The argument took two days, without ever once becoming a disagreement about competence. Vell wanted Yenna and Jia holding independent lanes with their own decisions inside them, while both women had objections that had nothing to do with obedience.
"A lane means I cannot cover you," Yenna said on the first evening, with the ring diagram between them, "so if the clock puts you against Sorne while I am at the far post, I am watching a broadcast rather than working a bout."
"That is the cost," he answered, "and it buys three fighters who cannot be predicted from one another."
Jia's objection came from the opposite direction, which he had expected from the moment the filing arrived. She did not want cover at all, and she wanted to know what a lane meant when a clock chooses the pairings.
"A lane is not a position," she said, "so tell me what it actually is, because I am not going to stand in a diagram while three men move around it."
