"Larry Niven & Steve Barnes - Achilles choice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

 file:///F|/rah/Larry%20Niven/Niven,%20Larry%20-%20Achille's%20Choice.txt

"We think alike is all. Right, Bev?"
"Humph. A Southern lady doesn't watch such goings-on."
"In that case, switch off."
"Have fun, children."
Sean and Jillian laughed together, and then quieted. How could they make this seem casual?
Everything they said or did had a ring of finality to it.
"I don't want to look at the clock," she whispered.
He smiled. "What do you want?"
"Just hold me. 'Gird up thy loins now like a man...'"
"Huh?"
"Job thirty-eight, verse three."
"Pretty randy for a Bible verse." He brushed her lips with his, then nuzzled the nape of
her neck until her breathing grew deep and ragged. "And what did it say after that?"
Her voice was thick, and swallowing was an effort. "Something about 'laying the
foundations of the Earth.'
"Ambitious."
She pressed herself against him. "Just hold me until they call. I don't want to think.
I'll go crazy if I think."
He was good that way. They were good for each other, that way. For Jillian, he was the
only one who had ever been able to stop the madness, stop the daydreaming, the endless carousel of
thought.
Then why couldn't I belong to him?
Because I don 't belong to myself.
For Sean, the future meant a position on the board of Penn Tech, tenure, publication,
precious Comnet access time.
For her, the stakes were the whole world. So they held each other until the wall rang,
beckoning her back to reality. And safely cocooned in Sean's wiry arms, she heard the news she
needed, feared, the words she hoped for.
When the glorious rows of Olympians marched in Athens, Jillian Shomer could well be among
them.
And sometime between now and then, she would have to make a terrible decision.
Life. Death. Victory.
"Achilles' choice," Sean whispered.
And for the last time, they made love.


The being that called himself Saturn sat in his Void, a spider crouched in the midst of an
infinite web, with strands that reached into every aspect of communication and information
retrieval on Earth. Jillian Shomer's name slid past his awareness, barely noted. She was one of
thousands of finalists from all over the world. Many of them would make it to Athens. Few would
live to great age.
He couldn't afford to care, and didn't. In a few seconds he scanned the entirety of her
academic and athletic career, calculated the odds against her, and filed her away with the file
flagged.
She really hadn't much of a chance. He would watch her esthetic event, though. Her concept
was appealing, one that he might have tried himself, long ago, in another life.