All strangers feel the chill of exodus as Hobbestown’s silhouette looms up from the horizon, as when one emerges from the warm and comfort of a theatre to face real air. Civilization’s end. Here there is no zoo glass between us and the lions. Hive badges still armor visitors, as Roman citizens once marched through sprawling colonies armored by the threat of distant law, but he who would visit Blacklaw lands consents to witness murder in the street and place no blame. Here all things are possible, and all natives as honest as Saladin.

Hobbes: “Already! Oh, Jubilation! I had not dared hope to see so soon my backwards capital!”

Reader: “Backwards, friend Thomas?”

Hobbes: “Yes, backwards, Master Reader. My Leviathan aimed to describe and strengthen government, to remind ungrateful citizens why we so need it. Hobbestown is furthest from what I recommend of any place in history, and yet these Blacklaws call it by my name? I feel like I’ve spent my life training young architects, but been thanked only by the ones who gave it up to become tent-dwelling nomads.”

Reader (laughingly): “Ha! Well put, dear Thomas. Yet thanks is still thanks, and you know it is never bad to be remembered.”

True, masters, true, and this Blacklaw capital fixes Hobbes’s name in our age’s memory like a burn scar. A sentry nodded to us at the gate, rising from a comfortable stool and lifting an eight-foot guandao pole-arm, whose moon-bright blade glittered atop the shaft she could no doubt wield as organically as Sniper its epée or Ancelet his numbers. Hobbestown uses no uniform apart from a Blacklaw sash, nor could one quite call this sentry part of a militia, since when she rose to escort us she called her replacement, not from any guardhouse, but from the passersby, one of whom volunteered to take her stool and drew a brace of pistols. Perhaps ‘sentry’ is the wrong word—honor guard? There is a warning bell beside the guard’s stool, but it has never yet been used as anything but a reminder that, while ordinary cities blur into the bash’house-peppered countryside, Hobbestown’s gates and walls still mean what gates meant when the Mycenaeans raised lintels of cyclopean stone. That my Master did not tremble as we crossed the threshold proves anew He is not human.

“The Six-Hive Transit System welcomes you to Hobbestown. This area is governed by no law but the Eight Universal Laws, commonly known as Black Hiveless Law. Minors and visitors protected by a stricter legal code are advised to keep their Hive or Law insignia clearly visible at all times. To view the list of suggested customs posted on the Hobbestown gate, select ‘Blacklaw Customs, also called Natural Laws.’ ”

Hobbes: “Natural Laws? Are these my Natural Laws? Those nineteen rules found out by Reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive to his own life?”