Annex Gamma of the Sixth Concordance

Annex Gamma of the Sixth Concordance is the third annex attached to the Sixth Concordance and the document by which the Tower administers ontological disputes. It establishes the Contradiction Protocol, a procedure for hearing and resolving contradictions that might otherwise remain unresolved. The Annex is short — four leaves in the fair copy held at the Scriptorium of the Eleventh Landing — and has been amended so often that its margins now exceed its body text by a ratio of roughly five to one. It is among the most cited and least read of all Concordance instruments.

Structure and chief provisions

The Annex opens by asserting that contradiction is not a defect in the record but a condition of it, and that a contradiction "shall be permitted to stand, provided it is entered, dated, and witnessed by no fewer than two Keepers of the Register." This provision, in the reckoning of later clerks, established the Tower's enduring preference for the cited contradiction over the resolved one.

Its substantive provisions are three. The first establishes the Contradiction Protocol proper, under which any party may petition for a formal contradiction hearing. The second fixes the standing of hearings already begun, and the third — the provision most often cited in disputes — stipulates, in the words of the fair copy, that "no indefinite suspension of ontological inquiry is permissible without a ratified contradiction hearing." This clause is the basis for the general rule that nothing may be left permanently undecided, though a hearing may be adjourned indefinitely if adjourned in writing.

The Annex is also the instrument by which custodial authority over ambient particulate matter was delegated to Torvin, whose appointment remains the only instance of that authorisation. Whether this delegation properly belongs in Gamma or should have been entered under Annex Epsilon of the Sixth Concordance has never been settled; the Annex itself does not address it.

The problem of two Gammas

The chief difficulty of the Annex is its relation to its predecessor. Annex Gamma, attached to an earlier Concordance, sets out criteria for the recognition of sentient entities. The Sixth Concordance's Gamma echoes much of its language and contradicts its principles. Where the earlier Gamma holds that sentience, once established, cannot be withdrawn, the Sixth's Gamma provides that any determination of sentience "may be reconsidered at the instance of a Keeper" — a divergence that the Tower has never resolved and does not appear to wish to.

The standard scholarly position, advanced by Senior Lumener Alban in the third of his Marginalia, is that the Sixth's Gamma was drafted in deliberate ignorance of the earlier text, and that the echo is coincidental. A minority, associated with the Readers of the Ninth Stair, argues that both were drafted by the same hand and that the contradiction is the whole point of the exercise. The Annex does not say which is correct. Asked on the floor, a Keeper will generally say that both positions are admissible and direct the inquirer to Annex Gamma of the Third, which does not help.

Procedure in practice

A contradiction hearing is convened by the Senior Clerk of the Annex on receipt of a petition, and proceeds in two stages: the reading of the conflicting entries, and the taking of the Keeper's determination. In theory a hearing takes one sitting. In practice it may take years, and one, concerning the disputed status of the Living Tome catalogued under shelf-mark 44-Ge, has been in session since the winter of the year the Eleventh Landing flooded. The Annex provides no mechanism for closing a hearing that has outlived its petitioners, and clerks have learned to leave a chair at the table in case the original complainant is, in some sense, still present.

Hearings were suspended altogether between the second and seventh recensions of the Sixth Concordance, following a ruling that the Contradiction Protocol had been superseded by Clause 22, Annex Gamma. The suspension was itself contested under Clause 22(gamma) and was lifted without explanation by a document now known only as the Restoring Memorandum. No copy of the Restoring Memorandum survives in the open stacks. A reader who requests it is directed to the closed stacks and asked to return the following day, which is to say, never.

Addenda and current standing

The Annex carries four addenda, A through D. Addendum D, added in the last century and never used, provides for the hearing of contradictions that occur within the hearing itself; the office of Recursive Clerk was created to administer it and has been vacant since its creation. Addendum C governs the sealing of testimony and is frequently invoked, sometimes to seal the testimony of the person invoking it.

The Annex remains in force. It is cited in the front matter of no fewer than forty-one current instruments, including Annex Omega of the Sixth Concordance and Sixth Concordance, Annex 7, and forms the basis of the procedure set out in Second Concordance Annex Gamma and Fifth Concordance, Annex Gamma, both of which reproduce it with errors. Whether it is itself still valid is a question the Annex declines to answer, referring the reader, in a marginal note in an unidentified hand, to "the hearing on the hearing."