Camouflage

—43—

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.

Of course the changeling could dissect itself, and did on a regular basis, but that didn’t teach it anything on the molecular level. Besides, the only science it knew was human science, and whatever it did when it changed into a shark or a roll of linoleum wasn’t covered by Organic Chemistry 101.

It did absorb DNA when it ate, naturally, and human DNA sometimes when it had sex with a male human. But whatever passed for metabolism in its body didn’t retain the stuff. It could absorb a school of albacore tuna and somehow change their substance into a Volkswagen.

Poseidon was probably going to be on the lookout for their alien returning, and would test job applicants for the presence of human DNA. What procedure could Sharon Valida expect?

A little research showed it that DNA testing for purposes of identification was usually done with buccal swabs, just wiping a few cells off the inside of the cheek, noninvasive and less personal than a blood or sperm sample. All it had to do was contrive to have a mouthful of human flesh before it sat down to apply for work.

Biting somebody, alive or dead, on the way to an interview didn’t seem practical. You could buy live portable DNA in the form of blood or sperm, but both posed practical problems, when it came to opening one’s mouth for the doctor or police officer.

Pure DNA was sold for research purposes, but only in microscopic quantities, hardly a mouthful. Besides, they might even decide to be invasive—want a job? We’ll have to take a little blood.

If it were only Russell involved, the changeling would just come out and tell him. Show up one night as Rae to get his attention, and explain. But there were all those tiresome people with guns—and Jack was ultimately in charge, not Russell. Jack felt dangerous, almost feral in his greedy intensity, and he could infer the changeling’s abilities from what had happened at Aggie Grey’s. There probably wouldn’t be a window facing the sea if Jack had anything to do with the conditions of their meeting.

On the other hand, the changeling knew enough about the Poseidon labs to know they couldn’t test for DNA in-house. The samples would go to Pago Pago, or even back here to Honolulu. That would buy some time, and also might afford an opportunity for substitution.

Perhaps the smartest thing would be to wait, to go join the circus again for a couple of decades; let things cool down. Jack and Russell would die, and new people would be in charge of the artifact.

But there were factors arguing against that, not the least of which being its feelings for Russ; it wanted him, above all others, to know what was really going on. Also, in twenty years—or five, or one—it was likely that the artifact would wind up in a vault in Washington, or Langley, impossible to approach.

There was something deeper, too, that the changeling couldn’t quite put a name to. Something in that pattern of ones and zeros was coming together—not logic, not numbers, but some sort of message.

Jan and Russ and the rest of Poseidon were analyzing the digits by looking for an analogue to the Drake message. But maybe the message was not for them. Maybe it was not for any human.