Larry Niven - Achilles choice

From somewhere behind her came the burring whistle of a Medtech aircar coming in for a pickup. It was still seconds away. Catherine St. Clair tried to move, tried to turn. Her eyes stared at Jillian without focusing. Jillian was frozen to the rock face, unmoving, until the woman from Kenya descended past her.

She snapped out of her trance then, and started to move, but the Englishwoman stretched out her hand and tried to say something like “Help me…” except that the words came out as an indecipherable groan, all vowels and wet consonants.

Where was the Medtech vehicle? She couldn’t leave.

St. Chair’s eyes locked with hers, and Jillian saw her die, saw the lights go out, the body collapse into lifelessness.

Shaking now, Jillian completed her descent.

Her control was shattered. She was already breathing hard, her ankle felt swollen, and her shoulder had little strength.

It was a straight run now to the finish line, and she was in third place, with Mary Ling twenty feet ahead of her.

Jillian bore down, willed her legs to pump faster and faster, ignored the pain. Ignored everything but that final sprint to the finish line, to the reward that awaited her if she could only overcome the fatigue built up over the week of competition.

Her entire body was aflame now, but she couldn’t and wouldn’t stop. She had cut the distance between herself and the Taiwanese to perhaps ten feet, still gaining, five feet now, three feet— Then, from some unimaginable well of hidden resources, Mary Ling seemed to go into another gear, and simply pulled away from her, crossing the finish line a full eight feet ahead of Jillian Shomer.

The shock of it almost drove Jillian off her feet. Her entire body began to shake, as if every strand of connective tissue were suddenly unraveling. She lurched the last few feet, collapsed across the finish line.

She tasted dust, and defeat, and death.

A mile away, in the central stadium, the crowds were cheering.

Jillian watched as speeches were made. The winners paraded proudly alongside those losers who had, in Donny’s fevered phrasing, “the strength of character, the wisdom and depth of commitment to share in the true spirit of the games, to rejoice in the uplifting of the human race without the hunger for personal gain.” And she watched him present the gold medal to that little Taiwanese slut.

Abner had been awash in pain medication by the time she got to his room. He mumbled words that might have been comforting if they had been comprehensible. His eyes were closed-she’d thought he’d gone to sleep-when he said clearly: “Check the records. Check my records.”

“Records? Abner, which records?”

“O… lym… piad.”

He had slipped further and further away from her, into delirium. His words and thoughts became ever more garbled. Jillian sat beside him in a darkening room, feeling her bruises and scrapes, watching Abner Warren Collifax slide into the same pit which would, in five or six years, yawn to welcome her.

For twenty hours she sat there, a statue of flesh, watching him wither before her eyes. With all of her strength she willed him to speak, to breathe, to live.

In vain. After twenty hours he died.

Numb, Jillian tucked the sheet around his neck, kissed his forehead, and left quietly, almost on tiptoe, as if he were merely asleep.

More loss:

Walking back to the dorm along the edge of the island. A warm Mediterranean evening, falling swiftly. A sweet heavy breeze swayed in from the south.

Activity over next to one of the low sea walls. A half-dozen silver blazers, the sudden appearance of a Medtech tram.

Something wet and limp was hauled up from the ocean. Jillian caught a momentary image of flaccid, heavy muscle, dripping water. Vulnerable nakedness. Wet black hair, shadow-dappled by dying sunlight.

An easy death. Anesthetized by the cold, put to sleep by oxygen starvation— What was that, in the shadows off to the right? Broken, shattered: something in the darkness. Jillian stepped quietly to it, bent, watching her fingers tremble as she reached.

Half of Jeff Tompkins’s palace was still perfect, a study in ivory. Half was stove in as if by a sudden, terrible effort, one of those moments of madness which, once done, cannot be undone.

Even partly crushed, the model was exquisite, a monument to his persistence and skill. But it hadn’t been good enough. In the end, Jeff’s castle had been not of ivory, but of sand.

A silver girl took the model from her hands and waved a wordless Jillian away from the scene.

Back in her room she watched the Olympics closing down. She was too heavy and limp to move. From beyond her window machine noises ebbed and flowed as helicopters, boats, and skimmers arrived to take the losers away.

A nebula of fireworks exploded above the coliseum. Jillian heard their distant thunder, could see the brief bright promise of their flame wavering through a sheen of tears.

For hours she sat there, until the fireworks died and the stadium emptied, and the spectators began their long exodus. The room was illuminated only by yellow-orange streetlights and the distant glow of the Athens cityscape. Intermittently, limos cruised or floatcars drifted past her window, their headlights piercing her shadows.

She flexed her hands in the darkness.

The door swung open, and Holly stood there, hipshot and gently mocking, resplendent in frilly pink chiffon that plunged and gathered and teased, and contrasted beautifully with her dark skin.

She pirouetted, and the dark waters of Jillian’s grief grew shallow. “Poetry,” Jillian croaked, and managed a smile.

Holly took Jillian in her arms, comforting, and finally Jillian let go in great whooping sobs. Holly stroked the back of her head.

“Do you want me to stay here with you?” Holly whispered. “All you have to do is say the word—”

“How do you do it?” Jillian’s voice was low and hoarse. “You lost, and you act like you won.”

“I’ve got four years to try again, and I’ve got insurance,” Holly answered, as kindly as she could. “I believe in myself.”

“You may be the smartest person here.” Jillian sniffed. “You go to that party tonight. Whoop it up for both of us.”

“A promise.” Holly smiled. “And another one: if I make it, we’ll both make it, lady. Remember that.”

Jillian started to protest, to say something about honor, and chances taken, and perhaps something trite about dice rolling as they may. Holly hushed her.

“Trust me, Jillian. And listen: you’re not Linked, but you’ve earned more Comnet time. We can help each other, Jillian. We’re going to help each other, understand?”

“All right. Now, get out of here, go to the party. Enjoy yourself.”

They hugged again, more fiercely this time, and then Holly left.

The city was settling down to sleep, gradually deflating after two weeks of media gluttony. Reflected in the glass was a woman Jillian didn’t know, a woman who had abandoned everything familiar, and had nowhere left to turn.

For the thousandth time, she inserted the plastic chip into its slot, saw the error message appear, and knew just how big a fool she had been.

Took the card out, tenderly tucking it back into her purse.

It was seven steps to the bathroom. She had measured them. Eventually she would need to know the distance to the medicine cabinet.

There were pain tabs and sleeping tabs in there. Just peel back the protective strip and press the adhesive edge onto a pulse point. One was enough to ensure a sound night’s sleep. Ultimately she would increase the dosage until even Abner’s deep, devouring pain floated away from her, leaving her in soothing oblivion.