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

in the kitchen. She learned things that interested them both.
    The incidence of a great many diseases had dropped to zero in recent months. The last virus epidemic had been Goat Flu, right at the start of winter, and that hadn’t killed anyone that she could discover. A number of nonviral diseases had also declined, and as far as she could tell they were all insect-borne. The rate of infant mortality had gone down even farther than the general death rate.
    The rate of SIDS appeared to be zero.
    Acts of violence were down incredibly, but armed robbery, which depended on threats of violence rather than actual use, was only slightly below its usual frequency. Suicide, however, was occurring at a rate that exceeded the former rates of battery, homicide, and rape added together. There hadn’t been an act of terrorism completed since last November.
    Grades were up. Everywhere. The increase was greater at public schools than private ones.
    So was industrial productivity. This was possibly aided by the fact that there hadn’t been any large protests or major strikes … also since November 2051.
    Stocks were rising slowly and steadily—with the exception of insurance stocks, which had climbed sharply due to the habits of owners of large blocks of shares, who refused to sell or let shares be borrowed for speculation. Careful search showed that many were owned by JNAIT. Others had unknown owners. May guessed that they were too.
    Life-insurance payoffs were at an all-time low. Since November.
    The morning the Olympiad was due to begin, May had a disturbing notion, checked it as best she could, came to a conclusion, and went to the kitchen to share it.
    “It’s Goat Flu,” she said.
    Toby was turning fried eggs with a dextrous flair that had, on previous mornings, occasionally gotten her pink and flustered when she thought about it. “The nano?” he said without looking up.
    “Right. I think it must do something to people’s minds.”
    “Makes sense. I can’t see how, though.”
    “I would think nanos could do all kinds of things with body chemistry.”
    “Sure. But some people have damn strange reactions to drugs that are usually innocuous. That ought to show up too.”
    “It could be the suicide rate,” May said. “I hunted up Connors’s prison record. Lee Ultra Maximum Federal Penitentiary in Virginia. Model prisoner, unusual for a lifer with no parole. They can get away with anything as long as a guard doesn’t have a rifle aimed, you know. Nothing to protect.”
    “I’d heard.” It was yet another reason for leaving the States: only convicted killers had the right to be kept alive. (Most of Europe was at least as bad, but the Swiss were all trained to kill, so the subject didn’t arise.)
    “Connors got a job in the kitchen after two years. Inmates started dying of what looked like strychnine poisoning—convulsions, compound fractures, the works. Not at mealtimes. Ever. Always in secluded areas, but with at least one other person around. Care to guess which prisoners?”
    “Lifers without parole?”
    “Mostly. A few others who also had a history of violence toward other prisoners. Not all of those, though. Some of the guards died too. Mostly at home. I couldn’t find much on them, but two had a history of domestic violence. Toby, can nanos identify bullies?”
    Toby took the pan off the stove, sprayed water under it so the eggs wouldn’t overcook, set it down, and turned a troubled face toward her. “I don’t see brain chemistry as being that specific. I’m damn well certain that the twenty percent of the brain that isn’t RAM doesn’t have a bully sector. But if you had enough nanos linked in a processing net, they could inspect the contents of your brain in detail. I really hate that idea. The net would have to be a lot bigger than the human brain is. I can’t see why it wouldn’t just take over.”
    May was thinking. “It doesn’t have a stupidity sector either, but I remember something from