Shadow of the giant

something, so they'd have an excuse for killing him. But in fact
they gave him a lethal injection. Or poisoned his food. Or infected him with a
hideous disease so he died writhing on the floor in agony while Delphiki and
Wiggin looked on.
    Like Richard III murdering those poor princes in the tower.
    But when my son is born, Randi told herself, then all these
false histories will be destroyed. The liars will be eliminated, and so will
their lies.
    Then this footage will be used in a true story. My son will
see to that. No one will ever even hear the lies they're telling now. And
Achilles will be known as the great one, even greater than the son who will
have completed his life's work.
    And I will be remembered and honored as the woman who
sheltered him and gave him birth and raised him up to rule the world.
    All I have to do to accomplish that is: nothing.
    Nothing that calls attention to me. Nothing that makes me
unusual or strange.
    Yet the one thing she couldn't bear to do was nothing. Just
to sit here, watching the television, worrying, fretting—it had to be harmful
for the baby, to have so much adrenalin coursing through her system.
    It was the waiting that was making her crazy. Not waiting
for the baby—that was natural and she would love every day of her pregnancy.
    It was waiting for her life to change. Waiting ... for Bob.
    Why should she wait for Bob?
    She got up from the couch, switched off the television, went
into the bedroom, and started packing her clothing and other things into
cardboard boxes. She emptied out Bob's obsessive financial records in order to
empty the boxes—let him amuse himself by sorting them out later.
    Only after she had packed and taped up the fourth box did it
occur to her that the normal pattern would have been to tell him about the baby
and then make him move out.
    But she didn't want a connection with him. Didn't want any
dispute about paternity. She just wanted to be gone. Out of his ordinary,
meaningless life, out of this pointless town.
    Of course she couldn't just disappear. Then she'd be a
missing person. She'd be added to databases. Someone would be alerted.
    So she took her boxes of clothing and a few favorite pots,
pans, and recipe books and loaded them into the car that she had owned before
she married Bob and that was still in her name alone. Then she spent half an
hour writing different versions of a letter to Bob explaining that she didn't
love him anymore and was leaving and didn't want him to look for her.
    No. Nothing in writing. Nothing that can be reported to
anyone.
    She got in the car and drove to the grocery store. On the
way in from the parking lot she took a cart that someone had left blocking a
parking space and pushed it into the store. Helping keep the parking lot clear
of abandoned carts proved that she wasn't vindictive. She was a civilized
person who wanted to help Bob do well in his business and his ordinary,
ordinary, ordinary life. It would help him not to have such an extraordinary woman
and child in that life.
    He was out on the floor and instead of waiting in his
office, she went in search of him. She found him supervising the unloading of a
truck that was late because of a breakdown on the highway, making sure that the
frozen foods were at a low enough temperature to be safely offloaded and
shelved.
    "Can you wait just a minute?" he said. "I
know it's important or you wouldn't have come down here, but..."
    "Oh, Bob, it won't take more than a second." She
leaned close to him. "I'm pregnant and it's not yours."
    Being a two-part message, it didn't entirely register right
away. For a moment he looked happy. Then his face started to turn red.
    She leaned in close again. "Don't worry, though. I'm
leaving you. I'll let you know where to mail the divorce papers. Now, you get
back to work."
    She started to walk away. "Randi," he called after
her.
    "Not your fault, Bob!" she called over her
shoulder. "Nothing was your fault. You're a great guy."
    She felt liberated as she walked back through the store. Her
mood was so generous and expansive that she bought a little container of lip
balm and a bottle of water. The tiny amount of profit from the sale would be
her last contribution to Bob's life.
    Then she got into the car and drove south, because that way was
a right turn coming out of the parking lot, and traffic was too heavy to wait
for a chance to go left. She'd drive wherever the currents of the traffic led
her. She wouldn't try to hide from