FADE IN: INT. ROYAL CARTOGRAPHY OFFICE, CAELD, NIGHT A long room above the city's administrative quarter. Three drafting tables, two of them bare. The third belongs to SELA (31), and on it lives the western river district. Rolled surveys crowd the table's left edge. A brass compass, a straightedge, two pens in a ceramic cup. A candle burning low in a wrought-iron holder. The smell of ink and tallow and old parchment. Sela bends over the current sheet, adding the final measurements of the Westen tributary survey. Her movements are precise and small: dip, mark, lift. She cross-references her field notes without looking up. She has done this so many times that her eyes move between paper and note by feel rather than attention. She finishes the last coordinate. She sets the pen down. She reads the measurement line twice, once for accuracy, once for form. Both pass. From the ceramic cup she takes a dry pen. She signs her name at the survey's lower right corner. The signature is neither flourished nor hurried. It is the signature of someone who understands what a signature is. SELA (to herself, barely audible) Three hundred and twelve leagues, four hundred yards. Complete. She rolls the survey with practiced hands, ties it with linen cord, dates the tag. She places it in the western district case, which is full enough now to be sealed. She blows out four of the five candles. The fifth she1