Aster Vann
Attribution-Filing Register Compositor
She reads every line she sets
She has set the name of every resident who paid for the rescue. She has never once set the name of anybody who was rescued.
Overview
Aster Vann is a compositor at the district print house in Old Town. Every month she sets the S2-J fascicle of the Contributing Residents Register: about eleven thousand names, eight-point, alphabetical. Every spring she sets the Incidence Registry's averted-incidence figure in wood type. In 2184 it was 41,208. She checked it against the Registry's copy twice and initialled the corner.
The proof sheet is ruled for two columns. The left one fills with payers. The right one has been blank her whole career.
She has paid the Averted Incidence Levy since 2153 and has not once declined it. Twice she has asked to be told whether a named person is inside the figure: in 2178 about herself, in 2184 about her daughter Rasha. Both replies quoted the standing clause. The method resolves to a population and cannot resolve to a person. Both replies were correct. She knows, because she set the clause.
She has set the name of every resident who paid for the rescue. She has not once set the name of anybody who was rescued.
Appearance
Early fifties, reading glasses pushed up into grey hair, ink worked into the creases of both hands. A brass composing stick worn smooth on the thumb side. An oil rag in the apron pocket.
Voice
She talks like a compositor: distances in ems, errors by the line. Asked whether the figure is right, she says she checked it twice. It answers a different question. She gives no other answer.
"They are not hiding anything. There is nothing behind it to hide. I would just like to know why a blank column is the end of the conversation."
The Plate
The clause is standing type, locked in a chase, unreset since 2152. Every October she oils it with the rest of the furniture. Her error rate is the lowest in the house. Her speed is the slowest. She reads every line she sets.
Relationships
Around Her
Her 2184 filing went to the Speaking-Pace Docket, where there is no fee and no clock. Solveig Nwaneri let her talk for eleven days. The ruling attached to nothing. The house docked none of the days.
Rasha works the second berth row of the Waiting Ward. In 2181 she mounted the payer register on the ward wall. Her mother sets the type for every sheet. The ward does not know.
Rasha wants her to stop paying so the refusal would mean something. Aster says the prevention is real. She has set enough of the Negligence Doctrine to know what a declined offer costs. Emrys Dolan declined at seventeen and got nothing back. She has paid for thirty-one years and got the same clause twice. A colleague calls this the Optimization Paradox. Aster calls it a blank column. Two sectors down, the Memorial Wall carries names cut by hand. She knows what it is for.
Since 2179 the house has also printed the Vacancy Register's monthly roster, on the same two-column stock. She has written twice to ask whether the Register's merit bin is ever opened. Both replies quoted the Occupancy Rule. Seat Four has carried the same holder for years. She would not know Anton Kiszka in the street.
Connections
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