Minami Asai is, in a word, a by-the-book permit clerk. Two years at the construction inspection desk, and she had never once found a violation. This bothered her, at least a little.
Her beat was a cluster of small planets — drifting rocks, most of them, lucky to have a handful of people on board. Applications for building permits in that remote corner came maybe once a year, if that. No one was building anything, so there was nothing to find wrong.
Article Twelve of the Code reads: No structure shall exceed a size proportionate to the mass of its host body. The smaller the planet, the smaller the house you’re allowed. The smallest on Minami’s roster was Planet 90, and the most it could legally support was a single one-story dwelling.
Planet 90 had a two-story house on it.
Minami spotted it on a routine inspection run. Glancing out the porthole as she passed overhead, she saw it sitting there on a rock that should have held nothing bigger than a bungalow — a tall house with a pointed roof, a chimney and all, four windows across. By any estimate, three times the legal limit.
“Chief, a violation. My first violation ever.”
She burst back into the office and blurted it out before she’d even sat down. Her voice had a lift to it she probably didn’t notice herself. Two years of nothing, and here, finally, was something.
Chief Tobe didn’t look up from his paperwork. “Take a breath,” he said. He had a way of treating the word violation like he was talking about tomorrow’s weather.
“Planet 90. A house three times the limit. No record of any application. I can issue a removal notice, right?”
”…That planet, huh.”
“I’ll go in person. Thirty days to downsize or demolish — I’ll tell them myself.”
She had already dug up a violation notice form from the back of the supply cabinet. It hadn’t been touched in so long that the paper was sun-faded, the edges gone brown.
Planet 90 was even smaller than she’d imagined. Standing on its surface, the horizon curved away at her feet. On that cramped little stage stood a house she had to tilt her head back to take in. There was no question — it was too big.
Before she knocked, she noticed a small metal plaque beside the door. Reference Sample — Third Building Standards Committee. She ran her finger across it. There was a second line underneath: This structure constitutes a trial build exceeding the statutory maximum under current code.
In other words: the people who wrote Article Twelve had built this house. The ones who decided what wasn’t allowed had wanted to see whether it was actually possible. Apparently it was. So they left it there.
Minami stood holding the notice form and didn’t move for a while.
When she got back and told Tobe, he looked up this time. He didn’t look pleased.
“That’s what I meant when I said take a breath.”
“But it’s three times over. The committee — their own rule —”
“Everyone knows about that one.” He sighed. “Nobody says anything. That’s the whole point.” He looked at her. “Why’d you go and read the back of the plaque?”
A month later, Minami received a transfer order. New post: a district with only two planets in it, even further out. The reason given was a single word: Aptitude. At her going-away gathering, Tobe laughed and said, “Reading the rulebook too carefully — that’s a double-edged thing.” Minami never did figure out if that was a compliment.
Her replacement at the desk was a young clerk named Miyata. On his first day, he glanced out the porthole and spotted Planet 90, and tilted his head.
“Chief — that house looks pretty big. Was there an application on file?”
Tobe didn’t look up from his paperwork. “Sample unit,” he said. “Reference sample.”
Miyata nodded. “Got it,” he said, and never looked out that porthole again.