Larry Niven - Achilles choice

Chaos tends to come in double parallel curves; look closer and they double again, and again. These didn’t. You could find the usual doubling pairs, but Jillian could see other lines.

During the past twenty years there had been waves of accidents, six tall spikes, with not much between. Lilith Shomer had died right at the peak of one of those spikes.

Jillian didn’t have to watch the old tapes again. She’d memorized them long ago.

Lilith Shomer, marine biologist for Agricorp, had died in an undersea mining accident due to the failure of a waldo. A pillow lava hill had crumbled, the signal to a waldo had been interrupted, the waldo arm hadn’t shut off. Huge steel fingers had ripped a dome open and spilled its air.

It was an accident. Sure it was. But a great many accidents had happened in the shellfish ranches offshore from the California coast, in April of 2049.

Beyond that Jillian would be guessing. From the way things were reported, you’d think intercorporate conflict was dissolved with a wave of the Counselor wand. But enough government and civilian craft, services, and products had been involved to leave traces.

Holly asked, “You getting anything?”

“I’ve gotten us way off the subject, is what. We need Link technology to make waldo limbs work. And that’s classified.”

She was pretty good, Saturn thought. Holly Lakein’s thesis, Holly’s equipment, Holly’s tappity-tap style… her “fist,” an old-time telegraph operator would have said. But certain topics had been flagged by Mining and Forestry (which was what Saturn noticed first) and Holly and Jillian Shomer were Olympic contenders living in the same dorm.

Two minutes ago, Saturn had been involved in calculations involving a malfunctioning solar station. But a citizen had made inquiries that touched on a certain topic, and correlations had been made, and a moment later Jillian Shomer came to Saturn’s attention for the third time.

Jillian was an interesting woman. They’d blocked her good, and she hadn’t stayed blocked. Of course she’d underestimated her opponents. Mining and Forestry would notice any second now: fish farming, North American southwest shelf, April 2049, Bingo.

They’d notice the instant Saturn tampered with the data, too. What to do, what to do?

He could… no, the coincidence would be noted too, if he acted now.

He could wait and… not good enough.

Retroactively?

If nobody was looking. Wherever nobody was looking. Before the flags were set in place, four days ago.

To think was to act:

Ten days ago, an expose on failures in teleoperated equipment was on record as suppressed by Saturn himself.

A novel about the battle between Agricorp and Mining and Forestry was ready for publication, as listed in the Pocket Books prospectus of last week. Saturn sequestered printing presses, trucks, bookstore space. Outlining, quotes, facts were the work of minutes. Writing it would take longer, but such a book needed his conscious attention. Otherwise the prose would come out flat.

A joke during the Tonight show monologue, not caught in time, last night. Edit those tapes. The reference had reached only the Eastern time zone, North America, and that was why it hadn’t been flagged.

Memo to Mining and Forestry, direct from Saturn. They weren’t used to that. It would shake them. “You fucked up, citizens. Remember that minor quarrel in which minor people died? Everybody wants to know more about it. Why don’t you forget the Shomer girl and try to figure out what went wrong? An Olympic contender’s likely to be too busy to write her memoirs, at least for a bit.” Leave out mention of the book; “discover” it later. The book was half written; the style needed improving; fiddle with the program…

Nine days after the operation, Jillian began the first fledgling efforts to exercise, to reestablish contact with her body.

She was made of spun glass, cobwebs, and rusty iron filaments, infinitely fragile.

Suryanamaskar, hatha yoga’s Sun Salutation, is a series of ten movements linked together with precise breathing. It, and the ancient Chinese movements of T’ai Chi Ch’uan are probably the exercises most expedient for recovery from debilitating illness.

Under Abner’s precise direction, she learned it: inhale, reaching high. Exhale, extending the trunk forward and down. Inhale. Exhale as the legs go back in push-up position. Inhale as she straightened her arms into a Cobralike position called Upward Facing Dog. Exhale and lift the hips high, making a pyramid of your body. Inhale as the feet come forward next to the hands. Exhale. Inhale as you return to standing position.

Abner corrected her minutely at every bend and breath. His thin hands changed her posture, spinal alignment, depth of breath, checked her degree of muscle tone. And when he was satisfied, he made her do another one.

She forced it. Sweat exploded from her brow and drooled into her eyes.

The next day, she managed four repetitions. And the next, seven.

Within five more days, her energy level approached normal, and most of her flexibility had returned. And there was something else: her balance had improved noticeably. And concentration. And that peculiar effect known as time dilation.

She remembered Osa: the stocky Swede’s coordination had been off just a tick. Jillian had to find an exercise that would keep her speed synchronized with her body, so that coordination didn’t suffer.

Physical effort, physical pain, and bouts of total exhaustion became her life. Anything to keep her mind off the labyrinth of lies that the Council and their world had suddenly become for her. There were answers, but she couldn’t get them-not right now.

Even if the Olympiad hadn’t demanded her complete attention, Donny, her one certain lead, was unavailable. (According to a vidcast, he was in Jakarta, dedicating a bridge. His smile was a constellation.)

To use Holly’s computer again would risk her friend’s life. As driven as Jillian was, she couldn’t bring herself to do that.

And what was left was study, and planning, and training.

At midnight, thirteen days after the operation, Jillian let herself into the main gymnasium and used her personal ID card to access the Grappler Twelve.

Her body felt completely oiled and powerful, as if she had never violated its envelope of protection. The Grappler waited for her on the mat, a cone of light surrounding it. Its tripod balance arm seemed a saunan tail to her, as if it were a small and friendly dinosaur.

“Program?” the computer requested politely.

“Coordination. Increase speed until ten percent error level, then decrease thirty percent, and replay cycle.”

“Program accepted.”

She and the Grappler began to dance. It was a formal, noncompetitive exercise, the Grappler’s mechanical legs expanding and contracting, its balance shifting every moment as it sought to upend her, to sweep her feet from beneath her, to fling her to the mat.

But at every touch of its padded legs she moved lightly away, delighting in the smoothness and assurance of her own movement. She and the robot flowed together, striving flesh and egoless steel, gleaming with sweat and oil in the single overhead light, for long minutes. The minutes stretched to an hour before Jillian’s strength suddenly left her.

She collapsed onto hands and knees, panting, grinning. She watched the sweat drizzle from her face, puddling onto the mat before her. A well of spontaneous, crazed laughter boiled up. She fell over onto her side, whooping.

Then she heard other laughter join hers, followed by the sound of applause. Abner strode out of the shadows. In that moment he didn’t seem sick at all, just thin. If he walked like an old man, it was a strong old man, a patriarch, proud and renewed as a man watching the first steps of his grandchild. His eyes were fever-bright.