Aisle 99, Subsection Gamma

Aisle 99, Subsection Gamma is a shelf location on Floor 99, Section 12, designated in the Receding Reference as the terminal citation for all enquiries that cannot be resolved at their point of origin. It is best known for having been found, on inspection, occupied by a void. The location remains in active administrative use notwithstanding the absence of any shelf, bracket, or wall against which a shelf might be fixed.

The Subsection is bounded to the north by the Catalogue Spine and to the south by nothing, a condition the Ninth Concordance describes as "provisional pending survey" and the Eleventh Concordance describes as "final."

Designation and survey history

Aisle 99 was surveyed in the winter of the year recorded as 4,112 by the Office of Vertical Mensuration, which assigned it a length of 41 metres and a width of 1.2 metres. The survey party of six returned a length of 41 metres and a width of 1.2 metres and noted, in the margin of the field sheet, that the aisle "does not appear to end where it ends." This marginal note was transcribed into the fair copy without alteration and has been cited in every subsequent survey.

Subsection Gamma occupies the easternmost 6 metres of that length. It was assigned its letter in the general relettering of Floor 99 conducted under Annex E, subsection 4–gamma of the Twelfth Concordance, which reserved Gamma for locations whose holdings could not be counted twice in succession with the same result. Aisle 99, Subsection Gamma has been counted eleven times. The counts are preserved in the Ledger of Repeated Counts and are not in agreement.

The void

The void at Aisle 99, Subsection Gamma was substantiated on the fourteenth day of a month the record gives only as "the wet one," by the clerk Ovin Marrow, then in his thirty-first year of service and on loan to the Receding Reference from Clerks' Station 7-Gamma. Marrow had been dispatched to verify a citation that had receded through four floors and eleven aisles and had come to rest, in the manner of such citations, at Aisle 99, Subsection Gamma.

Marrow's report is brief and is quoted here in full:

"The shelf is not there. The place where the shelf is not there is 1.2 metres wide and 41 centimetres deep. I put my hand into it to the wrist and then to the elbow and then declined to continue. The air is of ordinary temperature. There is no draught. I have marked the location with a paper strip and request that someone else confirm the marking."

— Marrow Report 99-Gamma, filed with the Office of Vertical Mensuration

The confirmation was undertaken by Senior Verifier Halbred Cusk, who reported that the paper strip was present, that the void was present, and that the strip "appeared to be the only thing holding the location open." Cusk's recommendation that the strip not be removed was adopted by Standing Order 1,204 and remains in force. The strip is replaced every fourth year by a clerk of the Silent Scribes detailed from Aisle 770. The replacement is performed without speech, and the outgoing strip is retained.

Dispute over the Receding Reference

The principal scholarly disagreement concerning the Subsection is whether the Receding Reference terminates there by design or by exhaustion. The Seventh Concordance, Annex 9, holds that the Reference is a closed circuit and that Aisle 99, Subsection Gamma is its "resting seat," a fixed point to which all unresolvable citations return. The Thirteenth Concordance, Annex 2, holds that the Reference does not terminate at all and that the Subsection is merely where the Reference was last observed before passing out of the range of the observers.

The Bureau of Terminal Citations has declined to resolve the question on three occasions, each time citing the other Concordance. Its third refusal, issued under seal by the Undersecretary for Unresolved Locations, adds that "the Bureau is not persuaded that a location can be said to receive a citation it does not contain," a formulation that has itself been the subject of two further refusals.

A minority position, advanced by the Provincial Collection Gamma-7 and never formally answered, proposes that the void is not an absence but a holding of unusual depth, and that the Receding Reference terminates there because it has been shelved. No one has proposed a method of retrieval.

Access and maintenance

Aisle 99, Subsection Gamma is open to consultation. Visitors are asked to approach from the west, to keep to the left of the marking strip, and not to call into the void, as the echo returns late and has been mistaken for a reply. The Persistent Hum of Aisle Gamma is not audible here; the Subsection is notably quiet, and clerks assigned to it are rotated every nine days under the schedule recorded in Witness Ledger 44-Gamma.

Lighting is by two lamps on the northern spine, of which the eastern is unreliable. A request to replace it was submitted in the year 4,388 and is under consideration by the Office of Lamps, which has asked for the aisle's length and width. The measurements supplied were 41 metres and 1.2 metres. The Office has not replied.

Cultural note

The Subsection appears in the standing examination for junior Librarians as the answer to the question "Where does a citation go when it cannot be answered?" The accepted answer is the location itself. The Examiners' Concordance, Annex 6, permits the answer "nowhere, but on Floor 99" and marks it as equivalent. Candidates who answer "both" are failed, and the reason given is that they have not chosen.