"I don't know, but we're going to find out," Fierenzo promised, trudging around the car and climbing into the driver's seat. "Come on, let's see if we can get this thing unstuck."

"Nothing, I take it?" Roger asked as the cab pulled away from the curb.

Caroline shook her head, trying hard not to berate herself for not trying to find Melantha last night.

She tried equally hard not to blame Roger for talking her out of doing so. "If she was there, she isn't anymore."

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I guess we should have gone looking for her last night."

Caroline didn't answer.

It was still early in the morning, with traffic sparse by New York standards, and the cabby got them down to 14th Street in probably close to record time. After that, it was a straight shot west to Jackson Square.

They didn't ride the entire way, though. Remembering yesterday's traceable cab ride, Caroline insisted they get off at Fifth Avenue and walk a couple of blocks north before turning west and making for their true destination. It was too early to go knocking on apartment doors, so again at her suggestion they found a deli and went inside for breakfast.

The meal was a quiet one. Somehow, everything Caroline saw around her—from the cheeses to the thin-sliced meats to the serving girl's dark hair—reminded her of Melantha. Roger was equally quiet as he plowed through his bagel and coffee, but whether he was thinking along the same lines she didn't know.

They emerged from the deli a little after eight to find that the early-morning sunshine had disappeared behind a ceiling of dark clouds and a light rain was falling. "Perfect," Roger muttered, glancing around and heading for a street vendor with a rack of compact umbrellas prominently displayed beside his magazines and packaged snack foods.

"You don't need to buy that for me," Caroline told him as he picked out a black one and dug into his pocket for some cash.

"It's not just for you, sweetheart," Roger assured her, taking her arm with his free hand and popping open the umbrella with the other. "See?" he said, lifting it over their heads and pulling her close beside him. "Instant anonymity."

"Ah," she said, finally understanding. "Good idea."

"Thank you," Roger said. "Let's just hope the rain keeps up."

Velovsky's building turned out to be an old brick structure right across the street from the Jackson Square park. They found the proper intercom button, and with only a slight hesitation Roger pushed it.

The reply came with surprising promptness. "Yes?"

"We're looking for Otto Velovsky," Roger said into the grille.

"You've found him," the voice said briskly. A middle-aged voice, Caroline guessed, belonging to a man probably in his mid-fifties. "Who are you?"

"Roger and Caroline Whittier," Roger said. "We were told—"

"Apartment four-twelve," the other cut him off.

The door buzzed, and Roger pushed it open. The staircase was off to the side, and they climbed to the fourth floor. One of the doors opened as they approached, and a man stepped into the doorway.

He wasn't the fifty-something man Caroline had expected. He was in fact at least thirty years older than that, with a lined face, a slender build, and a fringe of pure white hair.

"Come in," he said, beckoning with bony fingers, and Caroline revised her estimate upward even further. Lower nineties at the youngest, possibly even pushing ninety-five, but apparently still quite spry. With Roger's hand gripping her arm nervously, they stepped past him and went inside.

"We appreciate you seeing us on such short notice, Mr. Velovsky," Caroline said, glancing around the living room as the old man closed the door behind them. The decor was quite homey, with antique-style furniture, a dark carpet, and tasteful wallpaper patterned with small abstract figures.

There were a couple of framed prints on the wall, and a computer hummed away in a rolltop desk in the far corner. Beside the computer was a mug of gently steaming coffee. "I hope we're not intruding."

"Not at all," Velovsky assured her, waving them toward a couch with lace-fringed throw pillows scattered around it. "Can I get you some coffee?"

"No, thanks," Roger put in, his voice sounding a little strained as he glanced around. "You and Aleksander must use the same decorator."

"Like minds run in like ways," Velovsky said, retrieving his mug from the computer desk and settling into a wing-backed chair across a low coffee table from the couch. "Please; sit down."

"What exactly did Aleksander tell you about us?" Roger asked as they sat down together on the couch.

"Nothing at all," Velovsky said. "He simply told me I was to tell you everything." His bright eyes shone as he looked back and forth between them. "I trust you recognize the honor implicit in that request. Aside from me, you'll be the first humans to hear the whole story."

Caroline felt a shiver run through her. She and Roger had speculated about who the Greens and Grays might be, and had more or less concluded they weren't human. But she hadn't really accepted that conclusion, at least not on a gut level.

Until now.

"We're listening," Roger prompted.

"I'm sure you are." Velovsky took a sip from his mug and set it down on the table. "The year was

1928," he said, his eyes taking on a faraway look as he leaned back in his chair. "Shiploads of Europeans were pouring weekly into the immigration office on Ellis Island, where I was a very junior forms processing clerk. At about ten-thirty in the morning on a rather warm July twentyseventh, I was sent downstairs to one of the storerooms for a fresh box of medical release forms. I was heading down the hallway when I saw the door to one of the other storerooms standing wide open and a line of dark-haired people coming out of it."

"Not fellow employees, I presume?" Roger hazarded.

"Worse than that," Velovsky said. "That particular room wasn't much bigger than a broom closet.

Clown cars might have been all the rage at Ringling Brothers; but ten people had already come out, and I knew you couldn't get that many people in there.

"Well, they saw me the same time I saw them, and they weren't any happier about it than I was. The first two in line—big, slender fellows, but with plenty of muscle—came toward me like a pair of lions sizing up the gazelle du jour. They did something with their hands, and suddenly each was sporting a long-bladed and very nasty-looking knife. That was when I realized I was in serious trouble."

"And they killed you, of course," Roger murmured under his breath.

"Shh!" Caroline murmured back. "Let him tell it his own way."

"Yes, Roger, do be patient," Velovsky said. "I've been rehearsing this tale for over seventy-five years, and this is the first time I've been allowed to tell it. Let me savor it a little."

Roger waved a hand. "Sorry."

"Thank you," Velovsky said. "At any rate, an older man in the group said something in a foreign language and beckoned me over to where he and a young boy—his twelve-year-old son, I found out later—were standing. With all those knives around me, I decided I'd better do what he wanted. As I came up, he reached out a hand to my forehead and... touched me."

Velovsky stopped, his eyes drifting to the cityscape outside the window. "I've been trying ever since then to put words to what happened," he said, his voice as distant as his gaze. "But I still haven't found the proper way to do it. It was like I was inside his mind, and he was inside mine, and we were speaking together in the basic underlying core language of the human soul. I could remember his memories; image and sound, smell, touch, and taste. I was looking over his shoulder as he thought, watching his logic and his multiple trains of thought. It was exhilarating and terrifying, alien beyond imagination, twisted and confusing and yet as comfortable as an old sweater."