"Niven, Larry & Barnes, Steven - Achilles Choice 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

Achille's Choice Version 1.0

This e-text scanned, OCR'd and once overed by Gorgon776 on 15 May 2001. It needs some more correction. If you correct this text, update the version number by .1 and add your name here.


This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

ACHILLES' CHOICE

Copyright (c) 1991 by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
(Scanner's Note: Fuck you.)

A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.
49 West 24th Street
New York, N.Y. 10010

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Niven, Larry.
Achilles' choice I Larry Niven, Steven Barnes ; illustrated by Boris
Vallejo.
p. cm.
'A Tom Doherty Associates book."
ISBN 0-312-85099-9
I. Barnes, Steven. II. Vallejo, Boris. III. Title PS3564.19A63 1991
813' .54-dc2O 90-48782
CIP

Printed in the United States of America

First edition: March 1991

0987654321

ACHILLES' CHOICE

Chapter I

Jillian Shomer ran along the north edge of the quarry, toward a distant, silent ocean, into the dawning sun.
Her breath vibrated in her mastoid process, made sharp rasping sounds in her Comnet ear link. In her own very informed opinion, she sounded ragged and undisciplined.
Hot fudge sundaes are a basic food group. The words were etched in acid, her self-appraisal as merciless as the grade.
She unclipped the plastic bottle at her side, and sipped shallowly. Thin, faintly sweet, with a briny edge. The drink was custom-formulated from analysis of her own sweat, a nutrient solution composed chiefly of water and long-chain glucose polymers, with a few electrolyte minerals judiciously added. Jillian thought the sweat tasted better.
The air would heat soon. Morning chills burned off quickly of late, unusual for Pennsylvania in late March. April and May would be hot.
She squeezed the bottle closed with her teeth, and pushed onward. Halfway through now. Sean Vorhaus would be meeting her for the last two miles of the run. With the first tickle of fatigue her mind, ordinarily the most orderly of instruments, began to wander. She focused, and continued to dictate.
"Beverly: note. Mind seeks patterns. Predictions. Wrong here. Old math . . . says weather's chaotic. Initial conditions. Disease, money, whatever. Try crime. Greek poets, storm. . . metaphor for personal change. Proposal-"
She panted, and wiped away the trickle of sweat oozing from beneath her terry-cloth headband. Her breathing normalized swiftly, and she continued.
"-use fractals, predict-global sociopolitical patterns. Determine where chaos rules human life-"