"Meaning...?"

"Meaning we could go up on the steps to talk," Fierenzo suggested, pointing through the glass wall at the set of semicircular steps leading up from the center of the main floor a few yards beyond the ordered rows of palm trees. "The S.W.A.T. guys guarding us could stay down here, near the exits.

We'd all be in clear view, and there'd be no way out if someone decided to try anything."

"What about the hallways into Building Two and Three?" Cerreta asked, looking doubtfully through the glass.

"Already sealed off," Fierenzo told him. "We'd be isolated, under constant guard, and still have the privacy both sides are going to insist on."

Roger and the others had climbed the steps from the boat basin and were halfway across the plaza before Cerreta spoke again. "All right," he said, his gaze seeming to bore straight through Fierenzo's retinas into his soul. "But I'll tell you this, Detective. No matter what happens here, you're going to have to answer for your behavior this past week."

Fierenzo nodded. "Understood."

Watching the Greens approach, he could only hope that it would be the only thing he would have to answer for.

48

Cyril and Aleksander were the first to arrive, passing silently through the door and between the line of stone-faced S.W.A.T. cops Cerreta had set up just inside the glass wall. They ignored Roger as he tried to greet them, brushing past him and Caroline and climbing the steps to where Nikolos and Sylvia had picked out a tier of steps to sit on just above the circular platform midway up. They did deign to glance at Fierenzo as he stood silently a few steps away, though Roger suspected that was mostly from curiosity, and nodded with some genuine civility at Velovsky where he sat a little apart from the others.

Halfdan was next, giving the rows of palm trees below a wide berth as if expecting a dozen Warriors to leap out of them as he passed. He gave Roger and Caroline a curious once-over, ignored Fierenzo completely, and nodded formally to Cyril as he chose a place on the steps at the same level as the four Greens but a quarter of the way around the circle from them. Torvald was only a minute behind him, limping past the palms without giving them a second glance and carefully climbing the steps to where Roger and Caroline waited. "I see we're mostly assembled," he commented, nodding to his brother and glancing at Velovsky and the four Greens.

"Actually, we're completely assembled," Roger said, gesturing him toward the steps. "Please have a seat."

Torvald climbed the last few steps to where Halfdan sat stolidly and lowered himself onto the marble beside him, and Caroline gave Roger's hand a quick squeeze. "You can do it," she murmured.

Letting go, she crossed to Velovsky and sat down beside him.

Roger took a deep breath and stepped to the center of the circular platform. "Thank you all for coming here tonight," he said, looking at each of their faces in turn. None of them, with the exception of Caroline, looked particularly encouraging. "This is certainly a nicely symbolic place, if I do say so myself. Marble and stonework for the Grays; palm trees for the Greens. Something for everyone."

"If you have a point to make, please get to it," Aleksander said impatiently.

Roger took another deep breath, forcing himself not to be intimidated. Whether they knew it or not, whether they even cared or not, what he was about to say was going to change their lives. "But even more symbolic is the view through those windows," he continued, gesturing over their heads.

"Directly behind you is Ground Zero, where three thousand innocent people died when the twin towers collapsed."

He locked eyes with Aleksander. "A fate thousands more might have suffered if certain of you had had your way in this war of yours."

"Nobody wants to kill innocent people," Aleksander insisted. "All we want is the right to survive."

"Really?" Roger said. "Who's stopping you?"

Aleksander snorted and started to get up. "This is a waste of time," he declared. "Come on, Nikolos

—"

"Did you know that you all came from Earth?" Roger cut him off.

Aleksander froze halfway to his feet. "What?"

"That's right," Roger told him. "You didn't come from some alien world in some distant solar system. The only distance your transports brought you was about a quarter of the way around the planet, probably from someplace in central or eastern Europe."

"What are you talking about?" Sylvia demanded. "This is nothing like the world we left."

"That's because the transports also catapulted you four or five thousand years forward in time,"

Roger said. "Possibly more."

Slowly, Aleksander sat back down. "Dryads," he murmured. "The wood nymphs of Greek mythology."

"Yes," Cyril agreed, nodding as if a long-lost piece of a persistent puzzle had suddenly appeared on the table in front of him. "I wondered about that myself, years ago. But I put it down to coincidence."

"No coincidence," Roger confirmed. "You were indeed the inspiration for the dryads." He gestured behind him at the harbor. "Given your performance out there tonight, you probably inspired the myths about water nymphs, too."

He looked over at the two Grays. "And while the Greens were being worked into Greek myth, you and your manufacturing skills and Thor-inspiring hammerguns became part of the Norse tales."

"As the dwarves, I assume," Aleksander said, looking over at Halfdan and Torvald with a halfamused, half-malicious smile. "Not very flattering."

"Maybe not, but the Norse myths were more fun to read," Roger said before either Gray could respond. "But how you were perceived by the humans around you isn't important. The point is that you haven't really gone anywhere, which means that even if you wanted to leave there isn't anywhere else for you to go. This is your home; and if you can't learn to live together, you're still going to be stuck here."

"What makes you think we want to live together?" Torvald asked evenly. "What makes you think we even can live together?"

"You did so once," Roger pointed out. "Back in the Great Valley you lived in peace for at least three generations." He nodded at Velovsky. "Mr. Velovsky told us the whole story."

"Then I'm sure he also told you how that peace was broken by Green treachery," Halfdan bit out.

"Which, as you can see, is still the way they do things." He threw the Greens a tight smile.

"Fortunately, it's a game two sides can play." Still smiling, he lifted his left hand toward his ear—

"Freeze," Fierenzo said quietly.

Roger looked over at him. The detective had his gun out, tucked subtly at his side where it was out of view of the S.W.A.T. cops on the far side of the palm trees. "Lower your hand to your lap, nice and smooth," he ordered.

"And if I don't?" Halfdan countered, his hand hovering in the air halfway to his scarred cheek. "Are you going to shoot me?"

"If I have to," Fierenzo said.

The Gray shrugged. "It won't matter if you do," he said. "You didn't think I was foolish enough to come here alone, did you?"

"That's what you agreed to," Roger said, his pulse pounding suddenly in his throat. No—it couldn't come apart. Not now. Especially not like this.

"I agreed to come in here alone," Halfdan corrected him. "Out there in the world is a different matter entirely."

"What are you waiting for?" Aleksander demanded, looking at Fierenzo. "You can see he's betrayed us. Shoot him."

"Wait a minute," Roger said, holding out a hand toward Fierenzo. "Halfdan, you don't really want to die, do you?"

"Whether I die or not, you can't stop what's about to happen," the Gray said calmly. "My sons Bergan and Ingvar are standing ready, and they have their orders."