the moon, or the bottom of the sea. Are there mail coaches to the moon?”
“They’re at war out there,” Dr. Seidel said. “It’s very dangerous.” He twisted his glass nervously in his hands.
“Yes,” Liv agreed. “So I’ve heard.”
“There are wild men in the hills, who are from what I hear only very debatably human. I saw a sketch of one once, and I don’t mind admitting it gave me nightmares. All hair and knuckles, it was, white as death, and painted in the most awful way.”
“I won’t be going into the hills, Doctor.”
“The so-called civilized folk are only marginally better. Quite mad. I don’t make that diagnosis lightly. Four centuries of war is hardly the only evidence of it. Consider the principal factions in that war, which are from what I hear not so much political entities as religious enthusiasms, not so much religion as forms of shared mania. . . . Cathexis, that is, a psychotic transference of responsibility from themselves to objects that—”
“Yes,” she said. “Perhaps you should publish on the subject.”
If she listened to another moment of Dr. Seidel’s shrill voice, she was in danger of having her resolve shaken.
“Will you excuse me, Doctors?” She darted quickly away, neatly interposing Dr. Mistler between herself and Seidel.
It was stuffy and dusty in the library; she moved closer to the windows, where there was a breeze and the faint green smell of the gardens, and where Liv’s dear friend Agatha from the Faculty of Mathematics was making conversation with Dr. Dahlstrom from the Faculty of Metaphysics, who was terribly dull. As she approached, Agatha waved over Dahlstrom’s shoulder and her eyes said, Help! Liv hurried over, sidestepping Dr. Ley, but she was intercepted by Dr. Ekstein, the head of her own Faculty, who was like a looming stone castle topped with a wild beard, and who took both her hands in his powerful ink-stained hands and said: “Dr. Alverhuysen—may I abandon formality—Liv—will you be safe? Will you be safe out there? Your poor late husband, rest his soul, would never forgive me if I allowed . . .”
Dr. Ekstein was a little sherry-drunk and his eyes were moist. His life’s work had been a system of psychology that divided the mind into contending forces of thesis and antithesis, from the struggle of which a peaceful synthesis was derived, the process beginning again and again incessantly. Liv considered the theory mechanical and unrealistic.
“I have made my decision, Doctor,” she reminded him. “I shall be quite safe. The House Dolorous is in neutral territory, far from the fighting.”
“Poor Bernhardt,” Dr. Ekstein said. “He would haunt me if anything were to happen to you—not, of course, that I would expect that it would, but if anything were to happen—”
Dr. Naumann insinuated himself. “Hauntings? Here? Sounds like you’ll miss all the real excitement, Dr. Alverhuysen.”
Ekstein frowned down on Naumann, who kept talking: “On the other hand, you won’t be bored—oh my no. No place out there is neutral for long. No matter how remote your new employer may be, soon enough you-know-what will come knocking.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know, Dr. Naumann. I understand things are very turbulent out there. Excuse me, I must—”
“Turbulent! A good word. If you cut into the living brain of a murderer or sex criminal, you might say what you saw was turbulent. I mean the forces of the Line.”
“Oh.” She tried to look discreetly around Dr. Ekstein’s mass for sight of Agatha. “Well, isn’t that for the best? Isn’t the Line on the side of science and order?”
Dr. Naumann raised an eyebrow, which Liv found irritating. “Is that right? Consider Logtown, which they burned to the ground because it harbored Agents of the Gun; consider the conquest of Mason, where . . .” He rattled off a long list of battles and massacres.
Dr. Alverhuysen looked at him in surprise. “You know a lot about the subject.”
He shrugged. “I take an interest in their affairs. A professional interest, you might say.”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow their politics closely, Dr. Naumann.”
“You will. You will.” He leaned in close and whispered to her, “They’ll follow you, Liv.”
She whispered back, “Perhaps you should travel that way yourself, Philip.”
“Absolutely under no circumstances whatsoever.” He straightened again and consulted his watch. “I shall be late for my afternoon Session!” He left his glass on a bookshelf and exited by the south stairs.
“Unhealthy,” Ekstein said. “Unhealthy interests.” He glanced down at Liv. “Unhealthy.”
“Excuse me, Dr. Ekstein.”
She stepped around him, exchanged a polite good luck, good