Chapter 74: No One Had Paid for the Throne

Jett arrived at the practical court carrying breakfast and a copy of his training schedule. Lucan carried the competition rules, which was the sort of behavior Dante would have admired more easily in somebody less determined to be friendly.

“Before we join your army,” Jett said, “I have a game, a test, and plans that aren’t available for discussion.”

“The plans sounded very available through the wall,” Lucan said.

“That was the television.” Dante accepted his share of breakfast and declined to assist either witness.

The court had changed since their recent practical. Two dry lanes stretched from assembly benches to raised stands, with hinged bars crossing the route at different heights. Nets ran along the outside edges. Behind each net, workers were fastening low racks of padded balls to launch arms. There were no shallow channels or separate handoff stations this time. The three students would travel beside their own load, which already sounded preferable to trusting Lucan with a distant section of his future.

One worker demonstrated how a lowered gate would stop a carrier that arrived too high. The padded bar touched its upper rail, held it in place, and stayed there until the operator backed away. Dante watched the retreat rather than the collision. A mistake would cost time without becoming a falling ceiling, which meant he would have to win by thinking instead of benefiting from another disaster.

Jett noticed where he was looking and smiled. “You could try enjoying a contest where nothing wanted to kill us.”

“I hadn’t ruled it out,” Dante replied, sketching the low opening on the entry sheet. He asked the worker for its height and wrote down the answer. He checked the number before continuing.

At the far end, a broad awards platform faced the seats. Workers attached a folding canopy to one rail behind its lectern. Its joined wooden ribs made a crown when opened, and Dante spent several useful seconds considering that fact. An examiner called the applicants to the demonstration bench. She placed a brass bell inside a wooden carrier and pushed it gently. The bell’s clapper struck its side, and the scoreboard added five seconds.

“Your carrier must reach the stand without unnecessary ringing,” she explained. “The bell hangs freely. Nothing touches the clapper, and nothing packs the inside.”

Dante lowered the hand he had already raised. Lucan noticed and smiled at him with deeply offensive understanding. Each team received the same boards, rope, light screens, and ordinary charge bank. The supplied grips could lift or move the carrier. Using them within their prepared range was allowed; taking an opponent’s control or forcing a locked system meant removal.

“The first round tests your build and transport,” the examiner continued. “The final adds impacts from the side strips. All three members may change jobs, but you remain inside your lane.”

She started the demonstration lift. A student walked behind the carrier with its grip while two others guided ropes at the front. It floated at knee height, passing beneath the first gate before its rear corner caught a lowering bar. The bell rang. Jett winced as though somebody had missed an obvious pass.

“You turned before the back cleared,” he told Dante.

“I hadn’t turned anything,” Dante said, still holding the untouched sketch.

“I’m practicing saying it now.” Lucan crouched beside the spare pieces. He could see a way to attach the screen without using the rigid corner brackets. Jett wanted a front guide rope long enough to change the carrier’s angle without entering its path.

Dante watched the bank’s charge drop during the demonstration. Higher lifting cost more, while unnecessary corrections used time and power together. That made looking impressive an expense, which seemed like a personal attack written into the rules. He drew a low carrier on the back of the entry sheet, then added a screen above the bell. Lucan held it beneath the lowest gate marker. The screen would have struck the bar.

“We’ll fold it,” Dante said, marking the screen above the bell.

“How would you attach it without making the frame taller?” Lucan asked.

“I was allowing you a meaningful contribution.” Lucan laughed and took the rope. Dante let him, mainly because the idea looked better when somebody useful touched it.

Professor Bell found them testing a loose hinge. His feathery feelers moved slightly as he examined the entry form, then the canopy at the far end.

“You’re entering under the ordinary rules?” he asked.

“We intend to make them look considerably better,” Dante said, and handed him the false publicity photograph before that answer created more work.

The professor read it without smiling. “You declined the demonstration?” Dante showed the refusal. Professor Bell took a copy, then contacted the event office while the team measured its boards.

By the end of their first practice, the public notice named Dante only as an independent contestant. The promise of a separate demonstration had disappeared. That was an actual correction, although it lacked the ceremonial humiliation his mind had briefly requested. Professor Bell also checked the return record for the ruby. Its fourteen-day loan had not become permanent because Dante found other things to do. The lender’s courier was collecting it that afternoon, with the research records staying at Blackwell.

“You can continue studying the results,” the professor told him. “That doesn’t give you the equipment for another attempt.”

Dante looked toward the borrowed targets stacked by the court wall. Everything useful in his life appeared to belong to somebody else. His earlier win had given him the remaining school-year reservation for the alumni house’s advanced room, not ownership of its equipment or a university study base for an open group. This prize offered the latter, with shared tools they could choose themselves. Enough tools for their sessions, and a room where the last person through the door would not have to work standing up.

“Then we’ll win what we’re allowed to keep,” he said. Jett checked the competition time against football and agreed. Lucan signed beside him.

They spent the rest of the session cutting nothing and measuring everything, because a wrong board could not be replaced after assembly began. Dante caught a tilted support before Lucan fastened it, and Lucan thanked him without turning the mistake into a contest. That was an annoyingly effective way to work with people. Later, Professor Bell confirmed the ruby had gone with the lender’s courier. Dante read the message while Jett gathered their notes. The choice was no longer between a borrowed shortcut and ordinary practice. The shortcut had left campus.

Across the court, the chairwoman stood beside another team in matching practice jackets. Their carrier slipped beneath a gate, turned with barely a sway, and settled on its stand without a sound. The scoreboard showed a clean time. One of the students adjusted the screen and began again, while the chairwoman watched from the rail. Dante looked down at his drawing. Their first version had been too tall to fit through the course. The people she had chosen already knew how to finish it.