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GRAND CENTRAL ARENA: Chapter 1
And so now we begin the snippeting of GCA!
Grand Central Arena
A Space Opera
By Ryk E. Spoor
Chapter 1.
"Watch the next keyhole, Ariane, that bastard's going to try to force a scrape or worse!"
Ariane Austin heard the concerned voice in her helmet as she pulled round the third turn, spinning Whip Hand and then relaxing the gyros, lining up the nuclear rocket blast through instinct and experience, firing to skirt the marker asteroid and get on a vector to pass through the next course obstacle – the "keyhole" that Carl had mentioned. The power of the rocket pinned her to the acceleration chair with the thrilling force she sometimes felt was drawn from and through her, making her feel a part of the little racing ship.
Just ahead of her, no more than 20 kilometers – or about a second and a half at their current course-relative speed – was "that bastard", Hawke, the legend of the racing circuit. With enhanced vision, she could just make out the dagger-sharp shape of Hawke's ship Lobo, with its stubby wings for racing courses that had atmospheric sections. "Carl, he's not going to try that; he's got a one-point-five lead on me, why would he cut it down low enough to make the keyhole an issue?"
"Because," the voice of her control engineer and crew chief answered, "he knows you're better than he is at the driftmaze part of the course."
Ariane couldn't argue that he might have a point. She'd shaved almost three seconds off the last time through the driftmaze, and the rest of the pack was so far back that they weren't even contenders. If all Hawke had coming out was that one-point-five, there was a good chance she'd pass him in the driftmaze, and with only half the circuit left, Hawke would have damn few chances to make that up.
And Hawke is slowing, dammit. I'm catching him.
Unlimited Space Obstacle Racing rules were pretty relaxed. You couldn't deliberately RAM your opponent… but forcing them off the course, bumping them pretty roughly by "accident" at critical moments, or even hitting something in order to leave debris behind you and in your opponent's way were not against the rules. It was that kind of no-holds-barred competition that made it a very, very popular viewing sport… and one with the highest mortality rate of any sport in the system.
She didn't mind matching scrapes with most people, but Hawke was a different matter. Scrape in a keyhole, that was even worse. The hundred kilometer long hollow obstacles were basically tunnels a hundred meters across and two hundred high -- something very, very narrow when you were in a craft with a 20-meter wingspan moving at several kilometers per second, and even narrower if you had another 20-meter craft with you. Even the fact that the keyholes were mostly made of aerogel and the racing craft of ring-carbon composite didn't make it comfortable; yes, many craft and their pilots had survived collision with the keyhole wall, but many hadn't, often by hitting one of the widely spaced, but much more solid, supports for the keyhole. Even if you survived, of course, you would have lost so much time that you might not even finish the race.
"How's our numbers, Carl?"
"High," he answered instantly. "This being the first time this season you've faced off with Hawke, and being as you're currently the USORA league leader, that was a big draw. Now that it's down to just you and Hawke in a race this tight… flashpings are up 300 percent over last, drawing in at least double the virtual audience. Plus we've got confirmed 217 physical presence attendees for the after-race party. If you don't screw anything up, we'll be ahead of Hawke on the Interest vector and pulling close on contributed E-dollars."
Ariane sucked in her breath. Ahead of Hawke on interest? The taciturn veteran had dominated the sport for almost 10 years, and at first she'd thought he was untouchable. This year, finally, she thought she might even have a chance against him… but she'd never imagined other people cared that much. And the contributed E-dollars were critical for fast refuellings, transfers from one racecourse to another, and of course for paying her crew.
The question was… how to answer Hawke's obvious challenge?
Even before she consciously realized it, her body had answered. The drive roared again, sending her charging to meet Hawke. People don't watch this sport to see someone that's playing it safe.
The other pilot responded, accelerating, but not quite so fast. No calculations – no AISages or even less-intelligent advisors were allowed here. You had to guess the acceleration, judge the distance by eye and instrument, figure out the right moment to speed up or slow down. Hawke, of course, was trying to match up with her just as they entered the keyhole; she wanted to get ahead of him. If she could pass him, she might even have a chance of winning this race.
He's too good. He's judged it perfectly. I'm varying my acceleration, but he's matching me… here it comes!
Two ships flashed into the keyhole at a speed of five kilometers a second, nearly wing to wing. Hawke's Lobo spun, trying to slap her wing and send her spinning, but she matched rotation, then suddenly reversed. If my wing's getting hit, I'm damn well going to be the one doing the hitting!
But Hawke seemed to have read her mind. He reversed at the same moment, killing and reversing spin with the wingtip jets. Only a few more seconds in the keyhole – he's swerving! She kicked in the side and bottom jets, rose up and spun around again, barely evading the darting hummingbird of Lobo, jinking herself to force him to shift course…
And thus we meet the first of our characters...
