Larry Niven - Achilles choice

The woman was everywhere at once, swarming, shifting, tireless.

It took everything that Jillian knew to keep Osa off, and she would have, if there had been a time limit.

But it went on, and on, a blurred, sweaty nightmare of fevered effort and ragged, shallow breaths. Osa seemed to grow stronger as the minutes passed, while Jillian, already fatigued by the bout with the Grappler, came closer and closer to complete exhaustion.

The room swam. Her throat spasmed for breath, and her stomach knotted as she rolled over onto her side. The room began to swim, and Jillian’s head pounded with pain. She felt totally disoriented.

Where was Osa? Had she given up?

Osa was grinning at her. Abner’s arms were around her, and he peered into her eyes, concerned.

My God… she thought bleakly. I’ve been choked out.

Abner shook his head. “You better stop being so proud, tap out faster. Osa’s pretty deadly with her hadaka-jime, isn’t she?”

Jillian shook her head ruefully, and tried to roll over. Osa was standing, her arm around another girl, and they were smirking at her.

“Are you—”

“I’m fine,” Jillian said.

“Jillian!” Osa called. “The Council might take a few Nationals to Greece. We need towel girls.”

Jillian started to go for her. With sudden, unexpected strength, Abner pulled her back, herded her to the door of the shower room. “It’s all right, Jillian. I learned what I needed to know.”

“What? If I snore?”

He laughed. “I needed to know if you’d quit. You were beaten from the start, you know. I set you up. And you never quit.”

The fatigue and frustration were almost too much. She started to say something, and felt her voice catch in her throat, looked quickly downward. To her surprise, he encircled her shoulders, and hugged her quickly. To her even greater surprise, she liked it.

“I’ve definitely got time for you, Jillian. Go on. Get dressed.”

She smiled uncertainly, and then fled toward the distant smell of steam and soap.

Even her aching bones couldn’t distract Jillian from the excellence of the Rocky Mountain Center’s training table. Dinner was plentiful fresh fruit and vegetables, pasta and rice and chicken.

But despite the unity of purpose (everybody needed calories), there wasn’t a real air of camaraderie. Even here, the awful risks of their shared venture dampened high spirits.

Holly sat next to her, picking at her meal with mantislike grace. Despite the delicacy of her movements, food vanished from her plate with astonishing rapidity.

“Still sore?”

“Globally.” Jillian glared at a roasted thigh, mentally labeled it Osa and sank her teeth into it. “I think I’ve got a few ideas for the Ice Queen, next time around.”

“She was first alternate on the Scandinavian Trials last Olympiad, when she was only sixteen.”

“Slightly advanced, isn’t she?”

“One word for it. Bet she suckered you into talking to her.”

Jillian glowered, and Holly laughed heartily. “Yeah, I knew it. I heard some rumors about how she switched from Scandinavia to North America Agricorp so easily.”

Jillian searched the room until she found Osa, sitting in the midst of a group of husky young men and women, laughing, attacking her food ravenously.

“Rumors? I thought the Council recognized no national boundaries, and all that.”

“Baksheesh never hurts.”

Osa looked up, locked gazes with Jillian, and smiled expansively.

Jillian broke eye contact.

Holly laughed. “She’s beaten you already, you know. Got you hexed, but good.”

A protest died on Jillian’s lips as a fanfare blared over the cafeteria’s speaker system. Dr. Kelly’s voice broke through the static. Normally acerbic, it fairly bubbled with excitement. “Your attention please. Donny Crawford’s shuttle has just requested permission to land. He will arrive in approximately one minute.”

Every head in the room swiveled toward the windows.

Crawford swept down in an electric-blue float car, the air beneath the car distorted by a haze of heat and turbulence. A ramp unfolded, touched the ground, and three men stepped out.

Donny Crawford, and the usual Council bodyguards.

A sigh ran through the room as he trotted to the mess hall, flanked by the bodyguards, who were themselves minilinked to his security system. Their constant visual inspection of the grounds would be augmented by the electronic and satellite scans of the entire area. They were 360-degree-alert. It was difficult to imagine anything getting through that screen.

The security was understandable. Donny was high-level Linked, a candidate for the Council now. If his area of expertise had been political science or economics rather than the pure sciences, he might already control serious power.

The external door opened, and he was there, haloed by fading sunlight, radiant.

Striding to the front of the room, he was beautiful, by carriage and visage more effortlessly charismatic than she could have dreamed. The room’s strained, competitive air dissolved.

She had never been so close to a Linked before. Jillian felt a sudden yearning that shocked and dismayed her with its intensity.

He smiled brilliantly. “I just showed up a little early. Thought I’d join you for dinner. Looks good from here.”

“Looks better than it tastes!” somebody yelled.

“We’ll see. Listen, everybody-after you’ve finished eating, I’d like to get to know as many of you as possible. We’re having an informal get-together, all workouts and coaching sessions canceled for the evening.”

Thank God.

With a healthy wave of applause, the trainees launched back into their dinners.

Jillian chewed thoughtfully. She watched Donny as he went to the head of the food line, piling his tray high.

“So what do you know about this guy?” Holly said conspiratorially.

“Well, I know he’s gorgeous.”

Holly’s nod of agreement was emphatic. “I wonder if he can be made. I don’t know how much time he’s got. Or I’ve got…”

“Whoa, girl. Back, back. Rein in those hormones.”

“You don’t believe any of that bull about sex being bad for your athletic performance?”

“Well,” Jillian mused, “I’m not saying having sex during training is a felony…”

“That’s nice to hear.”

“It’s more like a misdemeanor: the more I miss, demeanor I get.”

Holly laughed until Jillian had to slap her on the back. It felt like slapping a truck tire.

After dinner was over, they retired to the meeting hall next door. Tables and chairs were arranged in starbursts.

Crawford circulated through the room shaking hands, smiling, flirting, talking shop. Jillian saw nothing overtly peculiar about his hairline…

Beneath Donny’s hair a wire mesh had been implanted in the scalp. Metal strands only a few molecules thick extended into various areas of his brain. They controlled the firing of neurons and synapses, and regulated many of the biological functions that Boost had disrupted. That was Donny Crawford’s way out: as long as he remained Linked, the side effects of Boost wouldn’t damage him.

Finally, his circuitous palm-pressing route brought him to Jillian.

His smile was beneficent. “Jillian Shomer. I’ve wanted to meet you.”

“Yes,” she said clumsily, instantly embarrassed. The only other reply that flashed into her mind was, We’d make beautiful babies.

“Well, I think you’re going to show us something special.”

It was an act of physical control to keep her reply out of the realm of the suggestive. “I’m in fellrunning. Intervals, broken-ground, obstacles, and so on.”

His eyes crackled with secret amusement. “Yes, I know.”