Achilles choice

“That… that’s why the new stuff stopped appearing in the shops!”

“Yes, that was me.”

“Mph. You could destroy… How far back would we have to go to be safe? Nineteen fifty?”

“Destroy the information?” Saturn shrugged. “Making transistors disappear may be beyond me. No, that’s not the way to go. I want a human being who can use everything that was and is available to me, and still remain human. What do I have to do to accomplish that?”

“You’d have to… a training program? You son of a bird. You changed the Olympics.”

“Yes. To help me find people like you, or shape them. Mind and body and spirit. I had to make some compromises, but that won’t last. One day a majority of the Council will be Olympic winners. They won’t put up with the current death rate. Will you?”

Will I. “Not likely. What have you got in mind?”

“Change the rules. Even so, the pattern I’m looking for includes courage. I get that through the Olympics. I’m trying other approaches too. Give computer equipment to primitives after they reach fifty. Gene carving-“

“Only a monster of arrogance would decide what constitutes human.”

“Give me a human and I’ll let him rewrite my specs! I don’t dare. Jillian, the Link techniques are too good. They must be used. The Linked will be the human race. They’re a wall across the future, even if they’re a blind alley. If they go Feral and rip up the Earth, that’s the future too. If they can stay human-I just need one.”

“To be your… child?”

“Partner. Successor. You’re too filled with doubt, Jillian. Power won’t turn you into a monster. It may kill you, tear you apart, but you’re no stranger to inner conflict. I think you’d say that was part of your birthright as a human being, wouldn’t you?”

She was silent.

“Wouldn’t you say it was a natural result of the soul’s attempt to achieve perfection in human form? Wouldn’t you tell me of Christ’s temptation in the desert, his despair on the cross?”

“Shut up,” Jillian said flatly. “Just shut up. Don’t mock me, Saturn. If you don’t believe in the human soul, then you don’t know who I am, no matter how many facts you may have stored away.”

“You have friends who aren’t Christian. You won’t demand that I convert.”

Fair enough. But-“What do you want from me, Saturn?” -

“Not much. I protected you when you were using Holly Lakein to get information. I’ve put you among the Linked. You’ll be one of the powers that rule the human race, on the Earth and off-“

“You’ve made this speech before.”

“To all who’d listen. To the others I’m the old one, the crazy one.”

“You’re not offering much, either, are you?”

“I don’t interfere with the dominance games, no. You’ll be on your own, and I’ll be watching, hoping you can become what I’m hoping to see. If you make it, then welcome to the human race. A small, select group.”

She stared at him. He waited… probably busy elsewhere, a hundred elsewheres, leaving a tendril of attention for the hologram in the subway car.

She sipped coffee, and thought.

She no longer feared death… she had finally accepted that she need not. What she feared now was that she would become Saturn.

Presently she said, “Here it is, Saturn, like it or not. You could have gone to six decimal points, or twenty, and it wouldn’t make any difference. What it is to be human can’t be determined by what we were. Human evolution is too sensitive to initial conditions. My religion says that we bring something into this life which is beyond flesh, or mind, or emotion. I can’t prove it, you can’t disprove it. I choose to believe it. I think that you’re so totally human you scare yourself. You look at me and say, ‘Ah, she has the humanity I gave up,’ and it’s a crock. Your brain is alive. Your heart is asleep. Wake up, damn you. You may be the only chance we have.”

She held her breath for a long beat. Saturn was motionless. Five seconds, perhaps. How many worlds of possibility did he spin through in that moment? Was he reviewing the entirety of his life? Or a thousand futures, projecting fractal probabilities to the nth power?

Then he sighed, and smiled timidly. Saturn held out an ethereal hand to her.

“God help me.”

“Help us both,” Saturn said.

Was he mocking her? She couldn’t tell. She must trust him until she learned more.

She extended her hand. There was no sensation of touch or pressure, just a man’s hand melting into hers, sealing a bargain whose implications she was just beginning to consider. Then she was alone, falling beneath the earth at three miles per second.

Chapter 17

The cab dropped Jillian Shomer off at the main gate of the Rocky Mountain Sports Medicine Facility. She stood there surrounded by three bags of luggage. The air carried a strong chill, and she tugged her collar up.

The gate slowly slid back, welcoming her. Once there was a woman named Lilith S homer. Jillian hefted the bags in her hands and across her shoulders, over a hundred pounds total. She barely felt the weight. She began to walk toward the Medtech facility, a gleaming dome which flamed in the noonday sun.