CORBA21 — Typecode indirection issue

Summary: We have come across the following issue with regard to typecode
indirections. The specification states:

the indirection is a numeric octet offset within the scope of some
"top level" TypeCode and points to the TCKind value for the
typecode.

The question arrises then is it legal to point to the (possible)
padding bytes preceeding the TCKind value or must the numberic value
indicate the position of the actual TCKind value. If you assume the
former then having rewound the required number of bytes you would word
align before interogating the TCKind enum value.