The lower canal basin. There, the Gray Rush split into three heavy-duty discharge water chutes before emptying into the harbor, had for thirty years been the refuge of the ‘floating wards’. Forty-two families who lived aboard converted timber lighters, gravel flats, and old salt scows tied six-deep to the rotten wooden support posts. To the academy summoners on the High Terrace, the barge households were an illegal civic eyesore. An secret squatter colony to be evicted whenever a grand ritual procession was planned along the Upper Walkway.
Today, the basin looked fully different. At the head of the main timber pier stood Councilor Elna Vesk, with Pella Rook, Senior Engineer Korr Var. Bessa Marr, the seventy-year-old grandmother who spoke for the lightermen’s commonweal.
Spread across a heavy cable spool that served as an outdoor desk were forty-two single thick parchment scrolls, each bearing the scarlet seal of the Town Board and the green seal of the Courtesy Workshop.
“The compact is ratified by the full Senate under Bill Nine-Forty-Four,” Councilor Vesk announced. Her voice carried over the gentle slap of the canal water against the barge hulls. “The Town Board formally establishes the Lowbank Floating Ward as a permanent, chartered residential district of the Commonwealth of Lathmere. The eviction notices issued by the former High Summoner are permanently quashed.”
