by Brian Lumley
Mobius seemed nonplussed. 'And you've come to me for help? Well, obviously you have — but for the life of me I can't see what I can do! I mean, if they're not here, these three people — if they have physically ceased to exist in this universe — then how can I or anyone else suggest where or how to find them? The universe is The Universe, Harry. Its very name defines it. It is THE ALL. If they're not in it, then they're not anywhere.'
'That was my line of reasoning, too.' Harry admitted, ' — until recently. But you and me, why, don't we both contradict that very fact?'
'Eh? How's that?'
'The Mobius Continuum,' Harry answered, by way of explanation. 'You yourself admit that it's a purely metaphysical plane, not of this universe. Step into the Mobius Continuum and you step out of the three mundane dimensions. The Mobius Continuum not only transcends the three dimensions of mundane space but time also, and runs parallel to all of them! And what of a black hole?'
'What of it?' (Mobius's mental shrug.)
'Well, isn't a black hole an exit from this universe? That's how they've always been explained to me: a focus of gravity so great that space and time themselves are drawn into the whorl. And if they are exits from the here and now, then where the hell do they lead?'
To another part of the universe,' Mobius answered. That seems the only likely explanation to me. Mind you, I haven't really looked at black holes yet. I have them scheduled, though.'
'Are you missing the point or deliberately avoiding it?' Harry wanted to know. This is my question: if a black hole goes somewhere, emerging maybe light-years away, what of the space in between? Where is the material which is drawn into the hole, between its disappearing and its reappearing? You see, to me this all seems very much like our Mobius Continuum.'
'Go on,' Mobius was fascinated.
'OK,' said Harry, 'let's look at it this way. First we have the… let's call it the mundane universe. And we'll say it looks like this:'
He showed Mobius a mental diagram.
'Why the bends?' the mathematician was immediately curious.
'Because without them it would just be a pair of straight lines,' Harry told him. 'The bends give it definition, make it look like something.'
'Like a ribbon?'
'For the purpose of the exercise, why not? For all I know it could be a circle, or maybe a sphere. But this way we can envisage a past and a future, too.'
'Very well,' Mobius conceded.
'Now in this diagram of the universe,' Harry went on, 'we can't go from "A" to "B" without crossing the edge. We can go up the ribbon from "A" to the edge, then down to "B". Or down to the edge and up, it makes no difference. The edge represents the distance between "A" and "B", right?'
'Agreed,' said the other.
'Now this is how I see the Mobius Continuum,' said Harry:
And he continued: 'It's the ribbon universe we know with the half-twist of your Mobius strip. "Now" has turned through ninety degrees to become "forever". Which means that "A" and "B" are now on the same plane. We no longer have to cross the edge. We can go from one to the other instantaneously — "now"!'
'Go on,' said Mobius again, but much more thoughtfully.
'Previously we've thought of it like this:' said Harry. 'Like… like putting on a pair of seven-league boots and striding to our destinations in seconds. Covering distances that should take hours in minutes. But I've checked it out and it's not like that. In fact we go there instantaneously — accordingly to Earth-time, anyway. It's not simply that we go there faster, but that the space in between actually disappears!'
After a little while Mobius said, 'I think I understand. What you want to know is this: if for us the space between "A" and "B" reduces to zero — if it disappears — '
'Exactly!' Harry cut in. 'Where does it go to?'
'But it's an illusion,' Mobius cried. 'It's still there. It's we who have disappeared — into the Mobius Continuum, as you insist upon calling it!'
'Now we're getting somewhere,' Harry took a deep breath. 'You see, the way I see it, the Mobius Continuum is no-man's-land, it's limbo, it's the middle ground between universes. "Universes" — plural! It has doors to the past, the future, and to every point in present time. Using it, we can go everywhere and — when — or at least I can, because I still have a life-thread to follow. But the point I'm trying to make is this: I believe there may be other doors which we haven't found yet. We don't have the equations for them. And I believe that one of those doors, when I find it, will — '
' — Lead you to your wife and son, and to Michael J. Simmons?'
'Yes!'
Mobius nodded (in his fashion) and gave it some thought. 'Other doors,' he mused. Then: 'Grant me this — that I know more about the Mobius dimension than you do. That I have had one hundred and twenty years to examine it more thoroughly than you could ever hope to. That I discovered it, and have used it to go places you can never go, not in your lifetime.' 'Oh?' said Harry.
'Oh?' Mobius raised his eyebrows again. 'Oh? And can you go to the centre of a star in Betelgeuse to measure its temperature? Can you visit the moons of Jupiter or sit in the middle of that planet's monumental tornado which we call the Red Spot? Can you journey to the bottom of the Marianas Trench and every other deep on Earth to calculate the mass of water in this world? No, you can't. But I can — and have! Now grant me this: that I know the Mobius Continuum better than you do!'
When the point was made like that, there seemed little use in arguing it. Harry could only agree, but: 'I think you're going to tell me something I don't want to hear,' he said.
'You know I am!' Mobius told him. 'There are no other doors we haven't discovered, Harry. Not in the Mobius Continuum. Other universes? — which seems to me something of a contradiction in itself — I can't say. And in any case you're talking to the wrong man, for I only deal in the three-dimensional worlds we know. But of one thing I'm sure: you won't find your way into any parallel world through the Mobius Continuum…' He fell silent as Harry's disappointment swelled like a physical thing, until it hung heavy over Mobius's grave like a blanket of fog.
