Futures Near and Far (8 page)

He is about one hundred twenty degrees to my left, with both
feet on the velcro, ready to leap again. I see a gleam of triumph in his eyes
as he realizes I will have to flip over in order to get my feet “underneath”
me. He takes off.

I push off with my hands and cock my leg. The ball of my
foot catches him perfectly in the midsection. He grunts in surprise. At least
three of the judges give me the whistle and flag.

We settle back to our starting places and face each other.

“Yoko geri, chu dan,”
the referee announces over the
p.a.
system. “One half-point, red.” I am the red contestant.

I have the scope of my opponent’s technique now. It was a
mistake to let him make the first move. As the next round begins, I plunge
straight in before he can get started. A simple reverse punch gives me the
score.

“
Seiken zuki, jo dan
.
Two half-points, red. Winner.”

We bow to each other and I, following tournament courtesy,
let him open the hatch and exit the sphere first. I pause in the opening and
let the referee remove the red ribbon from my belt, while I strip the velcro
bands off my hands and feet. The next two contestants are sailing over from the
staging area.

“Nice work, champ,” says one of the statisticians as I land
at the edge of the part of the bleachers reserved for contestants. I thank him,
grab a squeeze bottle of Gatorade from a vendor, and float up into the seats,
where some of my students have collected.

“Way to go, Aaron,” one of them says; I’m not sure just who.
I strap down, feeling the sweat bead and evaporate on my skin. I wait for it to
trickle down the sides of my face and torso, but it never does.

No, I think. It was
not
nice work.

I smell the familiar odor of perspiring bodies and the
laundry scent of freshly washed karate gis. The speakers boom with a mixture of
English and Japanese, overlapping the beehive hum of the spectators’ voices. My
heartbeat is fast with adrenaline rush, pulling me into a hypnotic state where
time seems distorted and it is almost impossible to carry on a normal
conversation. I cling to the feelings. This is no different from any other
tournament, I tell myself. I always start slow; I always rally in time.

The air, it strikes me, is too filtered. They forgot the
dirt. They have deliberately added the essence of grass, trees, and animals to
the ventilation systems, but they’ve left out the pollution. I practice
controlled breathing, and settle in to watch the matches.

My vantage point isn’t one of the best; those have been
reserved for the “corner” judges, the referee, and the cameras. The folks back
Earthside are getting a better view. It doesn’t matter. There will be plenty of
time to play it back in weeks to come, and analyze what should or shouldn’t
have happened. What matters now is an all too elusive state of mind.

I suppose it was inevitable that karate would move into high
orbit. In many ways, it is a natural null sport. Once the dancers and
racquetball players pioneered the concept, martial arts couldn’t be far behind.
It is one of those athletic activities that can take advantage of the ability
to move in three dimensions, and it doesn’t require the huge venues necessary
for traditional spectator sports like baseball and football, games which will
have to wait until orbital stations can afford to devote large cubic area to
such pastimes.

The spheres in which the kumite matches are being performed
are eighteen feet in diameter, transparent, and banded along the equator and
two meridians by twelve-inch wide strips of clear velcro. The strips divide the
sphere into eight equal sections. Only the contestants themselves remain within
the shell; the judging personnel are positioned immediately outside, one judge
over each half hemisphere. The referee, as on planetside, is able to move as he
sees fit in order to best watch the action.

The current referee, a thin, effeminate Japanese, isn’t
moving much at all. He has that pallid shade in his complexion I’ve come to
associate with space adaptation syndrome. Like many of the officials, he’s
spent less time training in zero gravity than we contestants have.

The
p.a.
system
crackles, announcing the match and its participants. One is Joe Alexander, a
Shotokan stylist, a heavyweight with a United States national championship to
his credit. He faces a tall, thin Swedish player, a weight combination that
wouldn’t occur on Earth. Here the criterion is height.

Joe is designated as the white player. The Swede is red.
“Hajime!”
the referee shouts, and the
match begins.

