The Ninth of Bethas, 2720, the forenoon
Her casting was harsh, all spikes and jaggs, but there was force in it, and real facility. Not, perhaps, the subject he had been imagining, but perhaps rather a better one. There was small margin of error in a duel, and errors could be catastrophic. Reliable, compact, efficient casting was the order of the day. A near-perfect scenario to disprove his theories. And if Miss Vauquelin disproved them? Four years of work all lost in the river, flowing out and away to the sea. Ah well, then let it pass, pick up the useful pieces and try again.
It would work though. Of that he was almost sure. Well, as sure as any academic could consider himself to be.
He would need to see more of her casting. One invisible pedestal did not a case-study make. It was a good datapoint. He would need hundreds more. More, and more than one subject. How fortunate she was a duelist. Duelists required opponents. More data free and public. No real ethical issues there. It was not as though he was going to write a form book and begin placing bets on the outcomes.
Bets. Form books. Those would exist, wouldn't they? Everyone competition had its punters, its marks, and its gamblers. Its bookies. Now there was an idea. And they too would hang about the dueling grounds, notes in hand. Hundreds of matches, odds and appraisals, perhaps even analyses. The data would likely be rough, collected for a different purpose. It could still be of the utmost value.
Well done Miss Vauquelin. Sporting had never occurred to him. Now it seemed the most natural thing in the world. An ocean of data. A legion of potential observers.
And, to cap it all off, the sharp young lady had agreed to the proposal. “Capital! Most excellent. I look forward to our future collaborations.” Collaboration. Yes, it would have to be that. The subject could, of course, not be named outright in the inevitable paper. She could not share authorship. Efficiencies in her casting were not enough compensation. She would have to sacrifice time. Time perhaps better spent in classes. And yet Reginald had sent her here. Sent her to him. Curious. An indication that she did not mind if Miss Vauquelin let at least some of her courses slide. And he was faculty, after all.
“Now, this work is going to take up a fair amount of time, both yours and mine. Study, great deal of practice, and you’ll have to be at your dueling quite often. And I will need to watch you in your competitions.” He would have to become a habitue of the dueling grounds. More time to commit. More time to study this duelist.More time to study the others. “I can easily clear my calendar. I’m mostly here to give the odd lecture that almost no one attends, and to keep out of the way, doing my work.” Out of the way and out of the light. His work would be ignored, passed over, derided as absurd, too theoretical, too heretical. Unless it worked. Unless he could prove it. “Are you at all able to dedicate a non-trivial amount of time to this? Consider it, perhaps, independent study? If your advisors will allow it, of course.”