Anyone can have their own entry, any day of the week. The request form has a reason field; the reason field does not have to be filled; the clerk’s advice, at the counter: put a dash in it if it makes you feel better about the form. A notice goes out to whoever is on the guardian line, saying a copy went out — not a permission; nobody is asked and nobody can stop it.
The sheet, warm off the machine, trimmed square with a steel rule. Her name at the top on its own, one word and nothing after it, in a bigger print than the rest.
BORN — aboard MV Tallow, under way.
PLACE — off-network transit, position unresolved.
DATE OF RECORD — as arrived.
STATUS — resident, provisional.
CITIZENSHIP — provisional.
GUARDIAN — Lote. Entered on the Warden’s continuity finding.
HOUSEHOLD — Ring Six.
Under the born line, two columns with a rule down between them and a date in each. The left one is a number on its own with nothing after it at all — a day-count out of a ship’s own log. The right one is a day and a year — the berth date, off the station’s calendar. At the foot, an initial, an hour, and two lines of small print about fields carrying a mark.
The marks, and the missing line
The small printed marks in the margin show amber on a screen. They are source marks: they go against a field that did not come off another register, so whoever keyed it had to write down where he had it from instead. One came off a route file. One came off a berth date. It isn’t a fault and it isn’t a black mark. It’s a man saying where he got it.
What the subject came in for is not on the sheet anywhere. There is no line saying when provisional stops — and nowhere for one to go. There is no field for it on this entry, and none on the clerk’s own, and his is a plain one. Nothing on the station takes that word off anybody. He had been at the counter nine years, and told her that much, and would not guess at her about anything past the station’s edge.
She read the two dates again before she left. The left one was still a number, and the right one was still a day and a year.