Joe Haldeman - Camouflage

“I’m Jan,” the changeling said. “Open for me.” The door slid open and they stepped into the long corridor that connected the artifact room to the main building. Fluorescent lights winked on as the door slid silently shut. The windowless metal walls were full of clutter; people had put up cartoons and drawings with refrigerator magnets, and a galaxy of magnetized words coalesced into clusters of poetry, not all of it obscene.

One block of wall several meters long contained 31,433 ones and zeros, patiently inked in black Magic Marker.

A final blast door, thick as a bank vault, that opened on to the artifact room, was halfway open. As they passed through it, a bank of floodlights over the artifact came on with a crackling sound. In bright relief, they saw the artifact on its pylons, the big laser, the two useless horizontal microscope machines, the array of communication devices— and a man standing with folded arms. The chameleon. “Jack?” Russ said.

The thing that was Jack nodded. “Please do come in.” He clicked an infrared signaler, and the bank vault door boomed shut.

“The guard didn’t say—”

“I asked him not to.”

“You expected us, then.” Russ put a hand on the changeling’s shoulder.

“Oh, yes. In a way, I’ve expected you for a long time.” He was looking at the changeling. “Jan. Sharon. Rae. You really were a television set once?”

They both stared at him, speechless.

“I’ve had a microcamera in your bedroom, Russell, since you first moved into the fale. It’s often been entertaining, but never so much as tonight.” Russ opened his mouth, twice, but no words came out.

The changeling crossed her arms. “So you know what I am.”

“Actually, no.” It spread its own arms, palms up, and in an instant became a duplicate of Russell, still in Jack’s shorts and T- shirt.

“My God,” Russell said.

“That’s good,” she said.

“You can’t do it, can you? I watched you take several minutes just to change your face. But you’ve only had a century of practice.”

“How much practice have you had?”

“Since the Stone Age, I think. But I can’t remember it ever not being instantaneous.” It changed back into Jack and walked toward her.

“Do you know where we’re from?” she asked.

“I don’t think we’re a ‘we,’ dear. I can’t become a television set or a great white shark or even a female. I can look like any man, but that’s my limit. We’re two different species.”

“But maybe from the same planet, or time.”

“Or dimension, whatever.” He stood directly in front of the changeling and studied her. “I’ve been looking for someone like you for thousands of years.”

“So the project,” Russell said, “it was just a lure, to find—”

“Yes and no. The artifact is real.” He didn’t take his eyes off the changeling. “I discovered it years before the submarine had its accident.”

“Which was no accident,” the changeling said.

“Go to the head of the class. A rear admiral with top-secret clearance can get a lot done behind the scenes. I had her vectored close to the artifact and then set off the charge that sank her.”

“A hundred and twenty-one dead?” Russell said.

Jack gave him an amused look. “How long do you think it takes for a hundred twenty-one people to starve to death on this planet?”

“That’s beside the—”

“A little over four minutes. If you’re feeling all weepy, go feed somebody.” He gestured toward a work table. “Let’s sit.”

They followed him over. He sat and poured coffee from a thermos into a Styrofoam cup. “Coffee?”

The changeling took a cup but didn’t drink from it. Russell sat down uneasily. “How long have you been Jack Halliburton? Did you write—”

“Bathyspheric Measurements and Computation? No. I’ve read it, of course. I took over Halliburton’s identity in 2015, because he seemed like a logical person to ‘discover’ the artifact and hire you to retrieve it.”

“You killed him?”

“What else could I do, adopt him? We went sailing together one evening and I broke his neck and sent his body down with an anchor. Be glad it wasn’t you. Could’ve been.”

“Are you always a scientist?” the changeling asked.

“Rarely. Usually I’ve been a soldier of some kind. You said you were on the Bataan Death March. Which side?”

“United States.”

“That must have been … diverting. I would have chosen Japan.”

“You decided to kill Halliburton,” Russell said, “just like that?”

“No, not ‘just like that. ’ ” There was some exasperation in his voice. “Not that it was difficult, but I did have to study him first. As I have studied you.” He pointed a finger. “You’re about to attack me; I can smell the norepinephrine in your sweat. Don’t do it. I could swat you dead like a fly.”

“But you have to kill me eventually, anyhow,” Russell said, “and her, too. To protect your secret—”

“Don’t jump to conclusions, Russ. I have more interesting options than killing you.” He turned his attention back to the changeling. “Bataan was terrible. You must enjoy pain.”

“No, but I can tune it out. Sometimes we have to bear it, to know what it’s like to be human.”

“Why would you want to do that? That’s like a human being wanting to know how it feels to be a turnip.”

“Not at all.”

He shook his head. “You like them. You think you love this one. It’s like loving a turnip.”

“You’ve never liked or loved anyone? Since the Stone Age?”

In an instant he changed into a burly thug, all scars and tattoos, and he had Russell by the wrist. “Tol’ you,” he said in a deep growl. “Don’ do that.” Russell dropped the pen he’d been holding like a dagger.

“Don’t you hurt him!”

He turned back into Halliburton, the skinny seventy-year-old, still clutching Russell’s wrist in an iron grip. “How would you stop me?”

With thumb and forefinger she pinched the edge of the table and twisted it. A long jagged piece of wood popped up, rifle-shot crack, and separated, screeching as she ripped it away. She held it out like an offering. “I could shove this up your ass and break it off.”

He let go of Russell and leaned forward. “Is that a serious offer? I might enjoy it. I rather did the last time, back in the Crusades, though I had to pretend to die, along with the others.”

He gently picked the long fat splinter from between her fingers and slowly slid it down his throat, like a sword-swallower. He closed his mouth, coughed once, and shrugged. “Do you want to threaten me with something more serious?”

She shook her head slowly. “I don’t see why we have to be adversaries. We should learn from each other.”

“I’m learning. You could be.” He gestured at the artifact behind her. “What did you mean by a ‘song’? You think you can communicate with it vocally?”

“Acoustic vibration. You’ve been doing that with your solenoid.”

“Why don’t you give it a try, then? Sing your little heart out.”

She stood up slowly and backed away, toward the artifact, not taking her eyes off the chameleon and Russell. “If you touch him—”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Go ahead.”

When she was next to the artifact, she reached up and touched its mirror surface—then recoiled, as if from an electric shock.

“What is it?” Russell said.

She shook her head and started to trill. It was an unearthly sound, and no human could have done it, glottal stops modulating one tone in rapid-fire Morse code.