Timothy Zahn - The Green And The Gray

Her face, though, was a different matter. She took two turns around the room, looking for something to use to cover it, before inspiration finally struck. Untucking the blankets from beneath the mattress, she got her small fold-up scissors out of her purse and cut a four-inch strip from the end of the darkest one. Tucking everything back into place, she folded her new scarf back across her forehead as if putting on a headband, then crossed the two ends behind her head and brought them forward again around her nose and mouth. Crossing the ends one more time, she tied them together behind her head, leaving only a narrow strip around her eyes uncovered. Returning to the window, she pulled it open, took a deep breath, and climbed out onto the roof.

The shingles seemed even colder than the floor, and she had a fleeting longing for the jogging shoes tucked in the back of her closet in Manhattan. She got a grip on the peak of the dormer and carefully made her way up the slope to the top.

And found herself faced with an extraordinary sight. All across the wide lawn in front of the house shadowy figures were on the move: running or ducking, crouching beside the trees at the edge of the lawn, apparently even dancing with each other. Some of them had dark objects in their hands, and she could hear faint and sporadic chuffing sounds. She caught a flicker of slightly brighter light from one of the figures, and spotted the knife in his hand.

And with that, she suddenly understood. The chuffing objects were paintball guns; the flickering knives were converted trassks; the dancing figures were in fact Greens wrestling in close hand-tohand combat.

These weren't late-night exercises. These were war games.

She lifted her head a little higher. There were more Greens inside the edges of the forest, she could see now, slipping in and out of trees as they ambushed those carrying paintball guns or dodged their shots. To her right, on one of the wings angling off from the main part of the house, she could see several Greens firing from the rooftop and through some of the upper windows. Using the house to simulate Gray attacks from the buildings of New York, she realized, her stomach tightening at the thought. Another look at the forest revealed more Greens at the tops of some of the taller trees, also shooting paintballs at their comrades below.

And standing where the main section of the house angled into the right-hand wing, like a rock at the edge of a swiftly flowing river, was Sylvia.

She stood with her hands on her hips, silently observing the activities, just far enough to the side to be out of the way. Occasionally she would give a hand signal, and twice she summoned a group of Greens to her for a brief conversation before waving them back to their positions. But mostly, she just watched.

For several minutes Caroline did the same, a mixture of fascination and horror swirling within her.

There was a strange beauty to the Warriors' movements, a ballet-like grace to the way they fought their mock battles. Green Laborers, Sylvia had said, were the best in the world. Clearly, Green Warriors were in that same class.

But all the grace and skill in the world couldn't mask the ultimate purpose of their game. They were training and practicing to kill. Soon, perhaps within days, they would be in downtown Manhattan using those knives against the Grays.

She squeezed the shingles hard. There was still a chance to stop this. There had to be.

Off to her left, a flicker of orange light caught the corner of her eye. A car had emerged from the woods and was approaching the house, wending its way cautiously through the melee with only its parking lights showing.

Caroline froze in place, her eyes just above the peak of the roof, as the car rolled to a stop and a tall Green got out. He paused beside the car for a moment, scanning the battleground. Then, making sure to stay out of the way, he crossed the lawn to Sylvia.

Caroline frowned, squinting down at them. She couldn't see very clearly in the darkness, but there was something about the altered texture of the voices whispering through her mind that told her the newcomer was Nikolos himself. For a minute he and Sylvia talked together, Sylvia gesturing at different parts of the grounds as she apparently reported on the war games' progress. Occasionally Nikolos made a comment or gesture, but for the most part it was definitely Sylvia's show.

And then, Sylvia pointed toward the house.

Caroline stiffened with sudden premonition. Not waiting to see any more, she eased her head back down and started moving as quickly as she dared along the roof. She reached the dormer opening and stepped through into her room, closing and latching the window behind her. Whipping off her coat and slacks, she laid them across one of the chairs, then shoved her scarf/mask out of sight between the mattress and box spring. With her heart pounding in her ears, she slipped back under the blankets.

She had barely gotten settled when there was a quiet tap on her door.

She froze, her throat tightening, her mind spinning with possibilities. Had Sylvia or someone spotted her up there on the roof and come to check? Surely not—they wouldn't be bothering to knock if they had. She should answer the knock, then, feigning innocence and making it sound like she'd been sound asleep.

But no. A knock that soft wouldn't have woken her up at home, so she probably shouldn't react to it.

She should wait for a louder knock, or possibly someone to call her name.

She was still trying to figure out her best move when, with a sudden squeak, the door swung open.

She twitched violently in reaction, the bed creaking in protest. "What?" she gasped.

"It's me, Nestor," one of her guards' voices came. "You have a visitor downstairs."

With an effort, Caroline got her breathing under control, feeling a tiny flicker of relief. Her reaction at being startled that way had probably been more appropriate to a suddenly awakened sleeper than anything she could have devised on her own. "Now? Who is it?"

"Command-Tactician Nikolos," Nestor told her. "He told me to send his apologies for the lateness of the hour, and promised it would only take a few minutes."

Caroline took a deep breath. "All right. Let me get dressed, and I'll be right down."

A few minutes later she came down the stairs, blinking against the handful of lights that had been turned on. Nestor and a female Warrior were waiting at the foot of the steps, showing no signs of the strenuous exercise they'd just been participating in outside. Silently, they led her to the library where she and Sylvia had first met.

Nikolos was waiting there alone, standing with his back to her as he gazed out the window into the night. "Ah—Caroline," he said, turning as Nestor ushered her inside and closed the door behind her.

"My apologies for waking you at this hour."

"That's all right," Caroline said, taking one of the chairs in front of the desk. "My dreams weren't very pleasant, anyway."

"I'm not surprised," he said, swiveling one of the other chairs around to face her and sitting down in it. "I've been having rather unpleasant dreams myself lately. Dreams involving the destruction of my people."

"I'm worried about my people, too," Caroline said evenly. "What can I do for you?"

He seemed to brace himself. "We need to find out, once and for all, who it was who gave Melantha to you last Wednesday night."

"We've been through that," Caroline reminded him, feeling a stirring of annoyance. "With, I think, just about everyone involved in this, on both sides. We don't know who it was."

"I'll settle for a description," Nikolos persisted. "Starting with whether he was a Green or a Gray."

"That's an odd question," she said. "I thought all the Grays wanted her dead. Why would any of them stick his neck out to rescue her?"