Chương 84: Chapter 83: Preparations

"Ask who is performing and you learn what the University values. Ask who was invited and declined, and you learn considerably more." - Corran Ibe, former Head of the Area 11 Ruling Council Kara stood in the hall with a chain dart hanging from one hand and read it three times. Then he put both hands back up and ran the figure of eight. It was not that it was easier. It was simply effortless. The left hand went one way and the right hand went the other without him really having to juggle them in his mind.

He ran it for forty repetitions and then swapped the weapons over and ran it forty more, and both times it was flawless. He tried the recovery drill next with his interface calling holds at random, and stopped both weapons inside one beat while they were doing two different things, which he had never once managed and had privately begun to suspect was simply not possible. The bell did not change. He had already figured out how to strike it on the return and it stayed that way.

The chalked ferrule did not change either. Three fingers width, same as the day before. He set up the bowl and got the target two out of nine times, which was slightly better than before, but it could just as well have been pure luck.

"Kara." Ken had come across the hall and was now standing about ten feet away with his arms folded.

"Do the first one again." Kara did the first one again. Ken watched the whole thing without moving, and then asked for the second one while calling holds at random times, and then asked Kara to go through the rest.

"Good. The last two drills need improvement, but you have progressed fast." He looked at the umbrella for a moment, and then at the dart, and then at a point somewhere over Kara's shoulder, lost in thought for a moment.

"I said I would speak to someone when you were ready to be worth their hour. It is now time." Kara's grip on the cord tightened and he stood up a little straighter.

"I'll send the message tonight," Ken said.

"I do not control the answer and I do not control when it comes. Keep doing all five." The University had decided to split the festivals this year. The committees had got together and decided on it. Why have both festivals in the second semester? The primary reason it was decided that it would happen in the second semester last year was because the committees had felt the first years wouldn't be ready for it if it happened too early. The representatives this year had a different opinion.

While the first years might not be ready, the second and particularly third years would have a little more time at hand in the first semester. What it meant in practice was that the SDC now had six weeks to prepare for the festival. A week after the festival date was announced, the demonstration room at nine in the evening had four people in it, which was three more than it usually held.

Phinx had cleared the hour and had said, before anything else, that she was clearing this hour and not the next four, and that anything they could not settle tonight was Kara's to figure for the next week. Tinder sat two seats down with her interface open and a list she had built herself without getting asked. Sunny was on the edge of the platform with his legs hanging off it.

Kara had decided to invite him because in the initial phase they needed contacts and also because Kara thought Sunny would like to see how things work on the back end. Sunny was more than happy to help and Phinx didn't mind. Nor did Tinder - Kara had asked.

"Format first," Phinx said.

"Because the format decides everything else and you'll spend a week arguing about it if you do it the other way round."

"We have the entire afternoon slot on the last day," Kara started. He had thought about this the previous night.

"We can do multiple demonstrations, or we can do one big one, similar to last year. I'm thinking one big one."

"Go on."

"Maybe we can do an event where people attempt to break Earth records. We'll have to make sure the attempts are practical of course, things we can set up in the stadium or around here." The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Tinder looked up.

"What happens if none of them do?"

"Then none of them do," Kara shrugged.

"Can't be helped."

"People would be disappointed if not a single record is broken, since they would have come in expecting that."

"That's the risk," Sunny said, from the platform, sounding delighted.

"If the outcome is guaranteed, what's the fun in that. I think I may know a couple of folks who would love to try." Phinx let that sit for a second and then nodded once.

"Alright, it works," she said.

"But - if people are attempting to break records, the right officials should be present to record it." Kara had already been worrying about it for two days.

"Everett Shaw," Tinder said, reading from her list. Kara looked at her.

"You mean the Earth Record Keeper? You know the title doesn't mean they're a keeper of records right? I mean not in this sense."

"Yes, I know. They're responsible for recording literally anything significant that has happened on Earth historically. But this would count as a historic event right? If multiple people attempt to break records, and some of them actually do."

"I think that's a great idea," Sunny added.

"Anyone can hold an event. Eighty thousand people watch it and go home and in forty years the only thing left is what people remember. If he's in the stadium, it gets recorded. It's written down and it becomes a part of history."

"And the University gets to say the Earth Record Keeper came to their festival. This really is getting pretty ambitious. I like it," Phinx said.

"Ok, let's do it. I know we have his contact."

