Achilles choice

“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.

Chapter 2

Sean’s fingers touched her shoulders, the taste of his kiss still warm on her mouth. His eyes had left her face, were focused on the line of gleaming tube cars behind her. A pleasantly synthesized voice sang out the current stream of departures and arrivals for Pittsburgh Central.

She circled his waist, crushing herself against the hard bands of muscle. She fought to absorb him, impress him upon her memory: ice-blue eyes, thin firm mouth, black hair, Apollonian torso. A scent tinged with musk and fresh citrus. His heart pounded its languid rhythm, and hers sped to match it.

“We’ll see each other again,” he said finally.

“It won’t be the same.” Damn it, she had promised herself she wouldn’t snivel.

“It never is.” He tilted her chin up. “And who is it that taught me that?”

She managed a smile, went up to tiptoe, pressing her mouth against his again, lips parted, sealing their goodbye with a ferocity that shocked her.

Then she stepped back and, without another word, entered the nearest car on the Denver platform. She found a seat and threaded her ticket through the chair arm. The door closed behind her. The line of windowless cars slid forward, like the first moment of a roller coaster ride, down and down and down.

Part of her had expected the royal treatment, brass bands and ticker tape and a chorus of hallelujahs to wish her bon voyage. She felt utterly alone.

No one understood the isolation of total discipline. For ten years there had been little social life, less free time.

Only the endless, grinding cycle of training and research. Ultimately, it had pushed even Sean to the outside.

At least she had Beverly. Beverly’s personality core resided in an optical wafer in her wallet. She knew she was indulging her paranoia, but it was a conscious indulgence. Once in Denver she could hook back into Beverly’s main banks through Comnet… but she had heard horror stories, and never traveled without a core. Beverly had been her cybernetic nursemaid, childhood friend, study partner, confidante, and lab assistant. Ultimately, Beverly had been the only shoulder for Jillian to cry on when her mother died eleven years ago.

She would not risk Beverly.

As she flashed within the earth, as weightless as a lost ghost, she felt that aloneness more starkly. She seemed to be passing over an invisible meridian. More than time and distance were being traversed here. And if she made the wrong decision.