Nicholas van Rijn tries to start an Esperancian groundcar on t'Kela:
"Van Rijn's ham hands moved deftly over the controls. 'In my company we use Landmasters,' he said. 'I like not much these Globetrotters. But sometimes our boys have to - um - borrow one from the competition, so we know how to...Ah.' The engine purred to life." (p. 15)
This is one small glimpse of working life in the Polesotechnic League:
Solar Spice & Liquors uses Landmasters;
some of their competitors use Globetrotters;
sometimes SSL boys "borrow" the Globetrotters;
sometimes their CEO is with them when they do it;
he had worked as a common spaceman before he founded SSL;
van Rijn has little trouble starting a Globetrotter.
Such work goes on all the time and we want to learn more about it than we are told in these few stories.
2 comments:
'tis like an iceberg -- if the top is done right, it suggests a buried, invisible mass of details that's much larger.
Kaor, Paul!
I had to laugh a little, at the way Old Nick described "borrowing" a model of a car!
Nicholas van Rijn started from very humble origins, beginning as a nuts and bolts spaceman who rose to fantastic wealth and fame/infamy. Again I regret how Anderson never wrote a Young Nick story.
Ad astra! Sean
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