"We've tried reaching him every year," Phinx said.

"And?"

"And every time, we reach his office. His office redirects it to his secretary." Phinx pulled the reply up from her interface and read it out loud.

"The Keeper's attendance at events of this nature is not arranged through correspondence. Requests are received from the head of the relevant Area's ruling council. He will take it from Narak Tamba and from nobody else." Sunny laughed out loud.

"That's not a refusal," Tinder said.

"Yeah, it's not a refusal. It's a filter." She sighed.

"People at that level get asked for their time by four hundred organisations a year and every single one of them believes their request is the exception. So they put a door in front of it that can only be opened by somebody whose time is worth as much as theirs. It isn't rudeness. It's just how it works."

"You've seen it before."

"Happens every year." Phinx shrugged.

"How do you think we got Shanks to come? He only came because Narak reached out." Kara turned that over.

"So we need the Chairman."

"You need the head of the Area 11 Ruling Council. Same man, different chair, and the chair matters because the secretary named the chair." Phinx looked at him.

"Can you reach out to him or do you want me to?"

"I'll do it, no worries. You've got enough on your plate."

"Alright, so that's settled. Anything else?" Phinx asked, looking around.

"Yeah." Sunny slid off the platform.

"If you don't mind, can I be involved in the back end of organizing this? Like running order, slot timings, who's standing where, keeping the attempt sequence honest when three of them overrun. Whatever part of it you'll give me."

"Why do you think I called you here?" Kara asked, smiling.

"We can always use more help. Especially from someone who's not trying to mooch some contacts from us," Phinx added. Sunny looked at Tinder.

"I'd be more than happy to work together on this," she said with a smile.

"Thank you," Sunny offered, looking back at all of them with a grateful smile. Phinx stood up.

"So we have six weeks," she said.

"Kara gets the Keeper or we run the same event without him, which is still a good event, just not a historically significant one." Kara had been inside the Council building a number of times and it had not stopped being strange. The great red coral held its branches wide near the base and then closed above, and inside them, the corridors moved.

He reached the fourth level through his usual route, knocked on a door which he remembered entering last time and waited for a minute before a door thirty feet further down the corridor opened and Narak Tamba leaned out of it.

"That one's the store room," he said.

"I think. Come in." The room was smaller than the last one Kara remembered. Narak crossed to the two chairs by the window, took one and offered the other to Kara.

"Thank you." Kara took it, and explained the problem. The format, why the format needed a witness, why the Earth Record Keeper was an ideal choice, the office, the secretary, the sentence about the head of the relevant Area's ruling council. Narak listened to the whole thing without interrupting once.

"Ok, I'll reach out to the secretary tomorrow," he said.

"That's it?"

"The festival is an important event for the University. It's not just for the students - how well or how badly the festival does reflects on us as well." He sat back.

"Her name is Mara Quist. She has done that job for twenty-six years, and she is not being difficult. She is being efficient in a way that looks difficult to outsiders. My secretary does the same. When it comes from me, the request is guaranteed to reach him. That does not mean he'll agree to it. But for what it's worth, it does sound like the kind of event he might be interested in."

"Understood, thank you."

"Good." He let a beat go.

"So how are things with the committee?"

"Well, it's working. Business as usual I suppose. Phinx is available lesser by the day, but Tinder is good. Has things to work on, but who doesn't." They went through the rest of it. The semester so far, how the classes were going. Waggy on the farm, which Narak wanted more detail on than Kara expected and listened to patiently. The Gridfall team.

"You've got all five members?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Good, good. How's the combat arts class going?" Narak rose and went to the window. Kara described it - briefly at first, then on Narak's prodding, more details on the five drills and his progress in them so far.

"Instructor Ken said he would reach out to the responsible person," he said.

"About the chain dart." Narak did not turn round.

"I heard," he said. He came back from the window and picked up a stray note off the desk and put it down again.

"The Tuesday after next. Morning at six, in the combat arts hall. Have a light breakfast. The session might last three hours." He looked at Kara.

"Bring both weapons, including the umbrella from the internship. Not just the dart."

"Both?"

"Yes, just in case the Instructor wants to see your progress in both." Narak went back to his chair.

"The instructor will be there. I will see to that part myself."

"Thank you."

"Repeat the place and time."

"Tuesday after next, sixth hour, combat arts hall, both weapons, three hours."

"Good. Then we are done here."