Achilles choice

by Larry Niven

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?”

  He leaned back into his seat. The clownish grin disappeared. “Would I have your skill? Your basic talent?”

  “Better still. You could have yours.”

  “This old man blesses you.”

  “Stop stalling. Would you take the Boost?”

  He grinned crookedly. “In a hot second.” And the car cruised away.

  Jillian lugged her belongings into the building, up the stairs. A tickle of perspiration had wormed its way down her back by the time she reached the second level. Her footsteps echoed emptily in the deserted hallway. She heard distant shouts and thumps of exertion.

  She leaned her forehead against one of the windows, and looked out over an outdoor track.

  A battery of scanning devices were posted at sixteenth marks on a half-mile oval. Lithe figures jogged, sprinted, leapt. Her heart trip-hammered.

  The fifty-foot ribbed dome to the east would be the sports medicine facility. There, her mind and body would be taxed to the maximum.

  And over there… a converted dormitory, given now to…

  “That’s the academic center,” a male voice said behind her. She spun to face a young man of perhaps twenty-five years. His massively muscular body strained at a gold-trim warm-up jacket. A soft, round face, with bright green eyes framed by extremely black hair. He was pushing a small covered cart.

  “What?”

  “That’s the academic center,” he said almost apologetically. “I figured that you were looking at it, and maybe wondering.” He wiped huge hands on his red, white, and blue nylon sweat pants, and offered one to Jillian. “Hi. Jeff Tompkins.”

  “Jillian Shomer. I saw you at the last Olympiad. You went bronze, didn’t you?”

  His answering smile was shy, a little nervous. “Yeah. This is my last chance.” He bit back some other comment, and muscles along the base of his jaw leapt.

  “Ah-what’s in the cart?” Jillian asked. That twitch at his jaw was fascinating. Now that she noticed it, it seemed to pulse regularly, like a little lizard running around under his skin.

  He smiled sheepishly again, and lifted the lid.

  Jillian sucked in her breath. “You did this?”

  He nodded.

  The
marvel was perhaps seventeen inches along the base. Jeff Tompkins had carved an ivory model of a palatial estate, complete with towers and gardens and arches and miniature fountains, pillars and statues and even a tiny horse-drawn carriage at a miniature main gate.

  “What in the world?”

  “Oh,” he said vaguely. “It’s the palace built by Le Vau and Mansart for Louis XIV. At Versailles, of course.” He pointed, his thick fingers so much larger than the miniature work that Jillian could hardly believe her eyes. “See here? The Cour d’Honneur, with little statues of Richelieu, and Du Guesclin, and Louis of course…” His voice grew absent. “The Cour Royale, and behind that the Cour de Marbre… the palace Chapelle was started by Mansart in 1699, but Robert de Cotte finished it… I need to touch it up. I was worried about how it would travel.”

  “My God. It’s boggling. How long…?”

  He shrugged. “Four years. I started right after last Athens. I figured, you know, better go for it.”

  She touched it gingerly. “Elephant ivory…?”

  “Of course not. Mammoth. Part of the ‘17 Siberian excavation.” A faint smile curled his thin lips. “Well, better go. Welcome to the club, Jillian. I sure wish you the best of luck.” He turned and headed down the hall, pushing his cart with its precious cargo.

  Jillian watched Jeff until he disappeared around the corner, and then took her rucksack down to room 303. She nudged the door open with her foot.

  A short black woman sat at a computer table. She wore cutoffs that exposed corded calves and thighs and a powerful upper body. Her tightly curled hair was cropped very short. When Jillian entered the room, the woman rose and spun with that liquid grace which implies perfect coordination. The shorter woman appraised her for a moment, and then grinned hugely.

  “You must be Jillian Shomer. Fractals and judo?”

  “And fellrunning.”

  A dark hand was extended to her. It was strong, and hard with callus. “I’m Holly Lakein. Molecular biology and the balance beam. Chess. Do you play?”

  “Not really.”

  “Oh.” She grinned, and waved a hand at the computer table. A visual field projected a chess set composed of simple geometric shapes. When Holly’s finger brushed a bishop, it skittered across the board to the next square. “Just reexamining Anderssen-Dufresne, 1852. Berlin. What they call the ‘Evergreen’ game. I think I’ve found a new response to the Queen Sacrifice that won the game.”

  Jillian smiled politely. “That must be very exciting.”

  “Yeah… well…” Holly shrugged. “Hell with it.” She motioned toward a frame bunk on the far side of the room. “That one okay?”

  “Sure.” Jillian tossed her rucksack down on the bed, and watched under her arm as Holly floated to a closet, pulled down sheets and blankets, and tossed them to Jillian with a flip of her wrists.

  Holly’s economical perfection of movement was captivating, even applied to so mundane a task. Every joint seemed to be an oiled ball bearing; every exquisitely toned muscle moved in perfect sequence.

  “When did you have it done?”

  Holly grinned again. “Forty days ago. The Boost is peaking now, and will plane for the next month. Then we’ll crank it up again. Hoping to hit Everest just about Athens.”

  “Aren’t you scared?”

  “Of course,” Holly said. “But then again, my research is on the reversal or stabilization of the process itself.”

  “You mean… without Linking? I didn’t think that was possible.”

  “Ask Abner.”

  The room was arched loftily. The light seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, filtering down from the ceiling like a spray of moondust. Through the wall-wide windows Jillian could see the Rocky Mountains, their reality less vivid than a train station mural.

