The Goliath Stone by Larry Niven, Matthew Joseph Harrington Read Free Book Online Page B

new ones by adding realistic modern contests. The torch would be lit in four days … which meant Toby and May had avoided most of the rush; which, considering the amount of traffic they were seeing in the middle of the night, was appalling to consider.
    The first event would follow the torch immediately: precision skydiving. There had been some injuries in ’48, when it was introduced at Amsterdam, but Quito had less of a wind problem, and had put netting over the stands as well. Other events included silent night swimming and a thousand-meter belly crawl with fifty-kilo pack, the latter judged both by speed and the ability to stay low enough to avoid paintballs.
    “Still no bread, I see,” said May.
    “I can’t figure out what he’s doing, ” Toby said.
    “Oh, that’s not the interesting question. What bothers me is why he waited twenty-five years to do it,” May said. “What’s he been doing?”
    Toby stared at her for a moment, then got out his new phone and Lilithed “William Connors, age 90+, U.S., advertising expert.”
    He followed the results.
    “One year in advertising. Dropped out of sight for the next year. He spent most of the rest in prison,” he said.
    “What for?”
    “He killed a couple of employees of the National Firearm Registry. He said they’d been finding women who lived alone, who were on record as owning no guns and opposed to private firearms, therefore unarmed—”
    “Don’t go on,” she said.
    “Right. Anyway, he shot both agents with their own issue pistols.”
    “Federal agents? I’m surprised he wasn’t executed.”
    He checked details. “My God, he was. There’s an interview with the warden who was with the witnesses. His case was the reason the Feds switched from lethal injection to nitrogen asphyxiation. They ended up giving him sixteen times the normal dose of potassium chloride, but he just kept screaming. Massive coronary spasms. Says here they gave him five grains of Demerol, supposedly for the pain but it’s a huge lethal overdose. He slept for a day and drank about a gallon of water when he woke up. An appellate judge commuted his sentence to life without parole. He was one of the people Ross pardoned on her last day in office. Disappeared immediately, never seen since. —A lot of people were thinking the NFR had him killed.”
    “What with?”
    “I would think beheading ought to work. Of course, potassium shuts off your heart, and opiates shut off your brain, so just separating the two might not be that much more effective. He must have been saturated with nanos by then. It’s a good question.” He noticed something on the phone GPS, and turned the intercom on. “Ms. Gomez, aren’t we headed south of Quito?”
    “Yes, sir, to the Olympic Village. It’s the same one used in ’50, at Cotopaxi, except of course the new arena is downhill, not up. We were very proud to have won both bids.”
    “… Thanks.” He shut it off again. “They’re holding the Olympics on a volcano ?” Toby said.
    “Hell of a home team advantage,” May said.
    “Howzat?”
    “They’ll be the only athletes who don’t throw themselves on the ground when the starter’s pistol goes off.” After he’d watched her for a while, she said, “What?”
    “I’m lucky you two never met. You’d have gotten along really well.”
    “I think that’s the most left-handed compliment I’ve ever gotten. Are you saying we’re an item?”
    “I hope so. I’d hate for you to think you’re just an accomplice.”
    May laughed and kissed him.
    After a few minutes Toby happened to notice that Cristina had opaqued the connecting window.
    *   *   *
    The “cottage” was just outside the Village proper, and was about three thousand square feet, not including the attached two-car garage. Cristina held the door, as they got out and stared at it. “If this is a cottage, I wonder what they call a mansion around here,” May said.
    Cristina pointed up the mountainside.
    “…