Joe Haldeman - Camouflage

He wasn’t stupid. Over the millennia he had often attained his culture’s highest degree of education. He knew that his desire to destroy the competition was not rational. But it was programmed into every cell of his body; it was what he had instead of the urge to reproduce. And sexual desire was a pale flame beside his passion to destroy, to protect himself.

On his own terms it was easy to rationalize: if the creature was like him, their first meeting would be short and brutal. Best strike first. No human could kill him, but no human knew how profoundly damaged he would have to be in order to actually die.

He did know and had to presume his competitor would as well.

The changeling regretted the impulse that had made it say it hadn’t ridden a bike in years. It had been riding since before Russell was born, and simulating clumsiness on a single-speed Schwinn was an Oscar-level performance.

“How you doing up there?” She was leading them up Logan Road, not too hilly and no traffic, Sunday morning.

“I’m getting the hang of it.” She stood up to crest the hills, and felt the gentle pressure of eyetracks on her butt. Maybe it shouldn’t have worn the form-fitting jogging outfit, which got some disapproving stares from people on their way to church. But it certainly kept Russell’s attention.

“All downhill from here. Just keep bearing to your left.”

“Yeah, I’ve run this way. The project’s down after the second light, V-something Road.”

“Vaiala-vini. We’ll make you a Samoan yet.”

“As long as I don’t have to like breadfruit.”

“Fuata. We’ll start out with hot dogs and move our way down the food chain. After turkey tails and mutton flaps, you’ll be begging for fuata.”

“Oh, I’ve got a freezer full of turkey tails. Deep-fried, you can’t beat ’em.” They laughed together, but there was an edge to it. They both knew the Samoan diet had been transformed by Western intrusion, all for the worse. Turkey tails and Big Macs, mutton flaps and corned beef—there weren’t many natives over thirty who were lean and heart-healthy.

Russell waved at the guard as they went through the project gate. They dropped the bikes, no locks, in front of the main building, and raided his office fridge for hot dogs and beer, and put them in a foam cooler. He found charcoal in a utility locker and went out to start the fire while Sharon changed.

She studied her body in the ladies’ room mirror and made a few minor adjustments here and there. She knew she had Russell hooked. The question was whether to reel him in. It might be better to play a waiting game, and let Michelle get closer to delivery.

Or maybe force the issue. Get Russ in bed, and see what comes up.

It was a nice bright red thong bikini. The changeling pulled out a few pinches of excess pubic hair and ate them. It arranged the top so it just showed the wing tips of the hummingbird tattoo. It slightly deepened its lumbar dimples, a feature she remembered Russell noticing in her Rae incarnation.

It closed in for the kill, first wrapping a lavalava around its waist. It could wear the revealing suit as long as at least its toes were in the water, but Samoans weren’t happy about insensitive tourists flaunting their charms on the way there.

Russell was wearing the same blue-jean cutoffs he’d bicycled in, changing it into a swimsuit by taking off his shirt and shoes. The changeling smiled at his familiar body, a little pudgy in spite of athletic legs and arms, skin almost milk white—he never went out into the sun without total sunblock; both his parents had had skin cancer. His body hair was a silky down of black and white mixed, no gray, and his only tattoo, not visible now, was a small do not open till Christmas tag attached to a big scar he’d gotten from an emergency appendectomy by a village doctor in the Cook Islands. How many other women had giggled at that the first time he undressed in front of them?

He noticed her own tattoo immediately. “Bird?”

“Hummingbird.” She pulled the top of her bra down almost to the aureole. Her breasts were small, which he liked.

“Very nice.” He smiled and turned his attention back to the grill, splashing the charcoal with 100 percent isopropyl alcohol from a lab bottle. He snapped a sparker at it and it ignited with a blue puff.

“How much longer?” the changeling said. “I’m famished.”

“At least twenty minutes.” He gestured at the small cooler on the picnic table. “Beer? Or swim.”

“Swim first. I’m all sticky.” She turned her back toward him to step out of the lavalava, which under other circumstances might have been a modest posture. She snatched her face mask, fins, and mouthgill off the table and ran for the water. “Last one in has to cook the hot dogs.” He stood and watched her run, with a growing smile. Then he jogged after her. She was already sitting in the shallows, only her head showing, when he splashed in.

“Oh well. I was going to cook them anyway.”

She got the fins on, then spit into her mask and rubbed the saliva around. “Any reefs out here?”

“None close in. Some outside the shark net.”

“Want to live dangerously?”

“Sure. I always wanted to see a fourteen-foot hammerhead up close.”

I was only nine feet. “That’s what bit the boat?”

“Not to worry. They harpooned it and shot it in shallow water. It attacked out of pain and confusion, most likely.” He splashed water in his mask. “I’ve seen lots of sharks and never had a problem.”

“Me, too. Maybe we never met a really hungry one.”

“Maybe.” He pointed. “There’s some reef out that way. I’ll hold up the net and you can swim under.”

“Okay.” They bit down on their mouthgills, and swam the hundred yards out to the net. They wriggled under it without any problem and proceeded out to the reef, the changeling naturally taking Russell’s hand when it was offered. They swam in easy unison, moving fast with powerful surges from the fins.

The reef wasn’t too impressive, compared to the dramatic one past the giant clam farm at Palolo, but it did have lots of brightly colored fish and a small moray eel, watching their intrusion with its customary sour expression. Russell found an octopus the size of his hand, and they passed it back and forth until it tired of the game and shot away.

Russ pantomimed eating and Sharon nodded. They headed back to the net, with a short detour to chase after a medium-sized ray, hand in hand.

“That was nice,” the changeling said, taking off her fins in knee- deep water, quite aware that when the suit was wet it left nothing to the imagination. “Especially the octopus.”

“That was lucky. ‘The soft intelligence,’ someone called them.”

“Jacques Cousteau.” His eyebrows went up. “My oceanography prof had his old book.”

As they waded ashore, Russell waved at a boy of six or seven who was sitting at their table with a bucket.

The bucket was half full of ice, with a large bowl of oka, the Samoan version of ceviche, fish marinated in lime juice and served with coconut cream and hot peppers. “Caught this morning, Dr. Russell.”

He peered into the bowl. “Skipjack?”

He shrugged. “Ten tala.”

“I don’t have any money with me.”

“I’ve got some.” The boy was staring at her crotch, transfixed. She wrapped the lavalava around her waist and pulled a few bills out of a pocket, and handed him a ten.

“Fa’afetai,” he said, giving her the bowl and backing away shyly. “Thank.”

“Afio mai,” she said, and he turned and ran with the money.