Achilles choice Read online

  Achilles choice

  Larry Niven

  Larry Niven

  Achilles choice

  Chapter I

  Jillian Shomer ran along the north edge of the quarry, toward a distant, silent ocean, into the dawning sun.

  Her breath vibrated in her mastoid process, made sharp rasping sounds in her Comnet ear link. In her own very informed opinion, she sounded ragged and undisciplined.

  Hot fudge sundaes are a basic food group. The words were etched in acid, her self-appraisal as merciless as the grade.

  She unclipped the plastic bottle at her side, and sipped shallowly. Thin, faintly sweet, with a briny edge. The drink was custom-formulated from analysis of her own sweat, a nutrient solution composed chiefly of water and long-chain glucose polymers, with a few electrolyte minerals judiciously added. Jillian thought the sweat tasted better.

  The air would heat soon. Morning chills burned off quickly of late, unusual for Pennsylvania in late March. April and May would be hot.

  She squeezed the bottle closed with her teeth, and pushed onward. Halfway through now. Sean Vorhaus would be meeting her for the last two miles of the run. With the first tickle of fatigue her mind, ordinarily the most orderly of instruments, began to wander. She focused, and continued to dictate.

  “Beverly: note. Mind seeks patterns. Predictions. Wrong here. Old math… says weather’s chaotic. Initial conditions. Disease, money, whatever. Try crime. Greek poets, storm… metaphor for personal change. Proposal—”

  She panted, and wiped away the trickle of sweat oozing from beneath her terry-cloth headband. Her breathing normalized swiftly, and she continued.

  “—use fractals, predict-global sociopolitical patterns. Determine where chaos rules human life—”

  Funny how concise these notes always were. When she was running, she couldn’t spare the breath! An athlete training at a reasonable level should still be able to talk… and unable to sing; who was it tried that? And Beverly would edit out the gasping.

  In print it would come out more like, “Although the human mind functions so as to seek patterns and predictability within chaos, the peculiar mathematics of my chosen field suggest that the only pattern ultimately discernible in weather is chaos itself. Weather is very sensitive to initial conditions, as is disease control, the relative value of currency, and whatever else I can come up with. This approach might be used to reduce crime rates. But note: the Greek poets used storms as metaphors for drastic changes in human existence. Proposal: although currently considered impractical, I believe that fractals can be used to predict global sociopolitical patterns. The trick is to determine the degree to which chaos itself is a controlling factor in human life—”

  The path split and she automatically chose the high road. The old mine lay at the feet of the Allegheny mountains, and had once been a source of coal and natural gas.

  Energy sources and environmental concerns had shifted drastically in the last hundred years. Thanks to the Council, there were probably forty billion tons of coal in the Pennsylvania earth that would never be harvested. How many tons of smog did that translate into? How many square miles of soot-stained lung tissue?

  The deserted mine was an atavistic eyesore, a raw, mile-wide slash. Long ago, men had ripped coal from the earth, made it bleed black, carted away its flesh to heat homes and industrial furnaces. Today the Council had decreed cleaner sources: solar satellites, geothermal stations, fusion reactors.

  The strip mine lay before Jillian, around her, a barren womb. Its grueling inclines and sudden, twisty depths were a challenge to mind and body, an ideal preparation for the rigors to come.

  So lost in reverie was Jillian that she failed to hear Sean’s familiar rhythmic stride until he was ten feet away.

  Sean Vorhaus was taller than she, and broader through the chest, with a longer stride. But he was a sprinter, with a sprinter’s power in his upper body. Jillian was built to run miles, not meters. Her other physical discipline added the torso muscle that made them an obvious social item around Pennsylvania Tech.

  Sean’s ruddy face glistened with sweat as he came abreast of her. They managed a quick, bumping kiss without breaking stride.

  Ah, the glories of coordination.

  “How’s the hip this morning?” he asked.

  “No more ‘click click.’”

