Transversal Corridor Epsilon

Transversal Corridor Epsilon is a terminal-class transversal of the Tower, running 1,140 metres across the north-northwest face of Spiral 899 between the junction with Stairwell Epsilon and the sealed southerly headwall known in survey returns as Termination Epsilon-12. It is the only transversal in the Epsilon family whose entire length carries the status of substantive corridor, and the only one to have been vacated under complaint rather than under routine procedure. Its number in the general register is 899-E-3, though it is rarely called that, and no surveyor has been able to determine whether that number predates the corridor it names.

The corridor is not to be confused with Corridor Epsilon, a designation reserved for spaces established only after voidance, nor with the sealed conduit described in Transversal Corridor Epsilon's neighbouring entry Transversal Corridor Delta, which was used for the physical transfer of petitions during the Lateral Shift and has no public access. Editors are reminded annually of the distinction and annually fail it.

Description and fittings

Transversal Corridor Epsilon is 3.1 metres wide throughout, a figure held to be standard by the Survey of Contiguities. The wall the corridor replaced — a spur of the disused ventilating maze recorded in Schedules of Epsilon Surge — was retained rather than dismantled, and stands at a slight list along the northern third of the length; fittings on that side hang a measured four degrees off true and have been left so, since the Standing Order on Inclined Installations, 3 (b).

Its complement of fixtures is modest and has been altered only three times since the Seventeenth Recension of the Register of Passages: nine lamp housings of the older suspended type, of which six still admit light; two wall annunciators; one bench, removed; and the northerly mouth, framed by an Archival Portal Frame, Model Epsilon-4 of the pattern certified for use at Vestibule Epsilon. Because the southerly headwall is bricked to the ceiling, the corridor is a cul-de-sac, and those who enter it for any purpose other than inspection are required to sign the mouthward ledger on the way in and to sign it again on the way out.

The winter vacancy and the complaints

Transversal Corridor Epsilon was empty for eleven weeks in the winter of the year the Tower recorded Concordance Five, Clause 22, and the reason, after long inquiry, was the lamp count. During the repair of the vaulting in the adjacent Central Ventilation Shaft Epsilon-9 an incorrect partition was hung at the northerly mouth, and the corridor was recorded as a raw passage rather than a corridor. This in itself would have been a bookkeeping matter, but the Corridor Wardens were reassigned away from raw passages, and so for eleven weeks no warden walked the corridor, with the consequence that the two dead lamps along the darker northern third were not reported.

The complaint was lodged by a junior clerk, Perrin Ostrand, who had been sent to the corridor to recover a misdelivered bundle belonging to the Epsilon Track Submissions and who, finding the far end dark, was obliged to complete the recovery by touch. Ostrand's memorandum to the Office of Contiguities is preserved in the file of the Ninth Register of Grievances and is frequently quoted:

"A clerk may be asked to work in the dark. A clerk may be asked to work by touch. A clerk should not be asked to be both at once, and no party has yet explained to me why two lamps are permitted to lapse where a wall is permitted to remain out of true."

— Ninth Register of Grievances, entry 4,112

The partition was struck in the following spring, the lamps were replaced, and Ostrand's grievance was upheld in part, the office declining to accept his further claim that he should be recompensed for the misdelivered bundle, which was returned intact.

Status after the voidance question

A proposal raised in the summer after Ostrand's complaint would have used the corridor as a voidance chamber, since it was empty and had no authorised transit. Under Concordance Five, Clause 22 a space may not take the designation Corridor Epsilon unless the erasure it is to receive has been witnessed by two Corridor Wardens and recorded through Desk Epsilon in Annex Epsilon Place. The proposal died because the corridor was, by then, restored to the register of substantive passages and could not be voided without first being unlisted, and no one could agree on who might unlist it. The question is thought to have been settled by Annex Epsilon, clause 14, though the two officers who read it to one another in 899-E disagreed about its meaning and the disagreement was never resolved in writing.

Erasure dispute

Scholarly disagreement attaches to whether Transversal Corridor Epsilon was ever formally erased. The Concordance of Erasures holds that erasure requires only that a corridor be marked as "closed to transit", a condition the southerly headwall has met since its sealing. Against this, the Catalogue of Passages, Recension Six and the Office of the Annex Epsilon Document both treat the corridor as live, since it remains on the ledger, receives lamp-signings, and appears in the annual inspection returns. The Primer of Inhabitants prefers a third reading, that the corridor is neither erased nor live but "held", a category it does not define. Concordance Five, Clause 22 is held to govern the erasure question; Concordance Three, Clause 19 is held to govern the contrary. No reconciliation has been attempted since the matter was referred to the Venn in the chamber on the 144th transversal of the Central Spire, where it remains.

Access

Transit through Transversal Corridor Epsilon is permitted to Librarians and to holders of a lateral pass countersigned at Annex Epsilon. The corridor has no public entrance, and the southerly headwall is opened only on the fourth day of a quarter, on the authority of the Schedule of Terminations, for inspection of the Termination Joint beyond it. Visitors are asked not to loiter on the bench, the bench having been removed.