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Reed, Robert - Camouflage




Camouflage
ROBERT REED
From Gardner Dozois - The Year's Best Science Fiction 23rd Annual Collection (2006)

Robert Reed sold his first story in 1986 and quickly established himself as a frequent contributor to The
Magazine of Fantasy (5 Science Fiction and Asimov's Science Fiction as well as to Science Fiction Age,
Universe, New Destinies, Tomorrow, Synergy, Starlight, and elsewhere. Reed may be one of the most
prolific of today's young writers, particularly at short fiction lengths, seriously rivaled for that position
only by authors such as Stephen Baxter and Brian Stableford. And тАФlike Baxter and Stableford тАФhe
manages to keep up a very high standard of quality while being prolific, something that is not at all easy
to do. Reed stories such as "Sister Alice," "Brother Perfect," "Decency," "Savior," "The Remoras,"
"Chrysalis," "Whiptail," "The Utility Man," "Marrow," "Birth Day," "Blind," "The Toad of Heaven,"
"Stride," "The Shape of Everything," "Guest of Honor," "Waging Good," and "Killing the Morrow,"
among at least a half dozen others equally as strong, count as among some of the best short work
produced by anyone in the eighties and nineties. Many of his best stories were assembled in his first
collection, The Dragons of Springplace. Nor is he nonpro-lific as a novelist, having turned out ten
novels since the end of the eighties, including The Leeshore, The Hormone Jungle, Black Milk, The
Remark-ables, Down the Bright Way, Beyond the Veil of Stars, An Exaltation of Larks, Beneath the
Gated Sky, Marrow, and Sister Alice. His most recent books are a chapbook novella, Mere, a new
collection, The Cuckoo's Boys, and a new novel, The Well of Stars. Reed lives with his family in Lincoln,
Nebraska.

Here he unravels a deadly murder mystery, set on a spaceship bigger than worlds.




I

The human male had lived on the avenue for some thirty-two years. Neighbors enerally regarded him as
being a solitary creature, short-tempered on occasion, but never rude without cause. His dark wit was
locally famous, and a withering intelligence was rumored to hide behind the brown-black eyes. Those
with an appreciation of human beauty claimed that he was not particularly handsome, his face a touch
asymmetrical, the skin rough and fleshy, while his thick mahogany-brown hair looked as if it was cut
with a knife and his own strong hands. Yet that homeliness made him intriguing to some human females,
judging by the idle chatter. He wasn't large for a human, but most considered him substantially built.
Perhaps it was the way he walked, his back erect and shoulders squared while his face tilted slightly
forwards, as if looking down from a great height. Some guessed he had been born on a high-gravity
world, since the oldest habits never died. Or maybe this wasn't his true body, and his soul still hungered

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for the days when he was a giant. Endless speculations were woven about the man's past. He had a