Joe thrusts off, a mountain of mass hurtling toward his
opponent. The Swede wisely springs sideways, aiming a blade-of-foot kick at
Joe’s side, but failing to land it. They both miss the velcro and bounce off
the sphere again, colliding in a techniqueless jumble that makes me wince. They
shouldn’t try to thrust; they should use snapping moves. Joe’s foot automatically
reaches beneath him, trying to find the ground, to gain the connection that
will allow him to use his size effectively. But the collision has stolen both
players’ momentum, leaving them stranded at the center of the combat area,
where Joe’s size only means that much more target area for the Swede to take
advantage of. Which he does.

“Seiken zuki, chu
dan,”
the referee announces. “Half-point, red.”

Joe opens the second engagement with a pile driver kick to
the stomach. The Swede flies across the sphere, bouncing three times before he
finds the velcro. The referee’s whistle blares.

“Excessive contact. One warning, white,” the referee calls,
as the Swede struggles to catch his breath.

That is the thing about null gravity matches; it is easy to
tell when the impact has been too hard. We are using a modified version of
World Union of Karate Organizations rules. This is supposed to be refined. No
gloves, no full contact, no blood. Joe comes from a different tradition.

“It’s the Hulk,” says Mikey, my highest ranked black belt
student. The others laugh.

I almost ask them to knock it off, but they stop after the
first comment. Joe doesn’t deserve the mockery. He is a good, ethical player. I
suspect he is as dissatisfied with his performance as was the referee.

In fact, his thunder seems to be completely stolen. He loses
the second half-point in less than ten seconds.

“He looks like a whale,” Mikey comments, as Joe sails toward
the viewing area. I watch him climb into a seat and strap in, stone faced. This
is only the first round. Joe can still place in the consolation matches. He
will face at least one more opponent. But he will lose that match, too, as long
as he remains in his present mood.

I notice the hair on my chest is sticking straight out
between the lapels of my gi, and I brush it flat. I have long since given up on
the hair on my scalp, adopting the crew cut so common here at the space
station, even among the women.

Not a whale, I reflect. A dinosaur. Joe is from an age when
power could win you matches. Any master, myself included, emphasizes the
importance of speed, coordination, flexibility, and quick thinking, but until
the arrival of the null gravity event, simple strength and size had won many
karate tournaments. Joe is a fine player, but he has never had to vary his
repertoire. He is adapted to a different environment.

We all are, I tell myself, vaguely paying attention to the
continuing matches. We are like rock musicians suddenly called upon to prepare
a classic symphony; some may have the talent to excel at both the old art and
the new, others may not. In my mind is the acrid smell of vomit, the dizziness,
the frustrating urge to figure out which way is
down
: memories of my first week here. Some of the group brought up
from Earth for the competition hadn’t made it through those first few days; I
had lost my best pupil. Some, of course, had never made it up the gravity well
in the first place: bad blood pressure, lack of financial sponsor, inability to
devote three months of one’s life to a single sports event. Over the last few
weeks, I have seen lips pursed in determination, individuals stretching their
practice sessions in zero gravity right up to the eight hours permitted per
day, and here and there, wild elation at a freedom impossible to the planetbound.
We are part of a great experiment. Those who succeed will be the new breed of
karateka; the others will be fossils. In many ways it might have been kinder
for Joe to have been one of the ones eliminated early.

“Huh?” I ask, abruptly aware that someone is tapping me on
the shoulder.

“Sally’s coming up for her kata,” Mikey says. “Want to
watch?”

“Of course,” I answer. I unbuckle and accompany the majority
of my students to the other side of the arena.

Unlike sparring, forms are performed inside cubes, a design
which complements their symmetrical nature. The only velcro is a small square
on the “bottom” side, from which the player begins, and hopefully, finishes
each kata. As I strap into a seat, a Shorin-ryu stylist dances carefully from
one wall to another, executing a block and strike combination to different
directions, a lower kata, unsophisticated if not for the unique venue. Unlike
some, it closely resembles the earthbound variation.

He starts well. He stays oriented, keeps control over his
momentum. It is his karate technique that suffers. His entire body lands in the
right places, but his blocks are incomplete and his strikes slow. He misses the
velcro at the finale.

