Camouflage (30 page)

In the anteroom there were two complex data consoles. He sat down at the larger one and typed a few lines. "Okay ... I've turned off the cameras for maintenance. That'll be fun to explain."

"I'll look at it on the way out," the changeling said. "I think I can cover it."

"Computers, too?"

"MIT. I've had a long time to study things." It opened a locker. "Should we suit up?"

"Don't have to. Nothing nano going on." He put his hand on another door. "Open for me," he said quietly, evenly, and it slid away into the jamb in absolute silence. It was an airlock chamber. An identical door, without the ID plate, was on the other side.

They stepped inside and he said, "Close."

The door behind closed, but the one in front didn't open. "There are two people in the airlock," the room said. "I need a speech pattern from the one who is not Russell Sutton."

"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.

-47-

Apia and beyond

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.

It was over in forty-five seconds. All three stared at the artifact; nothing overt happened.

The chameleon rose and walked quietly over to stand next to her, Russell following just behind. "Looks like it didn't work."

"I felt something. Give it time."

"We have plenty of time. Don't worry." The chameleon reached out and absently stroked her arm; gently took her wrist. "The arm's all healed?"

She cocked her head. "Of course."

"Pity." He pulled down hard and the shoulder socket popped sickeningly, and the arm ripped off. An instant later her other hand came up and struck his face so hard the lower hinge of the jaw broke off and swung free.

He staggered back and threw the arm away, and used both hands to press his chin back into place.

"What are you doing?" she said. After an initial spray, the bleeding from her shoulder stopped.

It took a moment for the jaw to fuse back into place. "I'm doing ... what I've lived for, for thousands of years."

"Why?"

"Only one of us per planet."

"I'm not one of you."

"But you are—" Russ leaped onto his back and put a scissor-hold on his throat. The chameleon threw him off like a doll, to crash against the heavy laser mount.

"You are my only rival here. This is not personal. You just have to die."

She sidled around to where Russ was lying still. "It became personal when you hurt him. And I can't die."

"I believe I can put you into a state equivalent to death. All I have to do is tear you into several pieces and make sure those pieces stay separate. For all time."

The changeling found a pulse in Russell's throat and stood between him and the monster. "I could do the same to you."

"Not with one arm, I think. You won't have time to grow a new one, and you can't leave this room to do so at leisure."

She looked at the walls. "You're wrong. I could be through that wall and in the water in seconds. I don't think you want to face me in the water. Even one-armed."

"Leave and I'll kill him. Your choice."

The changeling hesitated. Jack couldn't let Russ live, no matter what happened to her.

"Go ahead," the chameleon said. "I won't even try to stop you. You'll be back, and meanwhile I'll enjoy killing him slowly. He hasn't been easy to work with."

She tried another tack. "I don't understand you. You're like a scientist who's searched all his life for something, but when you find it, you want to destroy it without learning anything first."

"I learned enough before you left that bedroom to come here. And I'm no more a scientist than you are a woman." He suddenly looked left. "Well, isn't
that
cute."

The amputated arm was transforming itself into a weapon. The nails had become long metal talons and eyes had formed over two knuckles. Pseudopods along the sides were turning into insectoid legs.

He turned back to the changeling. "Let me show you what I looked like when I first started looking for you." He became more than a foot shorter, bulking out so much that his T-shirt and shorts split. Black hair bristled all over his body and his face coarsened into Neanderthal features. He tore the rags of clothing away to reveal massive ridges of muscle and prominent genitals, engorged.

She leaped at him and he casually kicked her aside, the rough horn of his toe claws ripping cloth and skin between her breasts with a crunch of broken bone. She rolled once and came up in a crouch, pale, uncertain.

He stroked himself for a moment, looking at her, and muttered, "No."

"Please try." She tensed.

Without looking at the target, he struck sideways with the speed of a serpent and snatched up the disembodied arm. Wriggling, it tried to fight, but he closed a hand over its claws and bent back until they broke. He threw them to the floor with a clatter and then stripped the legs off like someone cleaning a shrimp.

He bit at the biceps and tore off a strip of flesh and then, munching it, broke the arm at the elbow. With a long dirty thumbnail he daintily excavated the eyes over the knuckles, and popped them in his mouth.

He smiled, his teeth pink with her blood, and took another bite.

The changeling looked around the room for something it could use as a weapon. The place was too neat; there was nothing loose. The huge laser could certainly cut the creature into chunks, but it was immovable as a boulder and could only be activated remotely.

Russell had regained consciousness and was staring at the horrible scene. The chameleon had stripped almost all of the flesh from the bone above the elbow. It dropped the arm and spit out a large gobbet. "At this point I should say 'You have wonderful taste, my dear,' but in fact you don't. I don't think I've ever eaten anything as vile as you."

"You're the first creature I've ever known to take a second bite. You're the one with no taste." She saw Russell fumble in his pocket and come out with his Swiss Army knife. "No, Russ!"

The chameleon turned to look at him and laughed. "Wrong tool, Russell."

"Oh?" He half-turned and jammed it into a high-voltage wall socket. There was a shower of sparks and the shock knocked him flat. The lights went out.

The backup, a large gasoline-powered generator, came on in a second. The lights flickered and then returned to normal brightness. Russ sat back up, cradling his injured hand.

"That didn't buy you any time."

"That wasn't the point. People will come to investigate."

"They'll find they can't get the blast door open."

"You really haven't thought this through, have you? You kill us and then what? Call a press conference?"

"I'll just leave the way she—" He turned, and she wasn't there anymore.

The changeling dropped from a ceiling girder just as he looked up. She landed on his shoulders and gave his head two twists, and his neck snapped. A third jerk and the head came off, with enough force to hit the ceiling. But he had hold of her leg by then, and spraying blood from his neck, flung her off in a high arc. She landed heavily and rolled to the base of the artifact, not far from Russell.