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Camouflage

Two ancient aliens lurk hidden amid humanity, one cruel and one compassionate—which will triumph?

*Camouflage
*By Joe Haldeman
*Ace Books
*Hardcover, August 2004
*296 pages
*MSRP: $23.95
*ISBN 0-441-01161-6

Review by Paul Di Filippo

E volution breeds nasty creatures out in the globular cluster known to us as Messier 22. Primed by their rough environment for survival at any cost, the aliens are unstoppable killers. When one species of these indestructible shape-changers reaches intelligence, they set out to explore the galaxy. Millions of years in our past, one of these "monsters" ends up marooned on Earth. For uncounted millennia, it survives by using the identity of whatever creature happens to occupy the top of the food chain. Call it a changeling. By the time 1931 rolls around, the changeling belatedly realizes that humans fill the desirable niche, and it decides to become one.

Our Pick: A

But its transformation into a passable representative of Homo sapiens is not so easy as mimicking a fish. Learning is slow, arduous and fraught with mortal danger, mostly for the humans whom the changeling encounters, although the changeling itself is repeatedly tested to destruction and beyond. But by 2019, the changeling is fully attuned to human sensibilities and ways of thinking, and able to live quite comfortably in society.

Perhaps too much so. For the changeling has an enemy, another shape-shifter of unknown origin called the chameleon. The chameleon is different from the changeling, living only to kill for pleasure. The two are evenly matched in abilities—except that perhaps the changeling has become too human to be ruthless enough to survive.

What eventually brings the rival aliens together is the discovery at the bottom of the Pacific of the changeling's incredibly old yet perfect starship. Hauled onto a Samoan island by Russell Sutton, mastermind of Poseidon Projects, a firm that has previously raised the Titanic, the starship thwarts all scientific attempts to unravel its mysteries. With his fellow scientists, notably a woman named Jan Dagmar, and his partner, the famous oceanographer Jack Halliburton, Sutton works feverishly to crack the enigma of the ship, at this point not even speculating that its ancient passenger might still be around.

Some of the high-energy experimental techniques they use result in near-catastrophes. But the ship finally reacts to gentle signaling by issuing a signal of its own. Here enters the changeling, attracted by the global publicity regarding the artifact. The long years have wiped the changeling's memory clean of its origin, but it suspects the ship is a meaningful link to its past. Masquerading as a human woman named Rae, the changeling secures a job with Sutton and crew. But when the changeling's imperfect cover story is blown, secret agents of the U.S. government step in. After this, it's a race among four parties—Sutton, the changeling, the chameleon and the government—as to which will have the secrets of the UFO first.

On the shoulders of SF giants

Joe Haldeman has delivered an eminently readable, suspenseful, even touching novel here, one that's clearly state-of-the-art SF, yet which also pays affectionate homage to several classics of the field.

The tipoff to the first writer being honored comes quite soon, on page 2, where Haldeman uses the phrase "clement seas." Now, I might be placing too much importance on the adjective "clement," but I think not. Haldeman is too careful a writer not to have picked this somewhat unusual word on purpose. After all, didn't Hal Clement's famous Needle (1950) tell the tale of two aliens using Earth as their playing field for a game of cat-and-mouse? Haldeman's version of this game is rather a one-sided one, however, since while the chameleon suspects the existence of the changeling, the reverse is not true, and the changeling labors unaware that it is being pursued. Fortunately, this adds to rather than diminishes the suspense.

Both the chameleon and the changeling, the former more so than the latter, remind me of A. E. van Vogt's famous Coeurl, from the story "Black Destroyer." A ravening, cunning predator loose among helpless humans is always a strong hook, and Haldeman exploits the scenario to the fullest. Likewise, the shape-changing motif harks back to John Campbell's famous "Who Goes There?", which many more people know of in its filmic incarnation as The Thing (1951, 1982).

But, surprisingly, the touchstone I'd reference the most here is Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human (1953). Sturgeon's portrayal of an "idiot" who eventually blossoms into greater-than-human intelligence is paralleled here by Haldeman's depiction of an alien whose mind is mazed in centuries of animal existence and who must remold his psyche to the human configuration. As the changeling does so, in a series of vivid vignettes that interleaf the real-time narrative, the reader comes to feel greater and greater empathy for it, until by the end the creature is the true hero of the novel. This transformation is handled subtly and convincingly, a real tour de force on Haldeman's part. The same, however, cannot be said for the character of the chameleon, who gets less space and insight devoted to him and who remains something of a cipher.

Funny, tragic, shocking, insightful, this novel proves that the only behavior truly alien to the universe is that which ignores love and curiosity.

I liked Haldeman's original title for this book—Sea Change—better than the current one. But as he reveals in an online interview, he followed advice that "one-word titles sold better." Too bad. —Paul

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Also in this issue: Vamped, by David Sosnowski




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