“Three point five,” the head judge announces. Average for
his level.

I spot Sally at the staging area, and kick over to her. Her
glance reminds me a little of a deer as it stares into oncoming headlights.

“Don’t worry,” I say. “Just do it the way you’ve done it all
week.”

She tugs her belt, tightening the knot. Weightlessness
perversely unties everyone’s belt several times a day, unless they’re as old
and frayed as mine. The committee has already voted to replace them with
velcro-secured ones. “Yes, sensei.”

“What’s this ‘sensei’ shit?”

“Yes, Aaron.”

“Kick ass, girl. Show them what a Goju player can do.” The
sentence is hardly out of my mouth when her name is announced over the
loudspeaker.

She crosses her fingers once, gives me her pert,
nineteen-year-old smile once again, and launches toward the cube.

I observe her gracefully sliding through the trap door to
take her place on the velcro patch, and feel like a father with only one child
left at home. Sally is the single one of my students who has survived the
morning’s qualification rounds. I’m a bit startled by the feeling. Ordinarily
watching that body of hers move brings on much more corrupt emotions. Must be
getting old, I muse. Pushing the big three-five. My own instructor retired from
tournament play at twenty-five.

She places the soles of her feet on the velcro and stands
straight, hands at sides, gi precisely arranged, hair tied back in a neat bun.
The commander announces kata
seinchin
,
and gives her the cue to start.

Gradually she unfolds into the first posture of the kata,
and proceeds with the opening set of slow, isotonic movements. She must try to
maintain her position just above the floor. If she floats too high, she’ll be
unable to kick off in order to begin the fast sections of the form. I picture
all too well the times during training when even I ended up rotating helplessly
in the middle of the enclosure.

She hovers perfectly. I watch her hands: clenching for
double downward block, opening for the upward block, tensing for the finger
strike. The hardest part is breath control. If she exhales or inhales too
profoundly, it will send her traveling in directions she’s not supposed to go.

Then she kicks, zooming straight “up,” then back down to
land on the velcro so smoothly that it holds her once more. She rotates
slightly, blocking with tension, then pushes off toward a corner, performing a
lower block in midair, and bouncing back to the opposite corner, blocking
again. She catches herself against the sides of the cube, canceling her
momentum. She stays there, executing another slow block, then kicks off to
perform the same set of movements to another two corners.

She’s good. She’s on a streak. Furthermore,
seinchin
is the most spectacular null
gravity kata, if done with the precision that she is exhibiting. I feel a smile
creeping across my lips. The judges’ gazes are rapt.

She lands in cat stance dead center on the velcro, and
finishes the last block in an almost leisurely fashion. She knows how well
she’s done.

“Hot damn,” Mikey says. We wait. I wipe the slickness off my
palms.

“Five point zero,” we hear come out of the speakers. It’s
the highest score so far in Sally’s class.

She shoots through the trap door like an acrobat, pivoting
on one finger, and glides across the gap to the bleachers, a great big grin on
her face. Then she has her arms around me, pinning me to my seat.

“Congratulations,” I say.

“Oh, I’m so glad you talked me into coming here.” Sally gave
up a semester of college to make the trip. She waves her arms in a little
dance, forgetting where she is, and I have to catch her toes and reel her back
in.

“Hold on. The competition isn’t over yet.”

“I don’t care. I
never
thought I’d get a five today.”

Some time later, I leave her in the company of the others
and wander back to the kumite area. I have a bye for the second round, so I
have some time.

Sally is the new breed, I tell myself. She’s learned the
music. Whenever the next karate tournament in high orbit is held, she’ll be one
of the veterans there. I allow myself a spoonful of pride.

I check the scoreboard. Some of the second round has been
completed, and I see that my next opponent will be another Goju player named
Eunice Hershey. She is the first woman I have faced during the tournament;
there aren’t many in my height class. That there are any at all is a bit
unusual. I can still see old Master Kawamoto’s face turning purple at the
thought of combining males and females in kumite matches.