Camouflage

eliminating competition.
    He wasn’t stupid. Over the millennia he had often attained his culture’s highest degree of education. He knew that his desire to destroy the competition was not rational.But it was programmed into every cell of his body; it was what he had instead of the urge to reproduce. And sexual desire was a pale flame beside his passion to destroy, to protect himself.
    On his own terms it was easy to rationalize: if the creature was like him, their first meeting would be short and brutal. Best strike first. No human could kill him, but no human knew how profoundly damaged he would have to be in order to actually die.
    He did know and had to presume his competitor would as well.

- 46 -
apia, samoa, 24 july 2021
    T he changeling regretted the impulse that had made it say it hadn’t ridden a bike in years. It had been riding since before Russell was born, and simulating clumsiness on a single-speed Schwinn was an Oscar-level performance.
    “How you doing up there?” She was leading them up Logan Road, not too hilly and no traffic, Sunday morning.
    “I’m getting the hang of it.” She stood up to crest the hills, and felt the gentle pressure of eyetracks on her butt. Maybe it shouldn’t have worn the form-fitting jogging outfit, which got some disapproving stares from people on their way to church. But it certainly kept Russell’s attention.
    “All downhill from here. Just keep bearing to your left.”
    “Yeah, I’ve run this way. The project’s down after the second light, V-something Road.”
    “Vaiala-vini. We’ll make you a Samoan yet.”
    “As long as I don’t have to like breadfruit.”
    “ Fuata . We’ll start out with hot dogs and move our waydown the food chain. After turkey tails and mutton flaps, you’ll be begging for fuata .”
    “Oh, I’ve got a freezer full of turkey tails. Deep-fried, you can’t beat ’em.” They laughed together, but there was an edge to it. They both knew the Samoan diet had been transformed by Western intrusion, all for the worse. Turkey tails and Big Macs, mutton flaps and corned beef—there weren’t many natives over thirty who were lean and heart-healthy.
    Russell waved at the guard as they went through the project gate. They dropped the bikes, no locks, in front of the main building, and raided his office fridge for hot dogs and beer, and put them in a foam cooler. He found charcoal in a utility locker and went out to start the fire while Sharon changed.
    She studied her body in the ladies’ room mirror and made a few minor adjustments here and there. She knew she had Russell hooked. The question was whether to reel him in. It might be better to play a waiting game, and let Michelle get closer to delivery.
    Or maybe force the issue. Get Russ in bed, and see what comes up.
    It was a nice bright red thong bikini. The changeling pulled out a few pinches of excess pubic hair and ate them. It arranged the top so it just showed the wing tips of the hummingbird tattoo. It slightly deepened its lumbar dimples, a feature she remembered Russell noticing in her Rae incarnation.
    It closed in for the kill, first wrapping a lavalava around its waist. It could wear the revealing suit as long as at least its toes were in the water, but Samoans weren’t happy about insensitive tourists flaunting their charms on the way there.
    Russell was wearing the same blue-jean cutoffs he’d bicycled in, changing it into a swimsuit by taking off his shirt and shoes. The changeling smiled at his familiarbody, a little pudgy in spite of athletic legs and arms, skin almost milk white—he never went out into the sun without total sunblock; both his parents had had skin cancer. His body hair was a silky down of black and white mixed, no gray, and his only tattoo, not visible now, was a small DO NOT OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS tag attached to a big scar he’d gotten from an emergency appendectomy by a village doctor in the Cook Islands. How many other women had giggled at that the first time he undressed in front of them?
    He noticed her own tattoo immediately. “Bird?”
    “Hummingbird.” She pulled the top of her bra down almost to the aureole. Her breasts were small, which he liked.
    “Very nice.” He smiled and turned his attention back to the grill, splashing the charcoal with 100 percent isopropyl alcohol from a lab bottle. He snapped a sparker at it and it ignited with a blue puff.
    “How much longer?” the changeling said. “I’m famished.”
    “At least