Oshek Var

Oshek Var is a Veyr Basaltborn of the Star Rangers and the author of one document in the record, What It Will Carry: the history of their people, written in the Archive's working language at the Survey Archive's asking through the Corps' rolls of serving officers, in parts, each closed by a line the author calls its rating, which says what the part will carry and where it was struck to find out. They did not come to the desk and asked that their posting not be named in the filing, since what they say of hulls and ratings would be read, by anyone who knew the station, as a rating of it, and they had not struck it for that purpose. They give the history as their people keep one, by the ratings that held and the places they were struck, and give no year in any reckoning, and say why.

They are Veyr Basaltborn and not humanoid, as their species' page says of all of them: a truss and not a frame, many slender chitinous members bracing one another with the dark iridescent sheen of cooled basalt, no trunk, no fixed front, no privileged pair of limbs, compound eyes distributed around the upper lattice. Nothing on this page or in their account describes their body beyond the people's. Oshek Var is as the Corps' rolls carry it, in the record's translation register, as Qiren Tal's is; the record holds no Veyr name in any other form. They are they in the same register, as Qiren Tal is, and the record asserts nothing by it.

Known History

• Born on Veyr-3, and told at their apprenticeship, as the first thing one is told, the first rating that held: a thing was rated, the ground moved, and it carried what it was rated for. The account gives no place, kin or year (What It Will Carry).
• Corrected once at their apprenticeship, for an overstated rating; the one correction they name.
• Went into the Star Rangers; by their own account they have been in the Corps a long time, and have served on more than one posting. A thermal transit specialist, by their own word; the record places Veyr Rangers where mechanical stress and thermal risk overlap and gives no Veyr's corps. Their corps, rank, postings and years of service are on the Corps' rolls and not in the account.
• Present, on one posting, at a situation where a Veyr body's half-second was too slow; it was not theirs to carry, someone else carried it, and they read the figures afterward.
• Answered the Survey Archive's asking from their posting, in parts, each with its rating, and sent them to the desk as written.

Character Notes

The account shows a person who will not give a figure without saying where it was struck, and who applies that to their own history, their own people and finally to the account itself. Every part ends in a rating: what it will carry, where it was struck, and where it is unstruck, so the reader may not stand there. They are exact about the record's own sentences, quote several back as right, and add from inside what each leaves out: what for nothing means when it is a fact and not a figure; that a Veyr did not learn the truss but was one; that the fight for precision had no opponent and no moment, and why that shape of fight suits a people poor at the other kind.

Their humour is dry and costs nobody: a geometry has no first language and no handle either, which you found out by picking one of ours up; the first rated thing is unknown and nobody minds. They decline in words, not by silence, and list what they have not rated so the reader does not look for it: how their people speak among themselves, who speaks for them at home, when and how they met the Corps, what else lives on Veyr-3, and what mark they carry at home beside the Corps'. They defer to Qiren Tal on what is theirs: it is their file; I will not add to it. The one thing they are surest of is where their people fail, given at full rating.

What the Record Does Not Carry

Their age, in any reckoning, and the length of their service beyond a long time. Their corps, rank and postings, which the rolls hold and the account does not, the posting withheld at their own asking; that they are a thermal transit specialist is their own word. Where on Veyr-3 they were born and apprenticed, and to whom; whether they have kin, or what kin is among their people; the record holds nothing of Veyr kinship, lifespan, polity, social order or Federation standing, and the account settles none of it. How their people speak among themselves, and any word of theirs: the record holds no Veyr language in any medium and no rendering of the ladder from them, and the account, written in the Archive's working language, supplies none; the one proverb on file stays marked as a nearest rendering, in Qiren Tal's chapter. Who speaks for the Veyr at home, which they say they have not struck. How and when the Veyr met the Corps; they were not there. What mark the Veyr carry at home beside the Corps' seated tab, which they decline to say. What the first rated thing was. The two members they watched go, which they will not describe. Their body, which no page describes beyond the people's: an open lattice of fine dark iridescent struts with no solid trunk, carried on many slender jointed limbs that are members of the lattice, with clusters of small compound eyes around the upper lattice, as the record's one Veyr portrait shows it. No portrait is on file; the prompt is written and waits on the desktop.

See also

• What It Will Carry
• The Veyr Basaltborn, the people, the lattice, the free fire and the fight for precision
• Qiren Tal, the record's one other named Veyr, whose file they will not add to
• Refusal to Certify, the refusal the account calls their file
• The Ladder in Other Tongues, where the record holds no rendering from their people
• Marked Absences, the doctrine the receiving desk files their unrated things under