  “Any word from Beverly?” He pointed to her Comnet. The Council might try to reach her now, she supposed… but she didn’t expect any contact before noon. Even so, it was comforting to know that whenever or wherever the call came, whatever the answer was, she would know.

  Their footsteps seemed to merge. “You know how I feel, Jill.”

  She nodded. The grade steepened. They took a seventy-degree sprint up a ridge of ash and shattered stone, breathlessly matching strides, Behind them the morning sun had cast a slender silvery wedge on the western rim of the quarry.

  Day was here. Almost certainly their last together. No matter what the Council’s decision, things could never be the same between them. Sean could never again be coach and mentor. Probably not lover. Perhaps not even friend.

  A chill swept her, and she focused on the steady rolling stroke of sole against rock.

  The incline leveled out. Jillian’s breathing normalized swiftly. The dark, stony earth turned beneath her shoe, but she didn’t stumble. Her ankles were strong. By both nature and nurture, her entire body was as durable and flexible as copper wire. She compensated, caught her balance, and ran on.

  Sean brushed a lick of brown hair back from his forehead. “In a couple of hours… you won’t be mine anymore.”

  I never was.

  The thought reached her lips, but went no further.

  Sean saw the tension of restraint, misinterpreted its meaning, and hushed what he thought would be a cloying endearment. “Let’s”-he huffed for air-“not kid each other. Not now. You’ll make the team. And you’re going for the gold. Even… if you come back to Penn Tech, you’ll be different. Linked. Just want you to know”-he puffed, sucking wind as she picked the pace up-“wouldn’t have missed this for the world. All of this—”

  She tried to speak again.

  “Bullshit,” he said amiably. “Save breath. Need it. Race you to the bikes.”

  He broke into a run. As always, she dredged up strength from somewhere in her reserves to follow him, match him. And as always, especially now, on this last of their days together, she was careful not to pass him.

  There were classes scheduled at Pennsylvania Technical University, but no one expected Jillian Shomer to attend them. Not today.

  She would wait for the word. Yes, or no. Go or stay.

  Arm in arm they returned to her dorm room. They took a hot, leisurely shower together, sluicing away the perspiration, soaping each other’s bodies lavishly. Her long hard biceps femoris muscles tingled as the warm pulsing water dissolved knots of tension.

  And as they showered, Jillian’s multifunction personal data Simulacrum Beverly analyzed her run. As always, Bev’s critique was merciless and precise. As always, it was given in a cunningly programmed Southern lilt.

  “—compensating for the grade, your stride altered to twenty-three inches.”

  Jillian waited for the carefully crafted sounds of disapproval.

  “Tsk, tsk, Jill. Is this the best you can do? We both know that twenty-five”—Beverly pronounced the number twenny-fahve—“is optimum for your height and present weight.”

  Sean chortled. “Bev slays me.”

  “Energy,” Jillian called, spitting water.

  “Energy metabolism appears adequate…” A pregnant pause. “But you made a little mistake, honey.”

  “And what was that?”

  “When you tinkled this morning, I
got a urine sample—”

  Jillian grimaced, and whispered to Sean: “Remind me to disconnect the toilet monitor.”

  “Hah!”

  “—and it looks to me like you snuck in a little snack since yesterday.”

  “Me? Me? How could you say such a thing?”

  “Sugar,” Bev said reprovingly. “Based on alkaloid content and protein chromatography, the contraband was most likely a hot fudge sundae.”

  “Guilty as charged. Bravo, Beverly.”

  “Jillian, dear child, your nutritional profile is solid enough to survive an occasional dalliance, but don’t expect me to applaud.”

  Jillian toweled off as she left the shower, and watched as a holographic scan of her body appeared in the air before her. Pools of colorcoded glitter swirled in the image, displaying circulation and muscle tension.

  She lay stomach-down on her bed, eyes on the shimmering image. Sean knelt beside her.

