Timothy Zahn - The Green And The Gray

"I'll say good-night now," Iolanthe said. She reached out and took Caroline's hand, squeezing it gently rather than shaking it, then did the same with Roger. "I'll see you soon, Vasilis," she added, giving her husband a kiss. Stepping to the tree, she wrapped her arms around the trunk and melted inside.

They passed again through the trick gate, and after another roundabout path they were back at the apartment. "Again, we're glad you came," Vasilis said as he ushered them into the living room.

"Please feel free to drop by anytime you're in the neighborhood."

"We will," Roger promised. "I'd like to try one of your restaurants sometime, too. Do you have a list of their names and addresses?"

"I have one," Aleksander said, reaching into an inside pocket and pulling out what looked like a business card. "In fact—just a moment." Turning the card over, he pulled out a pen and wrote briefly on the back. "Here you go," he said, handing it to Roger.

Caroline peered over his shoulder. Beneath two lines of cryptic symbols were two more lines written in English: The bearer is entitled to two meals. It was signed Aleksander.

"That's great," Roger said. "Thank you."

"What's this other writing?" Caroline asked.

"It's Kailisti, the language we spoke back on our own world," Aleksander identified it. "Not much use here, of course, but we still teach it to our children."

"In some homesteads, the adults insist they speak it at home for a few years to make sure they don't forget it," Vasilis added.

"Did Melantha's homestead do it that way?" Caroline asked, thinking back to Melantha's accent.

"Probably," Aleksander said, smiling. "Melantha's maternal grandmother was a Pastsinger who felt very strongly about maintaining our ties to our heritage. I doubt she let Melantha and her brother even learn English until they were three or four years old." He shook his head. "She's gone now.

Two years ago."

"I'm sorry," Caroline said automatically.

Aleksander shrugged. "In general, we live longer than Humans," he said. "But in the end, death comes to us all. At any rate, thank you for coming tonight. Now that you truly understand the stakes involved, I hope you'll do the right thing if Melantha comes back to you."

"I hope she will," Caroline said. "Good-night."

Roger didn't say anything as they stepped out into the darkened street, but Caroline could sense the familiar tension in his stance and walk. They'd made it a quarter of the way down the block, and Caroline was trying to figure out how to break the ever-thickening wall of silence when he finally spoke. "There he is," he said quietly, nodding back over his shoulder. "That car pulling out—see it?"

She pretended to look at something on the ground and caught a glimpse of a car easing away from the curb. "Yes," she said. "I hope you're not too mad at me."

"I'm not mad at you at all," he said, his voice puzzled but definitely not angry. "Why would I be mad?"

"You were obviously having a good time in there, and I pulled us out," she said, feeling a sense of relief as the imaginary wall melted away. "And you were so quiet on the way out."

He shook his head. "You know, Caroline, I'm not angry with you nearly as often as you seem to think. I wasn't talking as we left because I wasn't sure who might be listening. I didn't want anyone eavesdropping while you told me what was bothering you." He looked sideways at her. "Or was I wrong about that?"

"No, I wanted to get out of there," she confirmed. "There's something wrong about all this, Roger."

He was silent for another three paces. "Can you give me a hint?" he asked. "Sorry—I didn't mean it that way. What I meant was, can you narrow it down?"

Caroline chewed at her lip, trying to put her uneasiness into words. "Maybe it's the stiffness of the whole culture," she said slowly. "The children seem almost too well behaved, the adults a little too upright and noble. And it seemed like Aleksander and the others were bending over backwards not to talk about Melantha except when we brought her up."

"Well, of course they were putting their best foot forward tonight," Roger said. "They want us to like them."

"Yes, but why?"

"Well, for starters, Velovsky's not going to live forever," Roger pointed out. "Maybe they want to establish another friendly contact in the human world for after he's gone."

"Or maybe they're just trying to manipulate us onto their side so we'll give Melantha to them if she comes back," Caroline countered. "Because they're still hiding things, Roger. That business about Persuaders not being able to order people around, for starters. I was there; I know Melantha was under Cyril's control until I snapped her out of it. And I know he was trying it with me, too."

Roger was silent a moment. "If that's true, a Persuader ought to be able to order her to reveal herself, too," he pointed out. "In which case, why wasn't Aleksander out helping with the search?"

Caroline shivered. "Maybe because he already knows where she is."

"In which case, you can say good-bye to any peace treaty," Roger said. "Hell."

"There's something else about Aleksander," Caroline went on. "There at the end he was talking to someone with that telepathic or empathic thing they do. It seemed to be something very serious or urgent."

"Something about Melantha?"

"That's what I'm wondering," Caroline said.

"In that case, I wonder if the whole evening might have been staged," he said slowly. "Something to keep us occupied while they did something with her."

Caroline thought back. "I don't think so," she said. "The family stuff seemed genuine, anyway. I'm sure the Greens have a great love for each other, both their immediate families and their people as a whole. But that doesn't mean Aleksander wouldn't lie to get what he wants. In fact, it might make it more likely that he would."

Roger was silent another five steps. "Let's assume you're right, and that they're trying to manipulate us," he said at last. "Let's further assume that they have Melantha, having either snatched her last night or found her just now. Then the first question is whether they would hide her in the city or—"

He broke off as a car suddenly roared up from behind them and squealed to a halt. Before Caroline could do more than grab Roger's arm, the door swung open and the driver hopped out, turning to glare over the car roof at them. "Police!" he called, holding out a badge. "Roger Whittier?"

"Yes," Roger said nervously. "Is there a prob—?"

"Get in," the cop cut him off, gesturing emphatically toward the back door.

"Wait a second," Roger protested. "What are you charging us with?"

"You're not being charged—yet," the other said. "You're wanted as material witnesses."

"Witnesses to what?" Caroline asked, her heart suddenly pounding in her throat. Melantha? No—

please not Melantha.

"Detective Fierenzo has disappeared," the cop bit out. "He may have been murdered."

"According to witnesses, the screaming started about an hour ago," Detective Powell said, swiveling one of the interrogation room's plain wooden chairs around and sitting down straddling it, his forearms resting on the back. "It was accompanied by the sounds of someone hammering their way through several sections of sidewalk. The whole thing lasted maybe ten minutes before someone called it in and we got out there. By then, Detective Fierenzo was gone."

"And no one in the station heard any of it?" Roger asked.

Powell shook his head disgustedly. "They definitely didn't hear the screams. If they heard the hammering, they took it for something else and ignored it." His eyes bored into Roger's. "But from the descriptions, it sounds a lot like the stuff that went down by your friends' apartment in Yorkville yesterday evening."