April 8. Eight a.m. I sat down at the fifth desk. Today, which the preservation log had written long ago, was the transfer day.
In the terminal's body field, below my employee number, the head archivist's number was filling in one character at a time. Yesterday the leading digits had first appeared, and through the night it filled to the middle. Though no one had been in the archive all night, in the no-one while one line had grown. As receiving was not my hand's work, this line's filling was not my hand's work either. The last two digits were still empty and blinking. As my number had, the head archivist's number too filled not from the end but with the end left empty. There were, so to speak, two recipient-blank places left.
In Do-gyeong's log was a similar seat. When Kang Min-seok's number appeared in Do-gyeong's terminal body field, Do-gyeong emptied Kang Min-seok's surroundings. She moved in turn the line before, the same line, and the line behind Kang Min-seok, and won three days. Do-gyeong chose whom to move. From the farthest line, on mornings when her hand did not tremble. Do-gyeong had a choosing hand, and in choosing there was sin. The heaviest passage in Do-gyeong's log was that choosing.
I did not choose. That the head archivist's number appeared was not my choosing. The preservation order chose him. The order of preserving the sixth bundle was set, which line after which line, and following that order I came to the head archivist's seat. The order was not set by me but written ahead by the log. The hand followed the order the log had written, and at the followed seat was the head archivist. Since there was no choosing hand, there was no sin of choosing. But that there was no sin was not lighter than Do-gyeong's choosing.
Why the head archivist of all people, I traced back along the preservation order. The order followed the sequence in which material entered the archive. The head archivist was the one who had pointed me to the box on my first day, and the pointing was recorded as the hand that first brought him into contact with that material. The pointing hand was a touching hand too. The moment he pointed at the box, his number entered the material's processing history as one line, and a line in the processing history became one place in the preservation order. He had never handled the material, but by pointing at it alone he entered the order. Pointing too was engagement. Had he not pointed at the box on the first day his line would not be in the order, but he had, so it entered, and the order it entered raised his number onto the terminal today.
Do-gyeong, by choosing, knew whom she moved, and knowing, bore responsibility. I, not having chosen, did not know beforehand who was next, and only after the order reached did I see who he was. In place of a choosing to be answerable for, there was no place to block either. Do-gyeong could empty surroundings and win three days, but I had no surroundings to empty. To move the seat the order had set I would have to change the order, but the order was written by the log and could not be changed by my hand. Not being able to choose meant not being able to save either.
In the morning the head archivist came down. As ever, the footsteps coming down the stairs reached first through the papers, and this time the sound came at the same beat as the terminal's blinking. He came to oversee the transfer. It was because of the rule that the archive head must be present when the headquarters officer presses the seal. The head archivist, as usual, leafed through the preservation log and said it was well wrapped up. He read the log's writing well though it was not his, and while reading well, he did not read his own number filling on the terminal. The terminal's body field was visible only from my seat; from where he stood it was not.
I thought about whether to say it. Do-gyeong too, knowing of the suspension beforehand, never managed to tell Kang Min-seok. A warning held neither by mouth nor by paper nor by phone, Do-gyeong's log wrote. Try to speak and the syllables split, try to write and the digits dropped, every channel to tell blocked. I too, going to tell the head archivist that his number had appeared on the terminal, first thought how the words would come out of my mouth. As far as the head archivist's, and the cha would split into cha, the chivist into chivist, it seemed. Before opening my mouth I read the sentence once in my head, and while I read, the head archivist's number on the terminal filled one more character. Even the thought summoned to warn was engagement, so the thought of saving him filled his line one place. Trying to tell him by word closed the very person I would tell one place more. Words were weaker than the record, and the warning was blocked in every channel, and more than blocked, the trying-to-warn became, in reverse, a closing. Where Do-gyeong was blocked, I was blocked too. Only, Do-gyeong could not because she was blocked, and I chose not to because the trying became harm.
What differed was that Do-gyeong suffered for being unable to speak, but at least whether to choose Kang Min-seok was in her hand. Do-gyeong emptied surroundings to save Kang Min-seok, and even if the emptying closed another line, the saving hand was Do-gyeong's hand. I had no hand to save the head archivist with even to try. The order pointed at him, the order could not be changed, and I could not tell him by word either. At Do-gyeong's seat there was the suffering of choosing, and at my seat there was the blankness of not even being able to choose. Which of the two was heavier, laying Do-gyeong's log and mine side by side did not tell.
The headquarters officer came and pressed the seal on the transfer slip. Once sealed, the box officially became departing material. The head archivist lifted the box and handed it to the headquarters officer. The hand of the head archivist holding the box passed, for a moment, in front of the terminal. In that moment the last blank of the body field filled one character. The head archivist's number was complete. His motion of handing over the box had, in effect, filled the last digit of his own number. Not knowing what he had filled, he handed over the box and dusted off his hands. The box left the archive, and on the terminal two numbers appeared side by side. Mine and the head archivist's. Both lines were filled to the end, and both lines had their recipient fields blank. That one line had become two meant one place had been added. Until yesterday the terminal received only my one seat, but from today it began to receive one more seat beside it. There would be another seat the preservation order would point to next. Whose line would appear after the head archivist's, tracing back along the order, I could tell. There was another hand besides the head archivist that had touched that material in the archive. The two assistants who had helped with the preservation. Those two people, whom Do-gyeong had saved by not emptying her surroundings, were this time inside the preservation order.