  His fingers were magical, easing knots of tension from places so tight they hadn’t had room to scream. She rolled over, and her towel fell away.

  At the age of twenty-three, Jillian Shomer still seemed to have baby fat along her jaw, unless she bit down hard to reveal the muscle protecting her neck. Her face, framed by short blonde hair, was too strongly angular to be sheerly decorative, softened only by eyes which were oak-brown with flecks of emerald. She might have been considered plain, except when smiling or talking. In much the same way, her body was too solidly muscled, her subcutaneous fat pared too finely for any classically feminine image. But when she was in motion…

  Ah, that was quite a different thing. In motion, Jillian was liquid light, a symphony of power and grace, and ordinary standards simply didn’t apply.

  “Ultrasound analysis reveals a weakness in the left Achilles tendon, which is caused by tension in the right hip flexor.”

  “Suggestion?”

  “Twofold. First, postpone your plyometric speed drills while we run institute rehabilitative lateral gastrocnemius exercise.”

  “Fine. And the second?”

  Beverly paused, almost shyly. “Well, I’d recommend some form of massage to help your hips relax, honey. Maybe that big burly hunk of a man has some suggestions.”

  Sean guffawed, rolled her and scooped her into his arms. “Cheating!” he said. “That’s what she always prescribes.”

  “We think alike is all. Right, Bev?”

  “Humph. A Southern lady doesn’t watch such goings-on.”

  “In that case, switch off.”

  “Have fun, children.”

  Sean and Jillian laughed together, and then quieted. How could they make this seem casual? Everything they said or did had a ring of finality to it.

  “I don’t want to look at the clock,” she whispered.

  He smiled. “What do you want?”

  “Just hold me. ‘Gird up thy loins now like a man…’”

  “Huh?”

  “Job thirty-eight, verse three.”

  “Pretty randy for a Bible verse.” He brushed her lips with his, then nuzzled the nape of her neck until her breathing grew deep and ragged. “And what did it say after that?”

  Her voice was thick, and swallowing was an effort. “Something about ‘laying the foundations of the Earth.’”

  “Ambitious.”

  She pressed herself against him. “Just hold me until they call. I don’t want to think. I’ll go crazy if I think.”

  He was good that way. They were good for each other, that way. For Jillian, he was the only one who had ever been able to stop the madness, stop the daydreaming, the endless carousel of thought.

  Then why couldn’t I belong to him?

  Because I don’t belong to myself.

  For Sean, the future meant a position on the board of Penn Tech, tenure, publication, precious Comnet access time.

  For her, the stakes were the whole world. So they held each other until the wall rang, beckoning her back to reality. And safely cocooned in Sean’s wiry arms, she heard the news she needed, feared, the words she hoped for.

  When the glorious rows of Olympians marched in Athens, Jillian Shomer could well be among them.

  And sometime between now and then, she would have to make a terrible decision.

  Life. Death. Victory.

  “Achilles’ choice,” Sean whispered.

  And for the last time, they made love.

  The being that called himself Saturn sat in his Void, a spider crouched in the midst of an infinite web, with strands that reached into every aspect of communication and information retrieval on Earth. Jillian Shomer’s name slid past his awareness, barely noted. She was one of thousands of finalists from all over the world. Many of them would make it to Athens. Few would live to great age.

  He couldn’t afford to care, and didn’t. In a few seconds he scanned the entirety of her academic and athletic career, calculated the odds against her, and filed her away with the file flagged.

  She really hadn’t much of a chance. He would watch her esthetic event, though. Her concept was appealing, one that he might have tried himself, long ago, in another life.

  Chapter 2

  Sean’s fingers touched her shoulders, the taste of his kiss still warm on her mouth. His eyes had left her face, were focused on the line of gleaming tube cars behind her. A pleasantly synthesized voice sang out the current stream of departures and arrivals for Pittsburgh Central.

