Camouflage

its slab. It lay there in the surf like a half-beached whale, weighing more than ten whales.
    Since it seemed indestructible, Jack was in favor of using explosives—a large enough shaped charge would pitch it forward. Russ was totally against the idea, since there was no way of telling how delicate the artifact was inside. Nonsense, Jack said; the thing had gone through earthquakes under crushing pressure. If there was anything fragile inside, it was long since garbaged.
    They asked Naomi, who had been a demolition engineer, and she said that intuitively it seemed impractical, and then did some numbers. No way. A free-standing shaped charge doesn’t direct all its force in one direction. The side blast would make a crater so big it would swallow the concrete slab—and the explosion would probably shatter every window on this side of the island.
    But she suggested a kind of explosive that is truly linear: a rocket engine. If they could strap a booster from a small spaceship onto it—if it were a kind they could shut off!—they could drag it up onto the slab by brute force.
    And think of the visuals.
    They got the other engineers together and hashed out the details. They’d need a kind of chute, to keep it going in a straight line, and the booster would have to be a kind that could be carefully controlled. The thing was pointed straight at Aggie Grey’s Hotel, and it would be bad publicity to demolish a century-old landmark full of tourists, where Jack had finally taught the bartender how to make a decent martini.
    But the scheme would be great publicity if it worked. They called the American, French, and British space agencies, but China underbid everyone by half: a mere thirtymillion eurobucks. Jack called some people and found he could underwrite a quarter of it by granting an exclusive news franchise. By lunchtime the next day they were joined by a Chinese lawyer with a short contract and a big notebook of specifications.
    They could have their rocket in eight days. Jack grumbled about that—they’d be old news by then—but it’s not exactly like buying a car off the lot. And the artifact wasn’t going anywhere.

- 8 -
san guillermo, california, 1932
    “ J immy” had made a little too much noise during its sexual initiation, and although Mr. Berry was secretly relieved that his boy was doing something normal, he obeyed his wife’s wishes and fired Deborah, slipping her a hundred-dollar bill as she left. That was a year’s rent for her: more than adequate compensation.
    The changeling was becoming human enough to be slightly annoyed to find her replaced by another male, but it had learned enough from the one encounter that its simulation of a woman would fool anyone but a thorough gynecologist.
    Dr. Grossman wondered whether Jimmy’s astounding musical performance extended into related areas of motor control, and so for the next meeting he brought along a friend who was an artist—and also a beautiful woman. He wanted to observe the boy’s reaction to that, as well as his skill with a pencil.
    Jimmy did show some special interest when they wereintroduced. She was a stunning blonde who matched his own six feet.
    “Jimmy, this is Irma Leutij. Everyone calls her Dutch.”
    “Dutch,” it repeated.
    “Hello, Jimmy,” she said in the husky voice she automatically used with attractive men. She calculated that Jimmy was about five years her junior, wrong by a thousand millennia.
    “We want to do an experiment with drawing,” Grossbaum said. “Dutch is an artist.”
    The changeling knew the sense of the word “experiment,” and was cautious. “Artist . . . experiment?”
    “Do you like to draw?” Dutch said.
    It shrugged in a neutral way.
    Grossbaum snapped open his briefcase and took out two identical drawing tablets and plain pencils. He gestured toward the breakfast-room table. “Let’s sit over there.” Jimmy followed them and sat down next to Dutch. The psychiatrist put open tablets and pencils in front of them and sat down opposite.
    “What shall I draw?” Dutch said. “Something simple?”
    “Simple but precise. Maybe a cube in perspective.”
    She nodded and did it, nine careful lines in four seconds.
    “Jimmy?” He pushed the pencil toward the boy.
    The changeling was cautious, remembering people’s reaction to the piano playing. It could have duplicated the woman’s actions exactly, but instead slowed down to a crawl.
    Grossbaum noted the speed. He also noted that