Camouflage by Joe Haldeman Page B

black.
    Except for the flashlight.
    Someone screamed and ran away. The changeling was at first impeded by the loose dirt, but then it sprang out, and in three long steps caught up with the fleeing intruder and pushed him lightly to the ground.
    He was a Filipino child, cowering in terror, still clutching a canvas bag. Six or seven years old.
    The changeling sorted through the few Japanese phrases it had accumulated, and decided none was appropriate. It used English: “Don’t be afraid. I was just resting. We do it that way. It’s cool in the dirt.”
    The boy probably didn’t understand a word, but the tone of the changeling’s voice calmed him. It helped him to his feet and handed him flashlight and bag, and made a shooing motion. “Now go! Get out of here!” The boy ran wildly away.
    Perhaps it should have killed him. With a finger punch it could have simulated a bullet wound to the head. But what could he really do? He would run home and tell his parents, and they would interpret the event in terms of what they knew of reality, and be glad the boy had survived waking up a Japanese soldier. He would tell the other children, and they might believe him, but other adults would dismiss it as imagination.
    (In fact, the changeling was wrong. The boy’s parents did believe he had awakened a dead man, and told him to be quiet about it except to God, and pray thankfulness for the rest of his life, that God had chosen to spare him.)
    The changeling widened its irises temporarily, so the starlit desolation was as bright as day, and started moving quietly but swiftly north. It took only a half hour to catch up with a group that had been allowed a few hours of rest. It had passed four Americans lying dead in the road.
    It saw only one guard awake, leaning against the fender of a truck. It went behind the truck and forced itself toproduce urine, and then casually walked forward, adjusting its clothes. “Hai,” it whispered to the guard, ready to kill him instantly if his reaction was wrong. He just grunted and spit.
    It walked among the Americans, planning. The masquerade as a Japanese probably wouldn’t pass muster during the day, among Japanese. So it would be best to change back into an American before dawn.
    By starlight it examined every sleeping face. None of them was familiar, either from the Marine detachment or from the Mariveles camp. So it could become Jimmy again, and not have to fake a new history.
    The people at the end of the group would be the ones nearest death, and probably least likely to be keeping track of who was around them. In fact, it found two that were dead, and quietly lay down between them in the pitch darkness.
    It made as little noise as possible, changing the bones of its face back into Jimmy’s starveling countenance. The uniform was trivially easy, and only made a normal rustling sound. It stretched the Japanese skeleton as much as was practical, with an occasional popped-knuckle noise, and got to within three inches of Jimmy’s height.
    What it wound up with was an even more famished version of Jimmy, which was fine. The weaker-looking, the better.
    With the first light of dawn, the Japanese guards were working through their ranks, shouting and kicking. A sudden blue flash and rifle shot got them moving faster.
    They left five behind, dead or so close as to make no difference. The sun sped up over the horizon, and in less than an hour, the morning cool had dissipated.
    It had rained torrentially two days before, and although the road was dry and dusty, there were sometimes mud puddles at the edges of the fields. People would fall out ofranks to go to them with their canteens, but the guards would chase them off.
    Finally there was a huge puddle, a wallow where two water buffalo were cooling off. The water was green and odoriferous, but there was lots of it, and a guard who was a private made an ironic gesture inviting them over.
    A man next to the changeling put his hand on its shoulder.