The Classification Bureau

Mira Tohn's first day at the Bureau began with a lanyard.

The lanyard was orange, which indicated probationary status. Her supervisor, an Analyst named Crenn, wore a blue lanyard indicating that he was permanent staff. The difference, Crenn explained, was that blue lanyards had access to the fourth-floor cafeteria.

"Is the fourth-floor cafeteria better?" Mira asked.

"No," said Crenn. "But it is on the fourth floor."

He said this as though it needed no further explanation. Mira nodded because she didn't know what else to do.

The Classification Bureau occupied three floors of the Compartment of Species Registration building, though it had been allocated four. The fourth floor was empty except for the cafeteria, which existed because the budget had to be spent or it would be reduced the following cycle. Sixteen tables, eighty chairs, and a serving counter that offered the same menu as every other cafeteria in the building.

The other three floors were filled with desks, filing systems, and employees.

These employees fell into three categories.

Classification Analysts processed applications. They received genetic profiles, ran them through the Central Genetic Index, and assigned classification numbers. When the data was clean and the species was new, this took about four minutes.

Taxonomic Adjudicators handled appeals. These were the senior staff, experienced enough to sit across from an angry delegation and calmly deliver rhetorical tautologies such as "The threshold is the threshold" or "The rules are the rules." Understandably, they received the most abuse.

Phylogenetic Archivists maintained the database. They had poor social skills and rarely spoke to anyone. They preferred it that way, and so did everyone else.

Crenn was a Classification Analyst. He had been a Classification Analyst for twenty-two years. He had been offered a promotion to Senior Adjudicator twice and had declined on both occasions. Adjudicators had to talk to people who were upset, and Crenn preferred to talk to people who were simply confused.

"Most of what we do," he told Mira, pulling up a training module on his terminal, "is straightforward."

The training case was a historical record from 11,000 years ago, yet it was among the more recent classifications in the Bureau's archive.

A species had been invited to join the Collective, a genetic profile had been submitted, and the Bureau's job had been to confirm that no existing classification matched.

Crenn walked Mira through it. He loaded the profile into the Index and tapped on the screen. There were no genetic matches above 60%. New species. A number was assigned, a record was filed, and the case was closed.

"That's it?" Mira said.

"That's it."

"That doesn't seem too difficult!"

"It isn't," he said. "When it's straightforward."

He closed the training module.

"The Ascension process is rare. A species is invited, at most, every few thousand years. They are not what you'll be doing. What you'll be doing is everything else."

The first real case of the day was a reclassification request.

The Orovani had been classified as a single species for 12,000 years. Recent political developments had led one faction to declare independence, adopt a new name, and demand separate recognition.

Crenn pulled up their genetic data. The two factions shared 99.994% of their genetic material.

"They're the same species," he said.

"But they say they're not?"

"But genetically, they are."

"Culturally, they—"

"We don't do culture. We do genetics."

Crenn typed a brief note. Reclassification denied. Genetic match 99.994%. Threshold for separate classification: below 95%. Recommend referral to the Compartment of Cultural Affairs. He closed the file.

"What happens when it goes to Cultural Affairs?" Mira asked.

"Different compartment," Crenn said. "Not our problem."

The second case was the Belvienne Cluster.

The Belvienne Cluster was not a species. It was, depending on who you asked, either a loose federation of symbiotic organisms, a single distributed intelligence, or a very large fungus.

Their file had been open for sixty years.

Every few months, a new genetic sample arrived from the Belvienne system. Each sample was slightly different from the last. The Classification Bureau would run it, find no definitive match to any known species, note that it also didn't match any of the previous samples it received, and file it for further review.

The file was now eleven thousand pages long, and nobody had read it in its entirety. A Phylogenetic Archivist on the second floor had made it her life's work, but she was only on page 6,000 and had recently requested that her retirement date be moved forward.

"What happens if they never figure out what it is?" Mira asked.

"Then the file stays open."

"Forever?"

"Not always. The Bureau cannot always close files," Crenn said. "But sometimes, the files close themselves."

He moved on to the next case. Mira wrote this down.

The afternoon's docket had one item.

It was an appeal hearing, which meant an Adjudicator would lead the session, but Crenn had been asked to attend as an Analyst. He told Mira she was welcome to observe.

"It's a recurring case," he said, as they walked toward the hearing room. "Two factions, same planet. One is called the Torish. The other is called the Velk."

"Same planet?"

"Same planet. Common ancestor, divergent evolution. The Torish are bipedal and tall, whereas Velk are quadrupedal and much more compact."

"So they're not the same species?"

"They are a 96.1% genetic match."

"That's above threshold. So they are the same species?"

"They are as far as we're concerned."

"But they disagree?"

"Oh, they do not merely disagree." Crenn scoffed. He held the door open for her. "After you."

The hearing room contained one long table, behind which sat Senior Adjudicator Pessen, an elderly Collective official who had been handling the Torish-Velk case for the last nine years. She had inherited it from her predecessor, who had handled it for twelve years before that. Neither of them had made any progress. Pessen no longer expected to.

On one side of the room, the Torish delegation was arranged with careful formality. Three tall, upright figures in diplomatic attire, seated behind a table with documents neatly stacked and a small nameplate that read TORISH INDEPENDENT DELEGATION.

On the other side of the room, the Velk delegation had arranged themselves on the floor.

There were five of them. Four stood in a tight, bristling group, and the fifth was on the table. It was not supposed to be on the table, but the chair provided was too high, and the Velk refused on principle to use the booster seat that had been provided.

The booster seat had been designed by the Torish Accessibility Committee, and accepting accommodations designed by the Torish implied a dependent relationship that the Velk categorically rejected.

