Camouflage by Joe Haldeman Read Free Book Online Page B

visitors.
    His parents were so glad to see him acting “normal” that they overlooked the fact that he didn’t act like Jimmy at all. He was released into their care.
    The changeling had assimilated a wide range of behaviors, and a fairly sophisticated sense of which was appropriate at which time. To the Berrys, their son had become quiet and dignified and perhaps a little shy, which was a real advance over the brutal sodomist they’d tendered to St. Anthony’s.
    The changeling played piano for hours at a time, and it also spent a long time just watching the sea. It knew it was being observed and evaluated, this time by amateurs, and could deliver a nuanced performance.
    It had learned how to simulate the behavior of a teenager who had been troubled, but now was on the road torecovery. It had seen that that was the only way to get out of St. Anthony’s and move on to the next stage of development.
    This was the most complex creature it had ever imitated. Its successes gave it a pleasure like joy.

- 11 -
apia, samoa, 2020
    O nce the artifact was seated on its pad, a gang of workers paid extra for speed and overtime began building the laboratory around it. The government moved in before the dry-wall was up.
    Halliburton and Russell had come down from their hotel lunch to take a look at the building’s progress. They crossed over the moat on a makeshift bamboo bridge and let a supervisor show them around the place. He claimed they could begin moving in equipment in four days; the trim and painting would be done in five. That was better than they’d contracted for.
    When they started to go back, there was a man in a white tropical suit waiting on the other side of the moat, an uncomfortable-looking guard at his side.
    “Mr. Halliburton, he—”
    Halliburton cut him off with a gesture. “Who are you and who are you working for?”
    “Dr. Franklin Nesbitt,” he said, “chief of NASAAdvanced Planning.” He was a tanned muscular man with close-cropped white hair who stood absolutely still, except for offering his hand.
    Russell took it. “We’ve had correspondence.”
    “Of a sort,” Nesbitt said. “You basically said that whatever I was selling, you weren’t buying.”
    “That’s still true,” Halliburton said. “You have no jurisdiction here.”
    “Nor claim any. But I have an offer you might find interesting.”
    “No, you don’t. You’ve come a long way for nothing.”
    “Jack,” Russell said, “we can at least be civil.” To Nesbitt: “They’re serving tea at the hotel. It would be nice to talk to somebody who isn’t a reporter.” He called ahead while they walked to the Jeep, and by the time they got to the hotel their private dining room was set with crisp linens and heavy silver.
    An Irish woman brought in tea and trays of trimmed sandwiches and pastries.
    “My indulgence,” Russell said. “Jack is more like beer and potato chips.”
    “Total barbarian,” Halliburton said, snagging a watercress sandwich as he sat down. “So what do you have that’s so interesting? What do you have that’s interesting at all?
    The other two men waited while the woman poured tea and left. “General or specific?” Nesbitt said.
    “General,” Russell said.
    He rubbed his forehead, and for a moment you could see the seven time zones of jet lag.
    “Basically, and expecting initial rejection, I’m offering you our expertise for free.”
    “Right about that,” Jack said. “The rejection.”
    “If we did seek outside help,” Russ said, “why should it be you rather than the Europeans or Japanese?”
    “We’re older and larger—not in terms of money, true, but as a research organization.”
    “We are doing research here,” Jack said, peering doubtfully into a sandwich, “but we’re primarily a for-profit organization. One that doesn’t have the faintest idea of what it will find. But we have a good chance that it will be earth-shaking.
    “I’ve sunk most of a large fortune into this. I