The four-thousand-page Unified Land-wide Infrastructure Charter rested on the ivory table like a monument of thick parchment and gold foil.
Bound in dark green morocco leather and heavy with cast-bronze corner brackets, the document contained sixty-two chapters of town standardization.
It established the universal standard railway gauge at four feet, eight and a half inches.
It defined permissible stonework tolerances for town dwellings.
It mandated dual backflow prevention valves on all town water lines.
It controlled spark grounding impedances to less than one ohm.
It replaced three thousand years of feudal tribute, royal decrees, and ecclesiastical excommunications with a single, binding office code.
In the center of the royal pavilion, Emperor Castellan the Fourth of the Holy Solar Empire dipped his gold quill into the black inkwell.
