VMS Help MACRO, VAX MACRO Assembler, Directives, .ASCIx, .ASCIC  *Conan The Librarian (sorry for the slow response - running on an old VAX)

    Performs the same function as .ASCII, except that  .ASCIC  inserts
    a count  byte  before  the  string  data.   The count byte contains
    the length of the string in bytes.  The length given includes  any
    bytes of  nonprintable characters outside the delimited string but
    excludes the count byte.

    .ASCIC string

    string

    A delimited ASCII string.