COPY OF A MINUTE — THE YEAR THIRTY-FOUR
Ruled and dated. Folded on its own folds so long that the fold has gone through the paper in two places.
The offer, as numbered in the minute
- The gang — for as long as it takes.
- The plant-down at every boundary on Ring Eleven.
- The holds.
- Both boundary tests.
All of it at the nine houses’ cost.
No condition. No credit line.
At the foot, in the minute clerk’s own record of what was said in the room
“I can find the money for anything on this station inside a day and I have never once been able to find a fitter.”
Why it sat
Nothing about this offer was ever refused. It was made, it was written down, it was minuted a second time, and then it was simply not answered — for eight years, by an administration with no shortage of things it would rather decide.
The obstacle is in the quoted line and it has never moved: the Cairn is a city that can raise money faster than it can raise hands. Ring Eleven was fitted, lit and empty at the census of 2330 for the same reason. Steel arrives. Fitters do not.
What it takes to walk it
Ring Eleven has a second path — the one behind the lining, which turns out at every bloc line and comes back in. No other ring has one. It is the reason the whole ring can be walked and plant-dropped at every boundary as a single job, by a single gang, which is what the offer is offering.
Asked how many hands it would take:
“More than there are on this station.”
How it ends
It is read out at last off a copy folded through in two places, as the older paper, ahead of the newer business it is attached to — because when a thing has been on the book twice already, the clerk reads the offer first.