Camouflage (31 page)

By the time she stopped rolling, it had grown a new head, a grotesque combination of the Neanderthal and Jack. "That did hurt. Shall we play pain?"

Pulling herself to her feet, the changeling reached up and touched the artifact.

There was a sound like a distant large bell struck once.

The changeling took its true form for the first time in a million years. It elongated until it was about eight feet long. Its face had only one opening, with no apparent sense organs. You couldn't focus on its body—it changed, moment by moment, colors shimmering all over the spectrum, limbs growing and fading and transmuting. It was inhumanly beautiful.

The artifact flowed off its stand as if it were mercury. It shot in one straight rivulet toward the chameleon and formed itself into a domed cage around him.

The changeling spoke to it, in colors.

The chameleon seized the liquid bars of its cage, but they wouldn't budge. Then it spasmed into rigidity, and then froze, literally, frost riming all over its body.

The artifact melted into a puddle all around the chameleon, and then re-formed as a large silver ovoid, three or four times the size of its original manifestation, with the deadly creature inside. Colors flashed all over the room, and then stopped, and the changeling became Jan again, flickered through Sharon, and settled on Rae.

She walked over to Russ, took his hand, and helped him to his feet. She embraced him.

"What was ... was that you?"

"It's news to me, too, but yes. I guess that's what I look like when I don't have to look like something else."

There was a loud croaking sound, and a large part of the ceiling dropped a few feet, then stopped, turned sideways, and settled slowly to the floor, leaning neatly against the wall.

"The artifact is sort of like my partner, alive in its way. It didn't realize who I was until I sang and touched it. That changed it, too; woke it up. It's been in a kind of waiting mode, suspended animation, since I left it to explore."

"Ninety years ago?"

"More like a million." She looked at the ovoid. "It doesn't know what Jack is, but he obviously shouldn't be allowed to remain on Earth. We'll take him home for study."

"He's not dead?"

"No. He can't die any more than we can. But he's not from our world."

"Where is your world?"

"Ten thousand light-years away.A planet in a globular cluster— Messier 22, in Sagittarius." She gave him a long kiss. "Get a telescope and look me up sometime."

"You have to go."

"Yes. It's like a law. I've been here for too long. Done things I shouldn't have done. Like fall in love with a local, an alien."

"Well ... I know how that feels." She squeezed his hand and started to say something, but turned and walked toward the ship. An entrance rippled open. "Could I go with you?"

"Still the astronaut." She blinked away tears and shook her head. "The journey's too long. And you'd have to learn to like chlorine." She looked at him for a long moment and stepped into the ovoid. The entrance resealed.

The ship silently rose toward the hole in the ceiling. But then it settled back down to the floor. It opened again.

The changeling was in its natural form, splendid, chaotic. It became Rae again.

"Actually, the ship says you
could
come. But not as a human. You'd have to let it change you into something like me."

"It could do that?"

"Nothing to it." She smiled at him, eyes glittering. "And you'd still be Russ. My Russ."

Suddenly, loudspeakers crackled. Jan's voice, painfully loud: "Jack? Russell? What the hell is going on in there?"

Russell shook his head and laughed.

"Russ, the guard says you went in there with me! What are you doing?"

"Just... taking a little trip." He paused, then stepped over the threshold and felt himself start to glow.