“A historic document, with historic consequences,” the astronomer said, flipping through his ledger. “Eventually it pitted the Habsburg Empire against the exigencies of the infinite. Here it is, I am not inventing it, I am not making it up!” And he thrust under Leibniz’s nose a torn scrap of paper on which was written in faded ink: “Tube funding without reason if Heinrich learns about triangles, Rudolf.” Leibniz: “I cannot tell you the provenance of that paper, but those were the words on it.” The astronomer: “Some, with some reason, as you will see, Herr Leibniz, have blamed the so-called Edict of the Tubes for the wars that ravaged these lands a few years later. They pile millions of Germans at my feet, millions of dead Germans, and my father besides! But if not for this edict I would never have seen what I have seen, I would not know about the night sky what I know about it now. In science as they pile millions and millions of corpses at your feet you must keep your eyes fixed on the firmament, you must proceed as if everyone is already dead, your own family and everyone else also. The most modern scientific methods call for considering everyone in the world to be dead already. Not really dead, science is a social act, if everyone were really dead you would just laze about, but not really alive either. One must always proceed as if everyone is alive and dead, a little dead, a little alive, I think I learned that philosophy from Heinrich, actually,” the astronomer said. And he peered into the telescope, picked up his quill, and wrote down a long string of numbers.