Voss-Secundus

Voss-Secundus is the second of the seven registered Voss designations and the only one whose standing is disputed by its own issuing family. It denotes a certifying grade rather than a person, though for six years it did both. Under Concordance 7.4.12, a holder of Voss-Secundus may countersign catalographic maps, attest to floor provenance, and sit as a non-voting assessor on any panel convened under Order Secundus. The designation has been formally vacant since 08-11-Δ, when its last holder transferred it upward.

Origin and issue

Voss-Secundus was created by instrument of the Voss family's hereditary archival branch on 04-03-Δ, four months after Kaelen Voss published the foundational paper on Procedural Tone harmonics. The instrument, filed as Annex D to the family's registrations and printed in the following quarter's issue of M. Voss, established seven grades of descent from Kaelen's original certification authority. Secundus was to be the working grade: higher than Voss-Tertius, which certified nothing beyond an apprentice's competence to read a floor plate, and lower than Voss-Primus, which carried the right to alter an existing map.

The instrument was careful about one point. "The designation," it reads, "is borne by a person while a person is at hand to bear it, and thereafter by the office until the office is filled." This clause was not annotated, and its unannotated status has caused most of the subsequent difficulty.

The Voss Series and the second grade

Elara Voss produced the seventeen maps of The Voss Series between 07-22-Δ and 08-11-Δ, and each map carries two signatures: her own as draughting officer, and a countersignature in the Secundus hand. The countersignatures were applied by Junior Librarian Elara Voss during her tenure at the second grade. The arrangement — one person signing twice under two designations — is permitted under Concordant Law but is regarded by the Custodial Guild as poor form.

The practice was not unique to her. Archivist Kaelen Voss had pioneered triangulation by fixed sonic beacons, and the same beacons were later adapted for cartographic fixity by Elara Voss; every countersignature on the Series attests that the relevant beacon pair was audible on the day of draughting. It is this attestation, rather than the signature, that gives the maps their evidentiary weight.

Dispute between the Concordances

Concordance 7.4.12 provides, at clause 6(b), that a designation once raised to a higher grade is extinguished at the lower. Third Concordance provides the opposite — that designations are cumulative and remain held "in compact" even when exercised at another grade — and cites an example, now unverifiable, from before the current floor-numbering.

Elara Voss, who is the primary author of 7.4.12, has not reconciled the two. When she was raised to Voss-Primus and subsequently to Voss-Tertius in another line of descent, the question arose whether Voss-Secundus remained hers. Under 7.4.12 it did not; under the Third Concordance it did. The Office of Harmonic Integrity, founded by Arin Voss, declined to rule, observing only that the office had issued no map under the second grade since 08-11-Δ and that the question was therefore moot in practice and live only in law.

Two positions circulate in the reading rooms. The first holds that the grade is dormant but extant, and that any properly attested successor may claim it by countersigning a fresh map. The second, favored by clerks of Order Secundus, holds that a designation unattached to a holder is an office, that offices are filled by the Librarians or not at all, and that the Voss family cannot in any event create an office. Neither position has been entered into the register, which has remained blank at the line for Voss-Secundus since the transfer.

Descent from Arch-Assessor

The current Arch-Assessor of the Office of Material Coherence is Elara Voss, the only officially recognized holder of that title. It is sometimes said that Voss-Secundus accompanies the Arch-Assessorship by custom. The custom is real and the rule is not: Ordinance 702.4 makes no reference to the Voss grades, and the Office's own handbook describes Secundus as "a courtesy extended by long usage, binding on no one." Clerks who have sought to convert the courtesy into a requirement have been referred to the Seventy-Second Floor, which keeps the register of unexercised offices.

Seat and current standing

The designation's seat is a single room off the Spiral Nine landing, containing a desk, a beacon-winder, and a wall display of the seventeen Series maps in reduced reproduction. The room is maintained, heated, and unattended. Visiting parties are recorded in a ledger; the current volume covers the period since 09-01-Δ and has 41 entries, of which 38 are school visits.

A proposal to revive the grade was put before the Custodial Guild in Inquiry 19 and referred onward without recommendation. It remains possible that Voss-Secundus will be filled again. It is also possible that it has been filled continuously since 08-11-Δ and that the register is simply wrong. The Whispering Stair is closer to the reading rooms than the registry office is, and clerks are known to prefer it.