Clause 7.17

Definition and status

Clause 7.17 is a terminal sub-clause of Clause 7, attached to the seventh clause of the Seventh Concordance and reachable only through the sub-clause chain beginning at Clause 7.1.5. It concerns the disposition of markers that have been deployed twice without intervening recovery. Clause 7.17 is unusual among the sub-clauses of Clause 7 in that it was not drafted; it was found. The Office of Clause Nomenclature records its first appearance in a marginal hand on an otherwise blank recto of the Seventh Concordance, undated, with no attribution of authorship.

Text

The operative wording, as set down in the standard recension held on Floor 0442, reads:

"Where a marker has been deployed a second time without recovery having been recorded between the two deployments, the marker shall be considered spent, and its original designation shall be retired to the register of designations, where it shall remain until such time as the register is next consulted."

— Seventh Concordance, Clause 7.17

The final qualifying clause — "until such time as the register is next consulted" — is the source of the clause's long-standing difficulty. The register of designations is consulted on average forty times per working day.

Relation to marker deployment

Clause 7.17 was drafted, so far as any record shows, to resolve a gap left by Clause 4, which governs initial deployment and recovery but says nothing about re-deployment. The gap became material on Floor 0442 during the winter of the Long Indexing, when eleven markers were redeployed in the course of a single relocation and none were recovered. The sub-clause chain from Clause 7.1.5 through Clause 7.1.6 and Clause 7.3 was cited repeatedly that season, with the result that the floor's designation register was consulted so often that the retirement provision in Clause 7.17 never once took effect.

The relationship between Clause 7.17 and Annex Alpha remains disputed. Annex Alpha presumes that every marker carries a unique designation for the duration of its deployment. Clause 7.17 presumes that a designation may be withdrawn from a marker mid-deployment. An attempted reconciliation appears in Clause 33, Annex Delta, which is generally regarded as having failed.

Amendment history

Clause 7.17 has been amended three times. The first amendment (Seventh Concordance, Annex D, Seventh Concordance, Annex D, Clause 1) added the words "without recovery having been recorded," which converted the clause from a prohibition into a conditional. The second amendment, attributed to the Office of Clause Nomenclature, corrected the designation of the register from "the register" to "the register of designations"; the correction was itself later reversed. The third amendment has not been located, though its existence is asserted by Clause 812 and denied by Clause 8.α.7.

A separate question arises as to whether Clause 7.17 is subject to Contradiction Protocol Clause 7. The Protocol governs conflicts among the numbered sub-clauses of Clause 7; because Clause 7.17 is a sub-clause of Clause 7 but is not numbered among the clauses the Protocol enumerates, its status under the Protocol has never been settled. The standing ruling, recorded in Clause 11.γ, is that the Protocol applies to Clause 7.17 "in the manner in which it applies to anything else in the Tower, which is to say, when convenient."

Interpretive disputes

Two schools of interpretation hold office. The first, associated with the scriptorium on Floor 0442, holds that Clause 7.17 is self-executing: a redeployed marker is spent the moment it is redeployed, and the register's consultation is a formality with no bearing on the marker's status. The second, associated with the Office of Clause Nomenclature and supported by a reading of Clause 4.11.γ, holds that the retirement of the designation is the operative act, and that a marker redeployed but not yet retired remains in force under its original designation.

The practical difference is that the first reading produces unmarked markers and the second produces unnumbered ones. Both have occurred. A third position, advanced in Clause 18.7 and dismissed by both schools, holds that Clause 7.17 does not apply to markers at all, but to clauses.

Cross-references

Clause 7.17 cross-references Clause 1 for questions of precedence in the event that a designation retired under Clause 7.17 is subsequently claimed by a clause numbering under Clause I. It cross-references Clause 11.γ for the matter of register consultation frequency. It does not cross-reference Clause 7.1.5 or Clause 7.1.6, though both cross-reference it, which has been noted as an irregularity by the Office of Clause Nomenclature and left uncorrected.

Visitors to Floor 0442 may consult the standard recension in the reading room. Markers may not be handled, redeployed, or recovered by visitors under any reading of any clause.