Standing on the table was, in the Velk's view, a reasonable compromise.

The Torish delegation stared at it, visibly uncomfortable.

"Shall we begin?" said Adjudicator Pessen.

"For the record," Pessen said, reading from a file she could have recited from memory, "the Torish and the Velk share a common ancestor on the planet Sarrath-IV. Genetic analysis confirms a 96.1% material match. The threshold for single-species classification is 95%. The Bureau's ruling, reaffirmed annually for the past twenty-one years, is that the Torish and the Velk constitute a single species for the purposes of Collective membership, representation, and administrative record."

She looked up.

"The appellants may now present their arguments."

Both delegations tried speaking at once.

The Torish spoke first, because their lead delegate had a louder voice.

"Senior Adjudicator Pessen, the Torish people have the utmost respect for the Classification Bureau and the threshold system that underpins galactic taxonomy. We are not here to challenge your fine work, nor debate the science. We are here to kindly ask the Bureau to look beyond the science, and to consider the lived reality of two civilisations that share a planet but share nothing else."

This was, word for word, the same opening statement the Torish had delivered last year. And the year before that. Their Advocates had refined it over two decades until every phrase was perfectly balanced, every clause carefully weighted. It was a masterpiece of diplomatic restraint, lightly greased with flattery, with just a hint of grovelling.

The Velk delegate on the table interrupted.

"We were your pets."

The Torish lead delegate closed his eyes.

There were very few things the Torish and the Velk agreed on. History, surprisingly, was one of them.

Twelve hundred years ago, the Velk were pets. Small, loyal, and moderately intelligent. They were able to learn tricks, recognise their own names, and develop a limited emotional bond with their owners.

The Torish kept them in homes, bred them for temperament, and dressed them in little coats and bonnets. By pet-ownership standards, the Velk were well-treated, meaning they were fed, sheltered, and expected to be grateful.

Then, over roughly 300 years, the Velk got smarter.

It was gradual. A Velk that could open a gate. A Velk that could solve a puzzle meant for children. A Velk that, reportedly, looked its owner in the eye and said something that sounded very much like "no."

The Torish scientific community debated what was happening. Some argued it was a natural cognitive leap, a threshold crossed through accumulated genetic drift. Others suggested environmental factors. The Velk had been selectively bred for responsiveness and problem-solving, traits that, compounded over centuries, had produced unexpected results.

A third camp argued it wasn't happening at all, and that projecting intelligence onto animals was sentimental anthropomorphism.

This third camp grew quieter over time, particularly after one Velk published a 120-page peer-reviewed paper in rebuttal.

Over the centuries that followed, the question of Velk intelligence was settled. By then, there were other things to argue about.

The Velk hated the Torish because the Torish had kept them as pets for centuries. They had been bred, dressed, paraded, and owned. The emancipation had come, and the apologies had come, but the memory did not fade. It calcified. Their children studied it, and their literature was built on it. Their fury was generational, justified, and unending.

Conversely, the Torish hated the Velk because they kept defecating everywhere.

The lead Velk delegate stood proud on the table and spoke without notes or a prepared diplomatic preamble. It presented its case with less polish and more fury.

"Twelve hundred years ago, we were property. Eight hundred years ago, we were an inconvenience. Six hundred years ago, we were granted independence, on land the Torish selected for us, and with borders the Torish drew."

"We built our own cities. We developed our own technology, our own science, our own culture. We have our own language, our own government, our own history.

"And every year, we come to this room, and you tell us we are the same species as the people who put us in cages."

Pessen's expression did not change.

"The Bureau's remit is genetic classification," she said. "The history between your peoples is acknowledged and considered—"

"By a different compartment."

"By a different compartment, yes."

The hearing continued for another two hours.

The Torish delegation presented forty pages of new evidence supporting reclassification, including morphological differences, cognitive architecture comparisons, and a neurological analysis demonstrating that the regions of the brain governing language, social bonding, and abstract reasoning had diverged so significantly that the two species processed reality in fundamentally different ways.

The Velk delegation reiterated twelve hundred years of separate history.

Pessen reviewed both submissions with equal care, then dismissed them both on the same grounds.

The Torish delegation stood, gathered their documents, and left with grim dignity.

The Velk delegate on the table did not move.

"Same time next year?" it said.

"Same time next year," Pessen confirmed.

The Velk delegate turned toward the Torish side of the table and paused. Then it walked towards the TORISH INDEPENDENT DELEGATION nameplate.

It urinated on the nameplate, hopped off the table, and left.

After the delegations had gone, Crenn and Mira walked back to their floor in silence.

The rest of the day was unremarkable. Two reclassification requests, one database correction, and a query from a species that wanted to change its registered name after discovering that its current name, when translated into the Collective's administrative language, was an obscenity.

At the end of the day, Crenn shut down his terminal and gathered his things. Mira did the same.

"Crenn," she said. "How do you close a case like that? Two factions on the same planet, classified together, hating each other?"

"They get closed all the time," he said.

"Really? How?"

"In my last case, both factions applied separately for Ascension. Both were denied and had to nominate a single emissary."

He picked up his bag.

"They couldn't agree, and both sides believed the other was deliberately blocking them."

He put on his coat.

"Things got a bit tense, and they went to war. And about three years after that, neither faction was big enough to be classified as a population."

He adjusted his collar.

"Like I said. Sometimes, the cases close themselves."

Mira said nothing.

"Anyway," Crenn said. "Fourth floor cafeteria's open for another twenty minutes, if you want to see what you're missing. Nobody checks the lanyards anyway. It's not much."

He left.

Mira sat at her desk for a while. The terminal was dark. The office was quiet.

She picked up her bag and went home.