By morning, the city already knew that forty-seven dead people had walked out of the cellar alive.
Rumours spread through Lambern faster than gas from a punctured pipe. Street sweepers, cooks and newspaper boys told the story of the forty-seven workers, shouting headlines before the ink had even dried.
By midday, a small but noisy crowd had gathered outside the Senate: workers from the Lower Arches, debt scribes, reporters, women with children and two sacred accountants from the exchange house. Six lamp policemen guarded the entrance and plainly could not decide whether to regard the crowd as witnesses or rebels.
Miren was brought in neither as a prisoner nor as an official.
He was entered on the list of items before the hearing.
It was humiliating, but at least Miren was allowed to remain until the end: a person could be thrown out, but an item in a case had to be considered.
Rona walked beside him without her ring. A thin red mark from the glass remained on her finger. Otto Krey kept to the other side of the corridor and pointedly refused to look at her.
"They will forbid you to testify," Miren said.
"They already have."
"You did not have to break the ring."
"You did not have to sign the deaths."
"Thank you."
Rona looked at him in surprise.
"I did not do it for you."
"I know. That is why I am thanking you."
The Senate chamber was round, but the senators' chairs still rose above the witnesses' seats. A table for disputed documents stood in the centre. Miren was placed beside it, while Rona was seated on the bench for contaminated witnesses, usually occupied by fortune-tellers, drunken notaries and people who had seen their own deaths before the appointed time.
The lamps beneath the dome warmed the backs of their heads, but the floor remained cold. The chamber smelt of wet wool, ink and cheap tobacco. A black drop of printer's ink had dried on Lida's sleeve, and the drowsy Mal was trying to scrape it off with his fingernail.
Otto spoke first. His delivery was measured and careful.
"Inspector Veyr violated official procedure, destroyed a lamp seal and entered into a private protocol with a person whose legal status has not been established. Her testimony in the case of the forty-seven cannot be considered official."
The senators nodded. Rona said nothing.
Then Rovik rose.
He merely placed forty-eight sheets on the table, and the senators leant forward, trying to examine them.
"The Ministry thanks Mr Ost for identifying a weakness in the form. Forty-seven entries have been restored pending an in-person review. Inspector Veyr acted outside her official capacity, and the city therefore bears no responsibility for her personal error. Mr Ost, as a deceased but functionally useful person, is transferred to the status of Night Petitioner under a special protocol."
Someone behind Miren whispered, "Petitioner." The title was a trap. A petitioner could only submit a request and had no right either to conduct a case or to influence the final decision.
Rovik placed a thin folder before him.
"You are permitted to submit documents on behalf of those whom the ordinary register no longer recognises. In return, every submission you make becomes part of your own case. Your room, letters, former post and property will be transferred to the repository of material circumstances."
"There is more of my property left than there is of me," Miren said.
"You learn quickly."
Senator Elsa Mott, a woman in a dark green dress without a single crease, finally raised her eyes.
"Minister, what about the forty-eighth sheet?"
The chamber grew quieter.
Rovik picked up the sheet with the empty face.
"A technical consequence of the intervention. Not a person. A transition error."
Lida Voss had been admitted to the chamber as a party to the case. From the gallery, she said loudly:
"That is what you said about us."
The senators turned in outrage: Lida had spoken without permission. Mal was asleep in her arms with his mouth open. A smear of printer's ink marked his cheek.
Miren looked at Rovik.
"Show me the wording."
"What wording?"
"The wording that explains how an error differs from a person."
Rovik smiled, but not with his eyes.
"Careful, Mr Ost. If you ask the Senate to define who counts as a person, it may answer you."
No one laughed.
To avoid acknowledging defeat in public, the Senate formed a commission. The forty-seven workers temporarily retained their status as living. Rona was temporarily deprived of the right to give official testimony. Miren was temporarily given a post. The forty-eighth was temporarily declared nonexistent.
Such temporary decisions could remain in force for years.
After the hearing, Rona did not go to the police. She bought a cheap notebook from a newspaper boy: no watermarks, no registration, no spaces for seals. She settled on the Senate steps and began to write.
"What is that?"
"A protocol."
"They will not accept it."
"I do not need them to. What matters is that no one will be able to amend it without me."
She wrote slowly because her cut finger hurt. Miren watched entries appear on the grey paper about the faceless body, the forty-seven workers, Lida, Mal, the broken ring, Rovik, the Night Petitioner and the empty sheet.
Then Rona stopped.
A sentence she had not written appeared on the bottom line. The ink was hers, and the handwriting looked almost like hers, but the letters slanted differently.
"Do not trust Miren after midnight."
Rona slowly raised her eyes.
"After which midnight?" Miren asked.
The notebook added by itself:
"After the first one he survives."
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