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The changeling didn’t like to take the form of objects rather than living things; it was difficult and painful and time-consuming. But there didn’t seem to be any alternative in this case.

It became a sheet of grimy linoleum. The floors of every hall were the same dirt-colored plastic. So it was able to slide out through the millimeter clearance between door and floor and slowly undulate down the hall to Vital Statistics. There were no cameras in the office, so it rolled up into a cylinder and turned into a sort of cartoon human for convenience, or at least a roll of linoleum with feet and two two-fingered hands, keeping the drab linoleum color and texture.

The file drawers weren’t locked, so it was easy to pull the paper death certificate. The electronic record was another matter. Even if it knew which machine to use, there would be passwords and protocols. It would have to solve that problem from outside the system, as Sharon Valida.

It found Sharon’s birth certificate, and memorized the handprint and footprint on it. No retinal scans in 1990.

It gave itself a 2007 driver’s license, still no retinal scan. It had to take a chance on the Social Security number, changing a few digits from one that belonged to a person born in Maui the same year as Sharon.

Her parents’ driver’s licenses were still on file, with pictures; they’d lived in Maui until 2009, the year before they died. Her mother had been a strikingly beautiful blonde, which was convenient. The changeling generated a teenaged version for Sharon, with a 2007 hairstyle, nothing extreme. No facial tattoo or ritual scars. For “Scars or identifying marks,” it gave Sharon a small hummingbird tattoo on the left breast.

Russell would like that. Dipping into the nipple.

It found a map with school districts, but of course they’d have been much different in 2007. Guessing would be dangerous; some damned computer was liable to do a routine systems check and flag an anomaly. It took a little searching, but there was a file called “HS District Archives”; it found the one closest to her parents’ address and enrolled her.

It gave her a science track with APS; she aced all her science and math but didn’t do too well in humanities and arts. She also aced business and keyboard, which might count for more than her college degree. That would be the next day’s work.

Checking against other students’ yearbook entries, it gave her Chess Club and volleyball. Religious preference, none. Then it worked back through middle school and grade school records, which were mostly routine stuff. Her fourth-grade teacher noted that she did her work “with ease and dispatch,” a compliment she had given to about half the class. She skipped fifth grade, making it possible for her to finish college the year her parents died.

It was not quite dawn when the changeling turned back into linear linoleum and slid down a corridor to a location that wasn’t covered by the cameras, a stairwell that led to a musty basement. It took its janitor form, remembered from Berkeley, and waited until ten to walk upstairs and pass through the crowd, out onto the street.

It turned back into the tourist in a public library rest room stall, and used the library computer system to outline Sharon Valida’s academic career at the University of Hawaii, a more reasonable destination for an ambitious girl than the community college on Maui. She would study business with a concentration in oceanography—in fact, she would take an introductory oceanography course from herself, as the charismatic professor Jimmy Coleridge. The changeling used its intimate knowledge of the university’s academic and bureaucratic structure to give Sharon a respectable-but-not-brilliant four years of study. Inserting the paper and computer records verifying her existence there would be even easier than the past night’s work in Maui.

(The changeling had not just dropped everything when it changed from Professor Coleridge into Rae Archer. The timing had been perfect; the Sky and Telescope ad appearing right at the end of the term. So the professor turned in his grades and told everyone he was taking the summer off for a diving vacation in Polynesia, which was not completely a lie.)

There was one thing left to do before going back to Honolulu. The changeling went to a mall and bought a recent wardrobe for Sharon, and then went back to the Crossed Palms and spent a painful half hour changing into her. She rented another room for the night and went back to the Vital Statistics office at four thirty, a half hour before closing.

“May I help you?” The woman at the window, about forty, had a bright fixed stare as if she’d been caffeine-loading to stay awake till five, and seemed less than sincere in her desire to help.

“I can’t find my birth certificate,” the changeling said. “I need a certified copy to get a passport.”

“Photo ID,” the woman said, and the changeling handed over the fresh, though worn, driver’s license.

The woman sat down at a console and typed in Valida’s name. She stared at the screen, cleared it, and typed it in again. “This says you died in ’91.”

“What, died?”

“One year old.” She looked up suspiciously.

“Well, duh. I didn’t.”

“Wait here a moment.” She hustled off in the direction of the room where the changeling had spent the night.

She came back shaking her head. “Computer error,” she said, and deleted the record with a couple of strokes. Wordlessly, she made a copy of the birth certificate and notarized it. She went down the hall to have another clerk witness it. The changeling walked out with its new existence certified.

In a way, it was simpler for Sharon to get a college degree than it had been to go through grades 1 to 12, since the changeling could work from inside. It changed its retinal pattern to match that of Professor Jimmy Coleridge, to get into his front door, and took a cab from the Honolulu airport to his apartment off the Manoa campus.

The changeling didn’t think anyone saw Sharon entering the apartment, but if they did, it wouldn’t be that uncommon a sight.

The next morning, it took a half hour to change back into Jimmy, who fortunately didn’t weigh much more than Sharon. It put on teaching clothes and walked over to Coleridge’s office at the School of Ocean Earth Science Technology.

The departmental secretary was surprised to see him. “Back from Samoa already? I thought you were gone till August!”

“Just for a couple of days. I’ve got an open ticket on Polynesian Airways. Thought I’d catch up on some stuff and get a few decent meals.”

“What do they eat in Samoa? Each other?”

“Just for variety. Usually McDonald’s.”

“What about the space alien? Were you there?”

“Yeah—they think it’s some Hollywood stunt.”

“I hope they’re wrong. That would be so maze.”

“Would be.” There was a double handful of mail waiting. The changeling took it to Coleridge’s office, dumped it in a drawer, and held the desk’s identifier cable up to his eye. The console pinged to life and it started typing.

It wanted to give Sharon a bachelor’s in business administration, with a minor in oceanography. It only took twenty minutes to map out her course of study, and then another hour to verify which courses had been offered in which year.

The oceanography minor was easy—she took OCN 320, Aquatic Pollution, as well as “Science of the Sea,” from Professor Coleridge, and got an A. The business major was harder. It had taken some business courses as protective coloration in 1992 and 1993, while it was being a California surfer, but things had changed a lot in the past thirty years. Majors had to have calculus and advanced statistics.

It wouldn’t be smart to try to generate actual class records; nothing on computer. But it could fake a paper copy of her transcript, and sneak it into the proper file at Business Administration, which was also at the Manoa campus. It was unlikely that anyone would ask for her transcript, but if they did, maybe the scam with the birth certificate could work again.