Camouflage

by Joe Haldeman

  It punched him on the chin just hard enough to daze him, and slapped on the light. It was a room about the size of a walk-in closet, with racks of supplies. It plucked a roll of wide duct tape and carefully pressed a piece of it over the man’s mouth, and squares over each eye, after capturing his retinal pattern. Then it undressed him and put on his uniform, and bound him tightly with tape.

  It took his fingerprints, studied him for a moment, and then turned out the light and concentrated on becoming him. It wasn’t too painful, skin color and facial structure. Then it pushed its way out behind the cart, leaving the door locked.

  How much time did it have? If those cops were waiting for Mr. Daniel, it was only minutes.

  It hesitated by a door that said authorized personnel only, trying to imagine what might be behind the sign. It could be the place where janitors went to catch a smoke. Or it might be full of nervous security types.

  Turning the cart around, it headed back toward Customs. There were six lanes open for U.S. citizens, and three for foreigners—and one marked “employees.”

  It got halfway through the short lane, and somebody shouted, “Hey! Asshole!”

  It stopped and turned around. A fat cop said something angry. It was in Hawaiian, unfortunately.

  It shrugged, hoping that not everyone who looked Hawaiian spoke Hawaiian. “You know the drill,” he said. “Where the hell you goin’?”

  “Just out to the car,” the changeling said. “My dinner is in the cooler.”

  “Yeah, liquid dinner. Just leave the goddamn cart on this side, okay?” The changeling trudged back and parked it out of the way.

  Once outside, of course, the uniform made its wearer stand out rather than blend in. It would be conspicuous to hail a cab or get on a bus. Bad planning, not to carry along Daniel’s clothes.

  It would take about twenty minutes to “grow” inconspicuous clothes, and discard the janitor’s. Too long. Taking a chance, it ducked into a souvenir shop and bought fairly modest tourist clothes—Hawaiian shirt, Bermuda shorts, and flip-flops. It changed in the men’s room—also changing its skin to pale white—and carried the uniform out in the shop’s paper bags.

  In the line at the cab stand, it started mapping out its strategy. It told the cab to take it to the downtown Hilton, but paid attention for the last mile, looking for a more seedy place. The Crossed Palms looked suitably run-down.

  It paid off the cab with an unremarkable tip, and walked straight through the Hilton lobby. On the way back to the Crossed Palms, it threw the janitor’s uniform into a Dumpster.

  The chain-smoking woman at the desk was glad to give “James Baker” a room for three days, paid in advance with cash, no ID or luggage.

  The room was musty and dark, and definitely not worth $150 a night. But the changeling was finally able to relax, for the first time since the side door to the Wing Room had opened to admit the unwelcome spies.

  This couldn’t be rushed, it told itself; the identity it took back to Apia had to be absolutely bulletproof. It could go back to California and re-create its college-boy surfer dude, but why not just stay in Hawaii? Closer to Samoa, and so a more likely point of origin for a job-seeker.

  There would be a job opening soon. Michelle, the project’s receptionist, was seven months pregnant. She was looking forward to quitting and becoming a full-time mother.

  The changeling had perhaps a month to construct a perfect replacement and establish her in Samoa.

  Receptionist would be good. It didn’t dare try lab technician again, but it did want to be someone Russ would notice, and fall for.

  It had evidently been caught because it had masqueraded as a real person, and was snagged by some routine security procedure. “We talked to the real Rae Archer” was all the changeling knew or needed to know. Using an actual human had been lazy. This time it would create a woman from the ground up.

  The changeling knew pretty exactly what Russ liked in a woman. But it probably wouldn’t be too smart to make a woman perfectly built to order—even if it didn’t make Russ suspicious, someone else might notice.

  So she wouldn’t be a modest slender Oriental woman with a degree in astronomy. A normally plump blonde Caucasian who had studied marine biology. It would be smart if her first impression (especially to Jan, but also to Russ) was not too sexy. She could work on Russ slowly, in time-honored ways.

  It bothered her to be sneaky with him. She loved him more than she had any other man or woman on Earth. But she had to find a way to the artifact, either through trust or stealth, and Russ was the obvious candidate for either.

  What is this thing called love? that song asked when she had come out of the water the second time—back when those ex-Marine centenarians at the anniversary celebration had been horny young men. Could the changeling really know the answer, even eighty years later; even all those books and plays, poems and songs later?

  It thought so. The answer was Russ.

  If she couldn’t have him as Rae, conjure up a second best love. Someday she would amaze him with the story. First, though, she had to seduce him again.

  The changeling wanted to be about thirty years old, married once briefly and widowed, no children, no ties. It had to be in complete control of the woman’s fictional paper trail, starting with birth.

  It took most of a beautiful morning, walking through Kalaepohaku Cemetery, before the changeling found the perfect burial plot: Sharon Valida, born in 1990, died in ’91. Her parents were buried beside her, both dead in 2010.

  A short computer search in the library showed her parents had died together in an auto accident. Sharon, just to complicate things, had been born in Maui, and died there. She was cremated and her ashes brought back here. But her death certificate was presumably in Maui, and had to be pulled from the system there.

