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Camouflage (novel)Camouflage is a 2004 science fiction novel by American writer Joe Haldeman. It won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award in 2004 and the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 2005.

Parts of the novel were originally serialized in Analog Science Fiction and Fact (March, April and May, 2004).

Plot
A million years before the rise of humans, the changeling arrives on Earth from Messier 22; its spaceship hides deep in the Pacific Ocean. The changeling lives in the ocean for millennia, taking the form of a great white shark, killer whale, or porpoise while it explores, and it gradually forgets where it came from. Eventually it discovers humanity "and wades ashore naked and ignorant. But eager to learn."

San Guillermo, California, 1931. The changeling takes the form of (and unwittingly kills) the first person it comes across, a handsome, wealthy young man named Jimmy Berry. Because it cannot speak English (yet), Jimmy's friends assume that he has brain damage, and the changeling is sent home to his parents.

Baja California, 2019. Dr. Russell Sutton is a marine engineer who runs the small firm Poseidon Projects. He is approached by elderly Admiral Jack Halliburton, who has a for-profit job for Poseidon: recover a submarine sunk in the Tonga Trench, and then "find" a mysterious cigar-shaped object located nearby. Jack wants to use Russell's team as camouflage, because all he really cares about is getting the object � for himself.

Chapters alternate between the stories of the changeling and its various lives over decades; of Russ's attempts to decipher the artifact; and of the chameleon, whose story begins in Eurasia in the Pre-Christian Era. The chameleon "was always a man, and usually a brute." He can change his looks in a moment (unlike the changeling, who needs several minutes and suffers while doing so). The chameleon has often been a soldier, fighting for example with Alexander the Great and as a Masai warrior, though he also lived as farmers and butchers, among others; he suffers as a slave brought from West Africa to the new America, but in later decades makes a vast fortune.

The changeling begins to learn about humanity with Jimmy Berry's parents. They have specialists brought to their mansion to test it, and it learns to read, draw, play piano, and speak. The changeling has eidetic memory, so these tasks are easy; human psychology baffles it. When a nurse seduces it, it learns about sex; when next seduced, the changeling is unaware that it has hurt the woman badly, and in 1932 it is sent to a "private insane asylum", where it learns a great deal more about the range of human behaviors than a coddled rich boy normally would.

Jack and Russ move their team to Apia, Samoa. The artifact proves difficult to move, as it is possibly three times as dense as plutonium, but they bring it to the beach and build a wall around it. Dr. Franklin Nesbitt, Chief of NASA Advanced Planning, comes to them with a proposal: To share much of the enormous cost of the project, he wants to add a team of researchers to the Poseidon Project, for what he seeks: "Half our team are exobiologists. It's not so much a 'what'... as a 'who'." The new team includes Jan Dagmar, an exobiologist, who quickly befriends Russ.

In 1935, the changeling attends the University of Massachusetts to study oceanography, then the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; it senses that something important to it will be found in marine science. Its studies are interrupted by World War II. In 1941, it takes part in the Bataan Death March, during which "Jimmy" sees horrific incidents which humanize the changeling; it learns friendship and pity. The changeling escapes Bataan and spends years swimming back to America as a shark; meanwhile, the chameleon enjoys war atrocities and becomes assistant to Josef Mengele at Birkenau.

In 2020, the team attempts many ways to make an impression on the artifact; when they try to communicate with it, they get a surprising momentary result.

In 1948, the changeling comes to shore in California. It attends college at Berkeley to study literature and anthropology. When it learns of Project Sign, it begins to wonder whether there are other extraterrestrials on Earth. The chameleon also hunts for other aliens, so that he may enjoy fighting and killing them.

In 2021, Jan Dagmar begins to send a complex message to the artifact, by beaming at it in every frequency from microwave to X ray, and by tapping it mechanically. The team plunges the artifact into different atmospheres � specifically, those of the planets and moons of our Solar System � in case the object might recognize one of them as "home-like" and respond.

For many years, the changeling earns further doctorates in astronomy, astrophysics, marine biology and biotechnology. It attends Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study computers. It works on the SETI project, then leaves academia for several years to work in the circus, get married, and otherwise learn more about humanity. After re-creating itself as a woman many times, it finds that it prefers to be one, though for a long time it establishes an identity as Professor Jimmy Coleridge at the University of Hawaii. It occasionally shows a human playfulness: turning into a shark, for example, and then swimming up to the local campus's marine cameras and dissemblingly doing something "unsharklike."

In 2019, the changeling learns about the artifact at Apia and, feeling "a shock of recognition," determines to join the team there. The chameleon has also come to Apia and pleasures itself by killing people. In 2021, the artifact answers Jan's tests by tapping back. The changeling borrows biological and job information from a Californian woman, Rae Archer, to apply for a job at Poseidon. "She" is interviewed by Russ and Jan, and gets a job as a technician. Part of this job requires trying to crack the message that the artifact has sent. While working on it, for some weeks, "Rae" and Russ fall in love. "Rae" can do enormous computations in her head while working with others or pretending to sleep, and soon becomes convinced that the message that the artifact emitted is meant for herself.

The impersonation of Rae Archer is exposed by the CIA. Agents plan an ambush for Russ and Rae by allowing them to think that they have won a weekend at a luxury hotel, the Aggie Grey's. The changeling enters the room first, and the agents assault her; one blows off her left arm with a double-barreled shotgun. The changeling smashes through the balcony, runs across the traffic, and dives into the water, where it changes into a shark again. "Rae" decides to approach Russ again, to reunite with him as well as to approach the artifact, and creates a new personality, Sharon Valida, a pretty blonde.

Meeting Russ one night as Sharon, she makes love to him, reveals herself as both Rae and an extraterrestrial, and insists that he take her to the artifact site. Russ agrees, and the changeling changes itself to look like Jan, so that they can get through the security checkpoints. As Rae approaches the artifact, which she now recognizes as her spaceship, Jack Halliburton appears in the room, traps them there, and reveals himself as the chameleon. Rae fights the chameleon, but almost loses the battle while trying to protect Russ. At last, her spaceship traps "Jack," and, revealing her true self (large, shimmering, colorful, "inhumanly beautiful"), she tells Russ that she must leave. "It's like a law. I've been here for too long. Done things I shouldn't have done. Like fall in love with a local, an alien." Russ begs to go with her, and with great joy, they enter the spaceship and leave for her home.

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