17

Even before the cab made it to the eastern edge of Manhattan, the drizzle began to taper off. By the time they reached the FDR and turned northward, Roger could see a little blue sky starting to peek through the clouds in the west. Just as the Green had predicted, it was turning into a nice day for a drive.

Not that either of their passengers was in the mood to appreciate it. Caroline hadn't said a word since they'd driven off, and every time Roger looked her direction he found her face turned slightly away from him as she gazed out the window. She was holding his hand, nestled there in her lap. But the fingers were stiff and cold, and he knew that only part of that was from fear and uncertainty.

The rest was undoubtedly anger... and it wasn't hard to guess where the slow burn was coming from.

Wimp was certainly one of the words bouncing around her skull. Coward was probably in there, too.

He couldn't really blame her.

His first thought as they got on the FDR was that they were being taken back to the Youngs'

apartment and the site of Melantha's latest disappearance. But the cab passed the turnoff without even slowing down. His next guess was that they were being taken to Central Park West. But they passed the likely turnoffs for that, too.

He had just started to wonder if they were being taken off the island entirely when the driver turned off onto 116th and headed west across East Harlem. They passed through that neighborhood, through Harlem itself, and finally came to a stop at Morningside Park.

"End of the line," the Green beside Roger announced as he opened the door and climbed out. "Come on, come on."

Silently, Roger obeyed, offering Caroline a hand as she slid across the seat to the door. The Green in the passenger seat had gotten out, too, and gestured into the park. "This way," he said.

"Where are we going?" Roger asked, looking around.

"There," the Green said, pointing up the slope to the tall stone wall towering above them. "Columbia University."

"Why don't we just drive around to the other side?" Roger asked, a shiver running through him as he looked up. Columbia University, home to the Miller Theater, where he and Caroline had been just before they'd met Melantha. Coincidence?

"Because it's more anonymous this way," the Green said. "Besides, you look like you can use the exercise. Let's go."

It was a long way up from the park to the university, and even with the various sections of more or less level ground interspersed with the stairs Roger's leg muscles were starting to complain by the time they reached the top. The two Greens took them a short way down the street, through an open gate into a small brick-and-pavement courtyard, then down another short walkway to a building identifying itself as the Faculty House. Another Green was waiting, and opened the door as they walked up. "President's Room," he told their escort as they filed through. "Second floor."

They arrived at the President's Room to find a single occupant waiting at one of the round tables by the windows, an older man with a lined face and patches of silver twisting through his otherwise black hair. "Roger and Caroline Whittier," he greeted them, rising from his chair as they approached.

He was dressed in a white turtleneck, black slacks, and a green blazer with a tapering filigree of muted copper pinned to the left lapel. "Please; sit down."

Roger took the chair across from him, giving the other a quick study. Despite the wrinkles and patches of silver hair, he had the same sort of grace and dignity that Roger had noticed earlier in Sylvia.

"I'm glad you could come here today," he commented as Caroline sat down at Roger's left. "My name is Nikolos Green."

"Ah," Roger said, nodding. "The Command-Tactician."

"And Leader Elymas's son," Caroline added quietly. "You're a well-preserved octogenarian."

"Thank you," Nikolos said, smiling wryly as he reseated himself. "Though to be fair, Greens don't age quite the same way as Humans do."

He looked over at the other two Greens. "You're dismissed," he said.

"Yes, Commander," one of them acknowledged. Together they crossed the dining room and left.

"Nice quiet place you have here," Roger commented. "According to the sign downstairs, it's only open on weekdays."

Nikolos shrugged. "I have certain privileges."

"Do those privileges include kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon?" Roger countered.

Nikolos lifted his eyebrows. "Kidnapping? Come now. You were invited to visit me, and you accepted."

"And the knives those invitations were engraved on?"

"Knives?" Nikolos asked, looking politely puzzled. "No, no. I'm sure all you saw was a trassk." He reached up and unfastened the pin from his lapel. "Like this one."

"It was nothing like that," Roger growled, starting to feel annoyed at this childish game.

"Perhaps it was the lighting." Nikolos turned the pin over in his left hand, the copper filaments catching the light from the windows, and for a moment he stroked it meditatively with the fingertips of his right. Then he closed his right hand over the pin, squeezed it and slid his hand away toward Roger—

Roger caught his breath. The pin had vanished. In its place, stretched across Nikolos's open left palm, was a long, slender knife. "You can see what sort of tricks lighting can play on your eyes,"

Nikolos said. He closed his right hand over the knife again, pushing the point of the blade back toward the hilt as if collapsing a telescope. "It can make you think you've seen something that can't possibly be there."

He squeezed his right hand a few times as if kneading bread dough; and when he lifted it away again the knife had been replaced by a small, copper-colored replica of the Statue of Liberty. "Very nice,"

Roger commented. "May I?"

"Of course." Leaning forward, Nikolos handed the statue across the table.

Roger looked closely at it. The statue seemed perfectly solid, perfectly ordinary, the sort of trinket sold by the thousands in Times Square souvenir shops. It was about the same weight as the gun the mugger had given him Wednesday night, he decided, and approximately the same weight as the trassk he was still carrying in his pocket. "Impressive," he said, handing the statue to Caroline.

Nikolos shrugged. "A parlor trick," he said, his voice sounding oddly sad. "Useful enough, but little more than a memory of happier times."

"How do you work it?" Caroline asked, turning the statue over in her hand. "Is this one of the Gifts?"

"No, any Green can manipulate a trassk," Nikolos said. "And only Greens, of course. We can make it into anything we can visualize, consistent with its mass. Still, the metal is very strong, and like gold can be stretched almost infinitely thin."

He held out his hand, and she returned the statue to him. Again he kneaded it, then pulled it outward into a disk the size of a dinner plate. "As you see, it looks much bigger than should be possible, considering its original size," he said, holding it up. "What you don't see is how thin the metal has become in order to stretch this far."

He banged the disk gently on the table. "Yet even now it's strong enough to easily maintain its shape.

It can also be made flexible or even completely elastic." He manipulated it again, turning it into a giant rubber band. "Like so," he said, stretching it nearly to arms' length before letting it collapse again.

"How long will it stay that way?" Caroline asked.

"Left on its own, it reverts in anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, depending on how solidly its owner fixed it," Nikolos told her. "Obviously, a Green can alter it before then if he or she chooses."

"The multitool every well-dressed Green is wearing this season," Roger murmured.