  She circled his waist, crushing herself against the hard bands of muscle. She fought to absorb him, impress him upon her memory: ice-blue eyes, thin firm mouth, black hair, Apollonian torso. A scent tinged with musk and fresh citrus. His heart pounded its languid rhythm, and hers sped to match it.

  “We’ll see each other again,” he said finally.

  “It won’t be the same.” Damn it, she had promised herself she wouldn’t snivel.

  “It never is.” He tilted her chin up. “And who is it that taught me that?”

  She managed a smile, went up to tiptoe, pressing her mouth against his again, lips parted, sealing their goodbye with a ferocity that shocked her.

  Then she stepped back and, without another word, entered the nearest car on the Denver platform. She found a seat and threaded her ticket through the chair arm. The door closed behind her. The line of windowless cars slid forward, like the first moment of a roller coaster ride, down and down and down.

  Part of her had expected the royal treatment, brass bands and ticker tape and a chorus of hallelujahs to wish her bon voyage. She felt utterly alone.

  No one understood the isolation of total discipline. For ten years there had been little social life, less free time.

  Only the endless, grinding cycle of training and research. Ultimately, it had pushed even Sean to the outside.

  At least she had Beverly. Beverly’s personality core resided in an optical wafer in her wallet. She knew she was indulging her paranoia, but it was a conscious indulgence. Once in Denver she could hook back into Beverly’s main banks through Comnet… but she had heard horror stories, and never traveled without a core. Beverly had been her cybernetic nursemaid, childhood friend, study partner, confidante, and lab assistant. Ultimately, Beverly had been the only shoulder for Jillian to cry on when her mother died eleven years ago.

  She would not risk Beverly.

  As she flashed within the earth, as weightless as a lost ghost, she felt that aloneness more starkly. She seemed to be passing over an invisible meridian. More than time and distance were being traversed here. And if she made the wrong decision.

  She squeezed her eyelids shut, and tried not to think for the rest of her seventy-minute ride. The train fell through the bowels of the earth at nearly orbital speed. Its silence was broken only by the thunder of her heartbeat as it returned, stroke by slow stroke, to its resting pace of forty-six beats a minute.

  The Denver station was a honeycomb of concrete and stainless steel, so like the Pittsburgh depot that it was disorienting. The price of standardization. T
ransportation had built the depot, and the Council liked uniformity.

  She looked out across the crowd, searching for a familiar face. Only strangers were to be seen, but in an odd way, they were family. In whatever city, whatever country, at whatever craft they toiled, more than at any other period in history, the citizens of Earth were one united people. These folk had never known the specter of war. Famine and pestilence were distant memories for most of them. These were the children of a new time, the first generation with the power to make a perfect world.

  Most specifically, a world in which friction between its component parts was being reduced to something approaching zero.

  By the time the Council had formed, less than 30 percent of American adults were registered to vote, and less than 45 percent of those used the privilege. The nations of Earth were dying institutions, impotent relics of a more primitive age. And who really cared?

  A cardboard placard held by pale slender fingers caught her attention. It said: JILLIAN.

  She squirmed her way through the crowd.

  The man holding the placard was thin-marathonthin, his posture like a question mark, his facial bones too prominent. An age ago his bright boyish good looks had reached through a TV set to capture a young Jillian’s heart. There wasn’t much left of that. He had huge hands, their skin stretched so tight that they seemed amphibian. She pretended not to notice.

  Booster-induced acromegaly. Within months he would be an utter grotesque. If he lived that long.

  A thick belt around his waist was the only prosthetic system she could see. A microprocessing system in the belt performed millions of operations per second, communicating with implants in the owner’s liver, pancreas, spine, heart, and brain. The massively invasive technique could slow, but not halt, the inevitable deterioration.

  His mouth was unexpectedly warm and friendly. His eyes, gray-green, invited her to share a world filled with mischievous secrets. “Jillian Shomer?”

  “Abner Warren Collifax?” Both were unnecessary questions.