  Best to do things in proper order. The changeling flew over to Maui, still the pasty-faced tourist guy, and easily found the office where birth and death records were kept.

  It spent a night in a closet, listening, making sure the place would be empty the next night. There was one complication: although there was no night watchman, there were video cameras covering every hall.

  The changeling didn’t like to take the form of objects rather than living things; it was difficult and painful and time-consuming. But there didn’t seem to be any alternative in this case.

  It became a sheet of grimy linoleum. The floors of every hall were the same dirt-colored plastic. So it was able to slide out through the millimeter clearance between door and floor and slowly undulate down the hall to Vital Statistics. There were no cameras in the office, so it rolled up into a cylinder and turned into a sort of cartoon human for convenience, or at least a roll of linoleum with feet and two two-fingered hands, keeping the drab linoleum color and texture.

  The file drawers weren’t locked, so it was easy to pull the paper death certificate. The electronic record was another matter. Even if it knew which machine to use, there would be passwords and protocols. It would have to solve that problem from outside the system, as Sharon Valida.

  It found Sharon’s birth certificate, and memorized the handprint and footprint on it. No retinal scans in 1990.

  It gave itself a 2007 driver’s license, still no retinal scan. It had to take a chance on the Social Security number, changing a few digits from one that belonged to a person born in Maui the same year as Sharon.

  Her parents’ driver’s licenses were still on file, with pictures; they’d lived in Maui until 2009, the year before they died. Her mother had been a strikingly beautiful blonde, which was convenient. The changeling generated a teenaged version for Sharon, with a 2007 hairstyle, nothing extreme. No facial tattoo or ritual scars. For “Scars or identifying marks,” it gave Sharon a small hummingbird tattoo on the left breast.

  Russell would like that. Dipping into the nipple.

  It found a map with school districts, but of course they’d have been much different in 2007. Guessing would be dangerous;
some damned computer was liable to do a routine systems check and flag an anomaly. It took a little searching, but there was a file called “HS District Archives”; it found the one closest to her parents’ address and enrolled her.

  It gave her a science track with APS; she aced all her science and math but didn’t do too well in humanities and arts. She also aced business and keyboard, which might count for more than her college degree. That would be the next day’s work.

  Checking against other students’ yearbook entries, it gave her Chess Club and volleyball. Religious preference, none. Then it worked back through middle school and grade school records, which were mostly routine stuff. Her fourth-grade teacher noted that she did her work “with ease and dispatch,” a compliment she had given to about half the class. She skipped fifth grade, making it possible for her to finish college the year her parents died.

  It was not quite dawn when the changeling turned back into linear linoleum and slid down a corridor to a location that wasn’t covered by the cameras, a stairwell that led to a musty basement. It took its janitor form, remembered from Berkeley, and waited until ten to walk upstairs and pass through the crowd, out onto the street.

  It turned back into the tourist in a public library rest room stall, and used the library computer system to outline Sharon Valida’s academic career at the University of Hawaii, a more reasonable destination for an ambitious girl than the community college on Maui. She would study business with a concentration in oceanography—in fact, she would take an introductory oceanography course from herself, as the charismatic professor Jimmy Coleridge. The changeling used its intimate knowledge of the university’s academic and bureaucratic structure to give Sharon a respectable-but-not-brilliant four years of study. Inserting the paper and computer records verifying her existence there would be even easier than the past night’s work in Maui.

  (The changeling had not just dropped everything when it changed from Professor Coleridge into Rae Archer. The timing had been perfect; the Sky and Telescope ad appearing right at the end of the term. So the professor turned in his grades and told everyone he was taking the summer off for a diving vacation in Polynesia, which was not completely a lie.)

  There was one thing left to do before going back to Honolulu. The changeling went to a mall and bought a recent wardrobe for Sharon, and then went back to the Crossed Palms and spent a painful half hour changing into her. She rented another room for the night and went back to the Vital Statistics office at four thirty, a half hour before closing.

  “May I help you?” The woman at the window, about forty, had a bright fixed stare as if she’d been caffeine-loading to stay awake till five, and seemed less than sincere in her desire to help.

  “I can’t find my birth certificate,” the changeling said. “I need a certified copy to get a passport.”

  “Photo ID,” the woman said, and the changeling handed over the fresh, though worn, driver’s license.

  The woman sat down at a console and typed in Valida’s name. She stared at the screen, cleared it, and typed it in again. “This says you died in ’91.”

  “What, died?”

  “One year old.” She looked up suspiciously.

  “Well, duh. I didn’t.”

  “Wait here a moment.” She hustled off in the direction of the room where the changeling had spent the night.

  She came back shaking her head. “Computer error,” she said, and deleted the record with a couple of strokes. Wordlessly, she made a copy of the birth certificate and notarized it. She went down the hall to have another clerk witness it. The changeling walked out with its new existence certified.

  In a way, it was simpler for Sharon to get a college degree than it had been to go through grades 1 to 12, since the changeling could work from inside. It changed its retinal pattern to match that of Professor Jimmy Coleridge, to get into his front door, and took a cab from the Honolulu airport to his apartment off the Manoa campus.

