Caldris’s request went out on the public channel at the fifteenth hour, and the answers began to come in at the sixteenth.
Mara sat at the bench with the custody sheet. She had ruled it into columns before the first answer came: Auditor. Office. Answer. Reason. Rod received. Seal checked. She wrote each answer in its own column as it arrived. The Board clerk read them off the public channel; Mara wrote them down.
There were twenty-three Compact auditors with maintenance rods across the nine lamp systems and the Compact’s outer offices. Caldris had given the number when she sent the request. Most of them had never heard of Mara Venn. Some of them had heard of nothing else for a month.
The first answer came from an auditor on Tal.
“Refused,” the clerk read. “Under the Compact statute on maintenance instruments, clause fourteen. A maintenance rod is an instrument of the Compact’s authority and may not be destroyed or alienated without the Compact council’s resolution. No such resolution has been made.”
Mara wrote it. In its own column. Refused. Clause fourteen. No council resolution.
The second came from the Compact’s outer office.
“Refused,” the clerk read. “The undersigned does not recognize the authority of an auditor who has surrendered her office to the Sunward Board.”
