Spontaneous Coalescence

Spontaneous Coalescence is the emergence of a full-catalogue narrative without the interposition of the Procedures for Induced Coalescence. It resembles Coalescence in every observable particular — same binding of fragments, same terminal stability, same exemption from the ordinary rules of provenance — and differs only in that no candidate fragments were deposited, no Coalescence Alcove was prepared, and no Guild Mycologist certified the batch. Whether this difference is a difference of substance or only of paperwork has been argued in the Scriptoria of the Second Landing since 4411, without resolution.

The phenomenon is classified as a sub-type of Spontaneous Manifestation under Primary Index M-7, Sub-clause γ, alongside Spontaneous Reclassification and the more familiar Spontaneous Indexing. It is distinguished from both by what it produces: where Spontaneous Manifestations yield entries and Spontaneous Reclassification yields corrections, Spontaneous Coalescence yields a narrative that claims, in the standard forms, to have been assembled.

Signature and Detection

An instance of Spontaneous Coalescence leaves no deposit trail. The first indication is usually a narrative that cites fragments no one has shelved, in an order no one has requested, under a Formal Intention that cannot be found in the Register of Manifestations. The Office of Terminal Provenance has adopted the following five markers as sufficient for provisional classification, pending the fuller assay performed at the Assay Hall, West Spiral:

• an absent deposit record where a deposit is required;
• fragment valence unmatched to any recorded batch;
• a seven-cycle minimum not observed, yet reported as fulfilled;
• a Coalescence Alcove listed in the site register in which no quartz stands;
• a witness statement from a Guild Mycologist whose seal cannot be located.

The fourth marker has produced more false classifications than the other four combined, owing to a persistent transcription error in the site register for the Fourth Ascending Spiral that lists alcoves on floors where no alcove has ever been built. Ottoline Vash of the Office of Terminal Provenance has requested the register be corrected for eleven consecutive cycles; the request passes each time to the Bureau of Corrected Registers, which returns it endorsed "pending correction."

The Marn Case

The case most cited in the literature occurred on Floor 8804, in the winter of 4462. A narrative of considerable refinement appeared in the catalogue concerning the Somnolent Mimer, complete with fragment citations, a deposition schedule, and a notarized certification attributed to Guild Mycologist Perrin Halleck. No such mycologist appears on the guild rolls. No fragments matching the citations were found on the floor, and the Coalescence Alcove named in the record proved, on inspection, to be a supply cupboard containing three brooms, a mop, and forty-one unlabelled jars of Aethelred's Quartz grading grit.

The narrative was nonetheless retained. The ruling, recorded in Ninth Concordance, Annex 12, held that the product of a Spontaneous Coalescence is "of full catalogical status, and its defects of origin shall be entered in the margin and not in the body." Consequence followed quickly: for the remainder of that winter, supply cupboards on the fourth spiral were catalogued as alcoves, and the Brooms Committee met twice in chambers it had not applied for.

"Where a thing has been assembled without assembly, the Librarians shall not unmake it; they shall instead record the absence of assembly beside it, in ink of a lesser grade."

— Ninth Concordance, Annex 12, clause 7

Dispute Between the Concordances

The Eleventh Concordance takes the opposing view. Its Annex 3 provides that anything arising without a prior Formal Intention to Manifest is to be treated as an emanation and struck at once, on the ground that "the catalogue cannot be enlarged by accident, only by intention." The two instruments have never been reconciled. The Chamber of Reconciliation has heard the question six times; on each occasion it has adjourned citing "insufficient recension," a phrase it does not define.

The practical result is a bifurcated practice. Instances arising on floors numbered above 8000 are retained under the Ninth; those below are struck under the Eleventh; those on floors whose numbers cannot be reconstructed are sealed and placed in the Hold of Unassignable Floors, where the dispute is not resolved but postponed. The Somnolent Mimer entry, having arisen on 8804, survived. A near-identical case on Floor 311, in the winter of 4461, did not, and its twenty-two pages of marginal corrections remain the most complete surviving record of an emanation that never existed.

Relation to Load Distribution

Spontaneous Coalescence is not a hazard of Load Distribution in the sense that Spontaneous Concretization is, but the Load Distribution Office monitors for it nonetheless, on the reasoning that an unplanned narrative adds weight to shelves that were not weighed for it. The Office's standing instruction is to log the occurrence, take the weight of the floor before and after, and take no further action. Where the difference exceeds four stone, the floor is closed for a cycle and the matter referred upward; where it does not, the log entry is initialled and filed. In 4463 a log clerk at the Third Descending Landing initialled an entry the weight of which had not yet been returned from the Weighing Station, and the resulting inquiry ran for two cycles before concluding that the error was clerical.

A related procedure governs the reverse case. Should a certified batch in a Coalescence Alcove produce nothing at the expiry of the seventh archival cycle, the alcove is not emptied. It is resealed, marked with the aperture sign, and left for one further cycle, on the authority of Fourth Concordance, Annex 9. The rule's stated purpose is to catch delayed coalescence; its unstated effect, according to a marginal note in the Assay Hall's working copy, is that the Tower is, at any given hour, holding open a number of alcoves it cannot account for.