  The changeling didn’t think anyone saw Sharon entering the apartment, but if they did, it wouldn’t be that uncommon a sight.

  The next morning, it took a half hour to change back into Jimmy, who fortunately didn’t weigh much more than Sharon. It put on teaching clothes and walked over to Coleridge’s office at the School of Ocean Earth Science Technology.

  The departmental secretary was surprised to see him. “Back from Samoa already? I thought you were gone till August!”

  “Just for a couple of days. I’ve got an open ticket on Polynesian Airways. Thought I’d catch up on some stuff and get a few decent meals.”

  “What do they eat in Samoa? Each other?”

  “Just for variety. Usually McDonald’s.”

  “What about the space alien? Were you there?”

  “Yeah—they think it’s some Hollywood stunt.”

  “I hope they’re wrong. That would be so maze.”

  “Would be.” There was a double handful of mail waiting. The changeling took it to Coleridge’s office, dumped it in a drawer, and held the desk’s identifier cable up to his eye. The console pinged to life and it started typing.

  It wanted to give Sharon a bachelor’s in business administration, with a minor in oceanography. It only took twenty minutes to map out her course of study, and then another hour to verify which courses had been offered in which year.

  The oceanography minor was easy—she took OCN 320, Aquatic Pollution, as well as “Science of the Sea,” from Professor Coleridge, and got an A. The business major was harder. It had taken some business courses as protective coloration in 1992 and 1993, while it was being a California surfer, but things had changed a lot in the past thirty years. Majors had to have calculus and advanced statistics.

  It wouldn’t be smart to try to generate actual class records; nothing on computer. But it could fake a paper copy of her transcript, and sneak it into the proper file at Business Administration, which was also at the Manoa campus. It was unlikely that anyone would ask for her transcript, but if they did, maybe the scam with the birth certificate could work again.

  The changeling gave itself, as Sharon, glowing job references from two dead professors and Coleridge, who of course was off diving but could be reached at jimmyc@uhw.edu.

  —41—

  Apia, Samoa, 16 July 2021

  “She wasn’t human,” Jack Halliburton said. “No human could have an arm blown off and then outdo a Hollywood stuntman in falling, running, swimming. What was she?”

  Jack and Jan had Russell alone in Jack’s suite at Aggie Grey’s. “You loved her?” Jan said.

  “This is so confusing,” Russell said.

  “You had sex with her,” Jack said.

  “Jesus, Jack.” Russell winced and turned away.

  “No, listen. You’ve had sex with other women; lots of them.”

  Russell looked toward Jan for support and got a blank stare. “I wouldn’t say ‘lots.’ ”

  “So was there anything about her anatomy that seemed strange? Anything about her psychology?”

  “I did love her,” he said to Jan. “I fell for her like dropping off a cliff.”

  “But think!” Jack persisted. “Anything that wasn’t human?”

  “She was a hell of a lot more human than you, Jack. She was funny and sweet and interested in everything.”

  “That’s scary,” Jan said.

  “I know it is.” Russell sank back into the big soft easy chair. “More scary to me than anybody.”

  Jack levered himself up off the couch and stalked across the room to a table with three crystal liquor decanters. He poured himself a splash of whisky and dropped an ice cube into it. “Do you think she could have been some kind of construct, sent to spy on us?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Russell said. “A robot. That accounts for the metallic sound when you rapped your knuckles on her.”

  “I mean biological.”

  “Of course. You think anybody in the world is capable of ‘constructing’ a superhuman?”

 
“She came from somewhere.” The phone rang and Jack snatched it up. He listened for about a minute, giving monosyllabic responses, and then said, “I don’t know what to say. We’ll get back to you. Thanks.” He set the phone softly back on the cradle.

  “Who was that?” Jan said.

  He twirled the ice around in his glass. “Woman named Peterson, Doctor Peterson. Forensic pathologist. Local.” He shook his head. “They sent a flesh sample from the arm over to Pago Pago for analysis, DNA identification.”

  “They identified her?”

  “It’s not a ‘her.’ ” He took a small sip. “It’s not even human—not even animal. It doesn’t have DNA.”

  “Holy Christ,” Russell said.

  Jack sat down. “Russ … you were fucking an alien from another planet. That’s probably illegal in Samoa.”

  —43—

  Honolulu, Hawaii, 18 July 2021

  The changeling had winced when it saw the headline space alien discovered in Samoa. It bought a paper and learned that it had murdered a “high-level American intelligence operative” by “injecting a mysterious substance.”

  An editorial urged tolerance rather than fear. The alien would come forward if it knew it would not be harmed. The American government could be reasonable.

  That was tempting. The electric chair would be a stimulating experience.

  The story explained that scientists knew it was an alien because a tissue sample had no DNA. Was there any way to fake that?

  The changeling had several degrees in biology, but didn’t know much about its own. It didn’t know what mechanisms were involved in changing from one creature—one thing—to another. It was as natural as breathing or photosynthesis were to organisms on Earth, and no more amenable to auto-analysis: if you were the only creature around that breathed, you could hardly dissect yourself and learn about lungs.