  An irritatingly thin voice brought her attention back to the front of the room. The voice belonged to a tanned, slender woman whose sad eyes and pouchy cheeks reminded Jillian of a shaved housecat. “For those of you who don’t know, I’m Dr. Andrea Kelly, your liaison with the Rocky Mountain Sports Medicine Facility. I would like to welcome all of you to the North American corporate and national training camp for the Eleventh Olympiad.”

  There was a polite smattering of applause. Jillian looked out over competitors nearest her, recognizing few of them. Most were faces without names. A few were faces and events.

  There, sitting in a cluster on the left side of the room, was the track squad. Powerful but lean, they seemed as nervously alert as antelope in dry season. She tried to guess their modifications: artificial knee joints? Synthetic hemoglobin?

  Near them were the power lifters, recognizable from their gigantic deltoids and the enormous sweep of the lats. The other Olympians avoided them. These monsters were Boosted, and on them the Boost had worked its most extreme miracle. Muscle and bone had thickened to a simian density. Their hands knotted and unknotted compulsively, and a palpable air of leashed aggression hung in the air about them.

  From pictures in various scientific magazines she recognized faces: a discus thrower who specialized in underwater telecommunications. The article said his spine had been prosthetically restructured to allow greater torque. A regional lightweight women’s power lifting champion with microprocessors implanted in the motor end plates of muscles in thighs and back. Her doctoral thesis had been immediately classified by World Security.

  All looked to be between eighteen and thirty-two.

  Andrea Kelly was still speaking. Her high, reedy voice barely needed amplification. “Everyone here understands the stakes. You have made serious decisions, sacrifices, lost jobs and friends, separated yourselves from family for the sake of our quest.” She paused.

  Two seats down from Jillian, a blond, wiry lightweight wrestler muttered “Our quest? What you mean we, white man?” A black man next to the wrestler highfived him, and there was a wave of nasty laughter.

  “Three or four of you still have unresolved issues. This might be a good opportunity to discuss them.”

  A massive arm was raised on the other side of the room, and Dr. Kelly gave its owner the floor. Jeff Tompkins stood. He was wearing a cut-off shirt, and his musculature was even more pronounced. His upper arms and shoulders were a grotesque relief-map of veins and muscular striation. “I’m Jeff Tompkins.”

  “Hi, Jeff.”

  “Aum… Doc Kelly. A lot of us have already made our decision about Boost. I just want it out on the floor for the ones who haven’t. Sometimes people Boost even when they don’t have to. I throw the hammer, so I need the speed and power. But if you’re not in a pure power sport, what are the chances of a gold or silver without the Boosting?”

  “And just why do you care, Jeff?”

  He looked at her with undisguised contempt. “You get your data whether we live or not. We’re not 1-lab rats you can use up and throw away. Like I said — I made my choice. I don’t regret it. But for some of the others, it’s the wrong damned choice.”

  Dr. Kelly tried to smile, and finally arranged her features in an expression of dignified neutrality. “The choice is more problematic for those of you who do not compete in a linear skill. In other words: how fast do you run, how high do you jump, how much can you lift? Those of you in gymnastics, wrestling, or fencing cannot just look at the record tapes and compare your performances with those of past gold and silver medalists. There’s a gray zone.

  “Most of your lives you’ve been surrounded by less gifted intellects, less developed bodies. If you have been involved in sports where strategy and skill are more important than simple speed or strength, you may question the value of Boosting.

  “Let me answer your implicit question as explicitly as I can. If un-Boosted, regardless of whatever other modifications you may have made to your muscles, nervous system, or skeletal structure, you will be competing with Olympians who have a fifteen to twenty percent advantage over you in both the physical and psychological realms.”

  The young man fidgeted, shif
ting from side to side in a manner reminiscent of a small child. Finally, he said, “Yeah. That’s what I wanted to hear.” And he sat down.

  There was a ripple of sound. One of the wrestlers stagewhispered “Buck-buck-buckawwk!” and somebody halfheartedly shushed him.

  Jillian stood.

  “Doctor,” she said. “As long as the floor is open, I have a question, too. The point of the Olympiad is to select the best. Why confine the definition of ‘best’ to those willing to risk death or disablement within nine years? That has always troubled me.”

  Andrea Kelly’s eyes bored into her. “Well, ah… Jillian… You’re the newest one here, and of course this discussion has come up several times before. The Olympiad is for those with enough confidence in their own abilities to risk everything. That peculiar, Uncoachable capacity for confidence produces champions. Enables a human being to put everything on the line. That’s one definition of a ‘warrior,’ isn’t it? Well, we don’t have wars anymore. But some people still need, and want, to test themselves against the very best.” She smiled brilliantly. “Confusion aside, I know you’re one of those people, or you wouldn’t be here, Jillian. To those who will risk much, much will be given.”

  Dr. Kelly seemed to expect applause, and waited for it. After a pause there was a polite smattering, but she was clearly uncomfortable.

  Jillian waited until even that small accolade had died. “I see,” she said, and sat down.

  Dr. Kelly nervously scratched an ear, looking out at a group which was unexpectedly still. The room seemed to grow warmer. She cleared her throat. “Tomorrow,” she offered, “our special guest will be Donny Crawford.”

  There was a murmur of recognition and approval from the audience. Jillian’s reaction was instantaneous, and visceral.

  The honey-gold perfection of his body in motion, dismounting from the uneven parallel bars. The deceptively boyish manner which masked a startling clarity of thought. The dark blue of his eyes as he accepted the gold in memory of those who had died in its pursuit.

  She remembered him as he stood four years ago, straight and tall before a Council-appointed panel, carefully explaining the mathematical model for worldwide air traffic control. He had revolutionized consumer aeronautics with that one talk. He had competed in four events, won three gold and one silver. She guessed that maybe fifty million female viewers would have had a baby with him then and there.