That final rule mattered to Professor Webb. "A noise is not a repair," he told a producer during the sound check. "An engine that starts badly can be more dangerous than one that refuses to start at all." The producer smiled and asked him to say something shorter on camera. Webb stared at her until she agreed to leave the sentence intact.
At eight-thirty, Russell Yates pulled into the service entrance riding beside Captain Reeves in the refrigerated delivery van. It carried yellowtail, snapper, and ice-packed shellfish for the marina kitchens. Reeves checked his clipboard, handed Russell the first delivery slip, and warned him that the event organizers were already nervous about the service schedule. "Don't give them any reason to yell at us," he said. "These people can argue for twenty minutes about which side of a plate a spoon belongs on."
Russell lifted the first crate and felt cold water slip beneath the collar of his apron. His back had been aching since before sunrise, and he had eaten a banana at five because breakfast could wait until the deliveries were finished. He wheeled the crates along a rear passage overlooking the yacht's stern. Through the polished glass and moving guests, he saw the first of the university teams assembling near the engine access hatch.
He told himself not to watch. The rejection letter was three months old, and he had made his decision to respect it even though he did not agree with it. He had a delivery to finish, a clock to beat, and eleven dollars an hour that Captain Reeves could not afford to waste. Then the demonstration crew made its first attempt to bring the port engine through the start sequence, and a low, uneven sound traveled across the dock.
Russell stopped with one hand on the crate. A pump whined beneath the broad machinery hum; a relay clicked, paused, and clicked again. There was no sustained combustion. The noise was not the healthy rhythm he expected after the starter engaged, and the sequence ended with a sharp cutoff that suggested the control system had withdrawn permission to continue.
He tilted his head. There was a second quality beneath the sequence, a restricted rasp that made him think of an engine being asked to breathe through a blocked passage. And before the attempt ended, he caught the irregular tone of a cooling auxiliary cycling in response to a condition the rest of the display seemed unwilling to explain. It was not enough to diagnose anything conclusively. It was enough to make him want to look.
"Move those fish, Professor," Reeves called from the van.
Russell blinked. "Yes, sir."
He finished the unloading as quickly as he could without damaging the crates. The kitchen manager signed for the delivery and complained that the yellowtail should have arrived ten minutes earlier. Russell apologized, though the clock showed they were on time. When he finally stepped outside again, the competition had begun and the crowd was pressing around the velvet ropes.