virtue," Nose said. "He can have one more minute."

Fierenzo smiled tightly to himself. In actual fact, despite the lingering pain, his muscles were recovering quite nicely. Already, he judged, he ought to be able to at least hobble if he had to.

But his captors didn't know that, and the throwaway fib about diabetes should have muddied the waters that much more. If his helpless act could buy him a little more time, he should be able to run or fight if and when a suitable opportunity presented itself.

He spent Nose's extra minute in a great show of agony and unsteadiness. All too soon, though, it was over. "That's long enough," Curly declared, balling his hand into a fist and giving Fierenzo's kidney a none-too-gentle prod. "Move, or we leave you here."

"You'll never get in there alone," Fierenzo ground out, the warning buying him another couple of seconds. He was definitely coming out of this now, and should be back to a reasonable level of strength by the time they reached the station house. Remembering to keep his movements shaky, letting the two men take as much of his weight as they were willing to, he started walking.

They had taken five steps, and were passing beneath one of the streetlights, when a section of sidewalk two yards in front of them exploded.

Fierenzo twitched reflexively as a thundercrack and a cloud of concrete dust washed over him. An instant later he lost his balance completely as his captors yanked him backward and twisted him around the other direction, hustling him back the way they'd come. They hadn't taken more than two steps when a second sledgehammer blow shattered another section of sidewalk, again a couple of yards ahead of them.

The two men got the message. They brought Fierenzo to a halt; and then, even as Nose hauled the detective out of his sag, Curly let go entirely and took off at a dead run down the sidewalk, zigzagging like a soldier crossing an enemy field of fire. Nose swiveled Fierenzo around again, this time to face the street, and shifted to a one-armed hold beneath his rib cage. His other hand snaked around to join it, and for a moment he seemed to be fiddling with something just beneath Fierenzo's sternum. His hands separated; and Fierenzo winced as a gleaming, short-bladed knife flashed into view, clutched in Nose's right hand. It waved in front of his eyes a moment, a silent warning to behave himself, then came to rest against his throat. "Show yourself or the cop dies!" he shouted past Fierenzo's ear.

The only answer was another crack of exploding sidewalk, this one a yard to their right, followed by another the same distance to their left. Fierenzo strained his eyes against the glare of the streetlight and the headlights of the oblivious drivers zooming past, trying to spot the shooter.

But there were no figures moving around in the shadows of the buildings across the street, and no obvious silhouettes in any of the windows. Another chunk of pavement disintegrated to their right without even a hint of a muzzle flash that he could see.

Nose apparently couldn't find the shooter, either. He snarled something under his breath and again shifted grip, this time grabbing a handful of Fierenzo's hair and yanking his head up and back to expose his throat more conveniently to the knife. "Last chance!" he shouted. He hauled Fierenzo backward, and there was a metallic rustle as he brushed up against the playground fence. "Show yourself!"

Fierenzo stiffened. With his face pointed upward at this new angle he couldn't see what, if anything, was going on with the shooter across the street.

But he was in perfect position to see the shadowy figure that glided silently across the night sky above the glare of the streetlights to his right, dropping toward the playground behind him.

He barely had time to wonder whether he had imagined it when a voice came suddenly from across the street. "All right!" it called. "I'm here! Don't hurt him!"

"There you are," Nose muttered. Taking a deep breath, he screamed.