When I summarized Poul Anderson's Orbit Unlimited, part one, here, I omitted one significant character, Commissioner Svoboda's long-term personal bodyguard, Iyeyasu, a gray-clad Okinawan karate man with black, shoulder-length hair. (Apparently, Okinawan karate differs from Japanese: see here.)
Svoboda, with his bad foot, leans on Iyeyasu who senses his master's moods. Even in his own departmental tower, Svoboda is surrounded by six other guards who either precede or follow him down "...a long luminous-walled corridor..." (1, p. 9) whereas Iyeyasu remains beside him.
When Svoboda is about to be visited by his son, Jan, he clears all the guards, except Iyeyasu, out of his office. When Svoboda knowingly provokes Jan, the latter attacks him but is stopped by Iyeyasu.
(Svoboda, in charge of education, proposes to replace literary analysis with rote memorization and also to introduce instruction in the use of hallucinogens... He is prepared to damage a lot of people for a Machiavellian end.)
When Jan has left, Svoboda explains his devious scheme to Iyeyasu and thus to us so Iyeyasu's role, although understated, is very important.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I agree, Iyeyasu probably tends to be overlooked by most readers of ORBIT UNLIMITED. But he did play a significant, if understated role.
Commissioner Svoboda would probably argue that the decadence and stagnation of the Federation justified the devious means used for getting an off Earth colony founded on Rustum. And he also wanted his descendants to have a chance at a life better than what Earth would likely offer them, long term.
Sean
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