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Atomic Rockets!
And the same letter for the first and last name is a good Space Opera main character name too. :)
It doesn't help that I just re-read the first two Skylark books (I have _got_ to track down the second two at some point).
Looks like she won that encounter, in that before the keyhole he had a 1.5 second lead, and now they are even, and this is before she runs the drift-maze.
I'm getting a real sense of déjà vu reading this, not sure where from though.
-- Brett
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If you liked Ariane's name you'll like the name of the second hero (who we meet in the next chapter), Dr. Simon Sandrisson, and of course as a Skylarker you'll like Dr. Marc C. DuQuesne. :)
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A space-ship race very much like this though, including the scrap though the keyhole, and running up to an awards event I think ...
The old brain ain't what it used to be. :)
Heh, yeah, it's not space opera (or golden age comics) if you don't have the names like that. Anything else would be starkly unthinkable!
I always found parts of Skylark to be odd ... his paen to eugenics with the perfection he describes in the Green System, yet at the same time all the action is being pushed by a bunch of very mongrel (by comparison) humans.
Oh, and I can only assume that interface control systems in the Skylark setting are powered by emotion. Never have switches been flicked and buttons pressed with such intensity!
-- Brett
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Since you're on my Beta-reading list, you can of course read the whole thing, starting with my posting of the second draft (since many things were changed at the behest of Toni -- not major plot points, but other aspects)
The Green System's "eugenics" vibe only comes really from the warlike races like those of Osnome. The others didn't have that "scan your brain to see if you are WORTHY, and if not we shoot you" attitude.
And, of course, the humans they DID encounter were of absolute highest grade, so our "mongrel" nature never manifested.
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I know it's only the very warlike races, but the main character does seem fairly ... approving of the concept. Also seems to be some other stuff there that makes me ... well, read it with a "It was a different time." reminder running in the back of my head.
And that's not even getting into the patriarchal sexism, but you kind of expect that from anything before a given point. Finding out how little he really had to do with the Family D'Alambert series does make the ... difference in it's overall style make a lot more sense now.
I love his stories, but boy, people just viewed things differently back then. :)
-- Brett
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Doc's stories did often have the view that there were actually superior and inferior beings, yes.
The Skylark series has somewhat more sexism, despite the Lensverse's "Women don't use Lenses".
Yes, they did. One thing that totally boggled my wife recently was when I was reading the Little House books to my daughter (we're currently in "On the Banks of Plum Creek") and Pa and Ma go away FOR A WHOLE DAY and leave Laura and Mary in charge of the house. Alone. At the ages of 7 and 8, respectively.
She couldn't grasp the idea that it was perfectly normal to expect kids that age to take care of the basic operation of the household for a day.
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It's weird, I do have a real feeling I've run into this before, like half a decade back or something, but at this point I'm guessing it was something very vaguely similar, and my brain is doing 'find patterns where there are none' and re-writing my memories on me.
Nothing like having a friend who's doing neurosicence at university to get it across just how unreliable people's memories really are.
I agree on the sexism thing, at least the female characters in the Lesman series, Lens or no, have something to do other then just sit around, look pretty, get kidnapped, and look adoringly at the male heroes.
-- Brett
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Yeah, you tell Clarissa MacDougall she has to sit around and wait. That'll work. Not. (and then there's her DAUGHTERS, but they're more demigod than human)
His view was that men and women were *different* but equal (as opposed to "separate but equal"). In a very general sense he was right, except that the differences are purely statistical in most areas, and the statistical spread is wide enough that you can't really use that as a general approach without (as in Doc's day) a major societal force pushing things in that direction.
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Oh yeah, Clarissa does not take no for an answer, and a bunch from the earlier generation are not shrinking violets either. I don't think the children of the lens really count, they aren't even human, they just do a good job of faking it. Though given hints, both in the book, and in other comments the author had apparently made, they were also going to take a Greek god approach to other things as well. If he ever had written the sequel, I'm not sure how it would have gone down.
Yes, there _are_ statistical differences, but they aren't very meaningful when dealing with individuals. And even if you were going to try and follow the statistics in assigning jobs, one of the implications of that is that we shouldn't be letting guys fly fighter jets. That's one I always like to bring up any-time somebody starts trying to wave around the 'but men and woman are different' thing. :)
-- Brett
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Admittedly, saying that, Heinlein managed to put similar stuff in his own work, and avoided getting lynched, but he was writing later I think.
-- Brett
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Great little read there, and I'm looking forward to seeing more!
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(I saw your post about lack of readers. I sorta thought this was intended for 'friends only' or some such, or I'd have jumped in sooner.)
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