Timothy Zahn - The Green And The Gray

"Any idea how long since anyone's lived here?" he asked.

She shivered. "Twenty years. Maybe longer."

There was a sound behind them, and Roger turned as a third Green stepped into the cabin, a load of firewood stacked across his arms. "I apologize for the accommodations," he said, crossing to the fireplace and setting down his load. "I was told to bring wood so that you could start a fire."

"I'm sorry, but this is unacceptable," Roger said firmly, putting every bit of righteous indignation into his voice that he could muster. "Is this your Group Commander's idea of hospitality?"

"Again, I apologize," the Green said as he stacked the wood beside the fireplace. "I'll be back with more wood and some kindling."

He went out the door, closing it behind him. Roger took a deep breath, nearly gagging on the floating dust in the process. "I'm sorry, Caroline," he said quietly. "This isn't turning out the way I'd hoped."

"It's not your fault." Caroline took a shuddering breath of her own. "So what do we do?"

Roger looked back toward the door, half minded to try opening it and seeing what happened. But the two Warriors playing pass-warder were almost certainly still outside, and he'd seen how fast a Green could convert a trassk into a knife. "I guess we wait," he decided reluctantly, turning back toward the fireplace. "You're the one who grew up in the country—you build the fire. I'll see if I can pry some of these windows open and get us some air."

"That is one hell of a story," Fierenzo said, shaking his head in wonderment. "And in all that time nobody's figured out that you're here?"

"Not as far as I know," Jonah said. "But then, why would they? We became legal citizens threequarters of a century ago, and all we've done since then is try to live our lives quietly and peacefully."

"Until now," Fierenzo said.

"This was hardly our decision," Jonah insisted stiffly. "It was the Greens who pushed us into it."

"And then came up with a plan to murder one of their own," Fierenzo murmured, a cold anger stirring inside him. He'd always had a particularly unforgiving spot in his heart toward people who abused children, and ritual murder of any sort made his skin crawl. As far as his score sheet was concerned, the Greens were going into this with two strikes against them. "But that was seventy-five years ago. Why restart the feud now?"

Jonah snorted under his breath. "Oh, come on. You have ethnic feuds on Earth that have lasted for millennia."

"Sure, but those are usually fought over the same hereditary plot of dirt," Fierenzo pointed out.

"Your private Gotterdammerung happened a dozen light-years away."

"Our private what?"

"Gotterdammerung," Fierenzo repeated. "The Norse version of Armageddon, with everything going up in flames like your valley. My point is that it's hard for people to forget the injustices of the past when someone can point out the exact spot where Uncle Igor got murdered by the Cossacks. But when you transplant those people onto different ground, the arguments tend to become less virulent.

Especially when they all have to live among other people in a new society."

"You don't understand the Greens," Jonah said with a sigh. "They're—well, call it centralized thinking. Their whole lives, from their jobs to the way they think, are locked into this rigid genetic caste structure of theirs, which is guided by the people they've decided are genetically entitled to be their leaders. If those leaders decide to lock themselves into the patterns and prejudices of the past, the rest of the people haven't got much choice but to let themselves be dragged in along with them."

"And the Grays are different?" Fierenzo asked.

"Compared to the Greens, we're the poster boys of anarchy," Jonah said. "We have people who mediate disputes, lay down guidelines for our behavior toward each other and Human society, and sit in judgment when somebody crosses the line. But that's about it."

"Every Gray for himself?"

"Basically, though it's not as bad as it sounds," Jonah said. "A Gray's behavior is also moderated by his or her network of friends. Since we all have our own networks, and since all those networks intertwine, we end up being more or less accountable to the entire group."

"Government by village peer pressure?" Fierenzo suggested.

"Why not?" Jonah said with a shrug. "In effect, that's exactly what we are: a small town spread invisibly throughout New York City."

"So why can't you just pull up stakes and leave?"

Jonah's face hardened. "You can't back down in front of bullies, Detective. A cop should know that better than anyone. If the Greens succeed in pushing us out of New York, we'll never be free of their threats. The only way to end this—the only way—is to convince them that there's no reason we can't live here together in peace. We don't have to be best friends—in fact, they're welcome to ignore us completely if they want. But we have as much right to live here as they do, and we're not going away."

"Mm," Fierenzo said, taking another sip of his water. "Let me see that gun again, will you?"

Jonah's forehead wrinkled, but he set his own water bottle aside and held out his left hand. "Here's what it looks like sheathed," he said, pushing up his jacket sleeve to reveal an elaborately decorated metal wristband. "I twist my wrist so to throw it—"

He turned the wrist sharply over, and Fierenzo watched in fascination as silvery tendrils shot out of the wristband's underside, flowing up along the insides of Jonah's fingers and thumb and then bending and curving around each other like a mutant pretzel before melting together into the now familiar flattened cylinder shape. "And there it is."

"Yes," Fierenzo said, nodding. Now that he had a clear look, he saw something he hadn't noticed before: where the wide wristband had been only a slender loop of wire remained, encircling Jonah's wrist and attached to the grip of the hammergun by an equally thin metal wire. "Is that loop supposed to keep you from dropping it?"

"It does that, too, but it's mostly there to give the hammergun a path to flow back along when you sheathe it," Jonah told him. "Like so."

He opened his hand and the hammergun went into reverse, untwisting itself and flowing back along the fingers to re-create the original wristband. "That is truly amazing," Fierenzo said, shaking his head. "How exactly does it work? It doesn't fire slugs, does it?"

"In a way it does," Jonah said, flipping his wrist and bringing the weapon out into his hand again. "It fires small force bubbles that accelerate away—"

"Wait a second," Fierenzo interrupted. "It fires what?"

"Force bubbles," Jonah repeated. "Little spheres or disks of non-solid force. A bubble accelerates away from the muzzle, growing bigger and gaining speed along the way, until it runs into a solid object. At that point it dissipates, transferring its energy and momentum to the target."

"How many settings are there?"

"Just the two: ball or disk," Jonah said. "The ball is spherical and delivers its energy like a hammer, while the disk has an edge to it and is more suitable for cutting."

"So the ball is what you hit the Greens with yesterday night by the station house," Fierenzo said slowly, trying to sort this out. "While the disk is what that other Gray cut off the tree branch with over in Yorkville?"

"Yes to the first; I don't know to the second," Jonah said. "Depending how far away the tree was, either setting could probably have taken off a branch."

"Wait a minute," Fierenzo said, pressing his fingertips to his forehead. "I thought you said you hadn't killed the two last night."

Jonah sighed. "Watch," he said. Sticking his free hand directly in front of the hammergun muzzle, he squeezed the trigger.