Larry Niven - Achilles choice

The Denver station was a honeycomb of concrete and stainless steel, so like the Pittsburgh depot that it was disorienting. The price of standardization. Transportation 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.

He offered an arm. She took it, found it disconcertingly skeletal. “Come on. Your luggage is coded through already. It should be down the chute and in the car by the time we get there.”

“Privilege?”

“You’re one of the elite, and don’t you forget it. I can guarantee you no one else will.”

She liked him, his eyes and his thin tousled hair and most of all the way he had made peace with his awful burden.

The Denver station’s standardized sweep of featureless, curving walls began to change as they approached the escalators. A kinetic wall tapestry shimmered in the tunnels, depicting a vista of iron-gray mountains speckled in white. As they boarded the escalator, the seasons changed. The white mantle grew thicker and whiter. Tiny skiers flew down the slopes.

Abner was one step ahead of her, shifting his weight uncomfortably from one foot to another: a touch of hyperkinesis.

Shyly, Jillian said, “I watched you four years ago, in your second Olympiad.”

“You’re surprised to see me still around?” He brayed laughter.

She was instantly embarrassed. “Pleased. Only four Americans have ever combined judo and fellrunning. I’m looking forward to working with you.”

“If you still feel that way in nine weeks, I haven’t been doing my job.”

They emerged into an underground valet garage. Rows of electric cars gleamed in the artificial light, each nosed up to a charging post. Luggage was already coasting out of wall chutes. Jillian squinted, wondering which car might belong to this gangling man who had fought so bravely, and borne his second, terminal defeat with such courage.

A silver needle-wedge coupe glided up to them. Her bags had been piled into the back. Abner punched a tip into his wristlink, touched it to the pimply attendant’s badge. The badge glowed and quietly said:

“Thank you very much, Mr. Collifax. Most generous.” The attendant held the door for them. As they drove up the ramp, Abner chuckled. “You’ve got to wonder, don’t you?”

“Wonder what?” The sunlight made her squint as they emerged into the open. Denver was intimidating. All glowing chrome and dull glass, crowding out life, a mutant forest clawing up into a cloudless sky.

“The attendant,” Abner said after a pause so long her mind had wandered. “He programs his badge to thank you if you tip high. Maybe it curses you if you tip low. I can tip him without touching his hand. They’ve kind of got the people out of the loop, don’t they?”

“You’ve got a weird mind.”

“One of a kind.” He grinned.

Ahead of them lay the Rocky Mountains.

Nestled into the foot of those slate-gray peaks was the Rocky Mountain Sports Research Facility, visible from ten miles away as a symmetrical array of domes and cubes. Jillian experienced a wave of déjà vu as they passed an angle identical to that of the airport mural. Then Abner glided on, and the moment passed.

“How are the academic facilities?”

“You’ll find everything that you need. I don’t think you’ll need that p-core.”

“Just the same—”

“Old friends are the best.”

The car delivered them to the gate in four more minutes. It slid open at the silent urging of their guidance unit.

“Have you made a decision about the operation?”

The question was just a touch too innocent. She had been waiting for it, and was only surprised that it had taken so long to arrive.

“First, I want to see how I stack up.” She chose each word carefully. “Just me. No modifications. I’ve been working on some noninvasive techniques of my own, and I’m hoping.”

“Hope,” he laughed. “I remember hope.”

“It’s alive and well.”

“And living in obscurity.”

He pulled up to her dormitory, a three-tiered beige cube. Only a pink and blue trim of hyacinths around the base gave it any semblance of grace. “We’ll have a general meeting in about forty minutes.”

“I’ll be there. And thanks.”

“Thank you,” he said. Something that might have been pride flitted across that ruined face. “Thanks for asking for me.”

“You’re the best I could find, Abner. You were one of the greats.”

“I’m also a dinosaur looking for a tar pit. Some people don’t want me here. Maybe they don’t want to be reminded.” He ran thin fingers through thinner hair. “Anyway. Welcome to the death camp.”

She slid her rucksack out of the back seat, then leaned her head in. “Abner?”

“Yes?”

“You don’t resent it, do you?”

“I knew what I was doing, Jillian. Just…”

“What?”

Abner seemed to fight with himself, deciding how much of himself to share. “Well, I had two silvers and a bronze. The guy who beat me in academics delivered a paper on the relationship between illiteracy and crime. He claimed we could cut the crime rate by thirty percent just by rearranging the educational priorities in grade school. He took gold, that’s how impressed they were.”

“That must have hurt.”

“That didn’t.” Some vast and distant pain floated behind his eyes. “The Olympiad is about finding the best and harvesting their knowledge and their genes. What hurt is that he was wrong. He had to have been wrong, because they never used it.”

She stared at him. “Who was he?”

He paused, and then smiled crookedly. “Russian. Name of Pushkin. Dead now. He only took the one gold.”

Ice touched the nape of her neck. And Abner, too. Dying for lack of gold.

They were both silent, and Jillian knew that he was about to leave. Before he could speak, she said, “Abner. The truth, okay? Knowing what you know now, would you do it again? Would you Boost if you were me?”