'Sir,' Harry finally said, 'I thank you for your time; I've already wasted far too much of it.'
'Not at all,' Mobius answered. 'Time is only important to the living. I have more than enough of time! I just wish I was able to help.'
'You've helped,' Harry was grateful, 'if only to settle a point I've argued with myself time and time again. You see, I know Harry Jnr and his mother are alive, and I know that he can use the Mobius Continuum maybe even better than we can. He's alive but not in this universe, so he must be in some other. There's no way round that. I thought he'd gone there, wherever, along the strip. You've assured me that he hasn't. So… there has to be some other route. I already have a clue where to start looking for it, except… from here on in my work becomes that much more dangerous, that's all. And now-'
'Wait!' said Mobius. 'I've been considering your diagrams. Can I show you one for a change?'
'By all means.'
'Very well: here's your ribbon universe again — and a parallel universe of a similar construction:'
'As you can see,' Mobius continued, 'I've joined them by use of — '
'A black hole?' Harry guessed.
'No, for we're talking about survivability. Nothing of solid matter and shape can enter that sort of awful maw and retain any sort of integrity. No matter what you are when you enter a black hole, you come out — if you come out — gaseous, atomic, pure energy!'
'Which cancels out white holes, too.' Harry was growing gloomier by the minute.
'But not grey ones,' said Mobius.
'Grey holes?' Harry frowned.
'… Yes, I see it now,' Mobius mused, almost to himself. 'Grey holes, without the disruptive gravity of black holes, and lacking the awesome radiation of white ones. Gateways pure and simple, between universes. Entropy radiators, perhaps? Inescapable once entered into, there would have to be more than one — if a traveller intended to ma
ke the return journey, anyway…'
Harry waited, and in a little while weird equations began flickering once more on that amazing computer screen which Mobius called his mind. They came faster and faster, calculi in endless streams, which left Harry dizzy as he tried to grasp their meaning. For seconds merging into minutes the mental display continued — only to be shut off, suddenly, leaving the screen blank. And in a little while longer:
'It is… possible,' said Mobius. 'It could occur in nature, and might even be duplicated by man. Except of course that men would have no use for it. It would be a by-product of some other experimentation, an accident.'
'But if I knew how — if I could translate your math into engineering — you're saying I could manufacture this, well, gateway?' Harry was clutching at straws.
'You? Hardly!' Mobius chuckled. 'But a team of scientists, with enormous resources and a limitless energy supply — yes!'
Harry thought of the experiments at Perchorsk, and his excitement was now obvious. 'That's the confirmation I needed,' he said. 'And now I have to be on my way.'
'It was good to talk to you again,' Mobius told him. 'Take care, Harry.'
'I will,' Harry promised. And hugging his overcoat close to him (or if not "his" overcoat, one which he'd borrowed from Jazz Simmons's wardrobe) Harry conjured a Mobius door and took his departure.
Leaves blew skitteringly between the graves and along the pathways. One such leaf, taken by surprise as it leaned against Harry's shoe, suddenly went tumbling across the empty flags where a moment ago he'd been standing. But now, under the high-flying moon and cold, glittering stars, the Leipzig graveyard was quite, quite empty…
Some three days prior to (and an entire dimension away from) Harry's visit to Mobius:
Jazz Simmons journeyed west with Zek, Lardis and his Travellers, journeyed in the golden glow of the slowly setting sun. He'd been pleased to be relieved of his kit, all except his gun and two full magazines, and knew that even though he was dog-tired he could now hold out until the Travellers made camp.
By this time, too, he'd had the opportunity to get a good close look at Zek in the extended evening light of Sunside, and he hadn't been disappointed. She had somehow found the time to snatch a wash in a fast-flowing stream, which had served to greatly enhance her fresh, natural beauty. Now she looked good enough to eat, and Jazz felt hungry enough, too, except that would be one hell of a waste.
Zek had wrapped her sore feet in soft rags and now walked on grass and loamy earth instead of stone, and for all that she too was tired her step seemed lighter and most of the worry lines had lifted from her face. While she'd cleaned herself up, Jazz had used the time to study, the Travellers.
His original opinion seemed confirmed: they were Gypsies, Romany, and speaking in an antique 'Romance' tongue, too. It was hard not to deduce connections with the world he had left behind; maybe Zek would be able to explain some of the similarities. He determined to ask her some time, yet another question to add to a lengthening list. He was surprised how quickly he'd come to rely on her. And he was annoyed to find himself thinking about her when he should be concentrating on his education.
Many of the male Travellers wore rings in the lobes of their left ears, gold by the look of it, to match the bands on their fingers. No lack of that precious metal here, apparently; it decorated in yellow bands the hauling poles of their travois, studded their leather jackets and stitched the seams of their coarse-weave trousers, was even used to stud the leather soles of their sandals! But silver was far less in evidence. Jazz had seen arrows and the bolts of crossbows tipped with it, but never a sign of the stuff used for decoration. In this world, he would in time discover, it was far more precious than gold. Not least for its effect on vampires.
But the Travellers puzzled Jazz. He found strange, basic anomalies in them beyond his understanding. For example: it seemed to him that in many ways their world was very nearly primal, and yet the Travellers themselves were anything but primitive. Though he'd not yet seen an actual Gypsy caravan here, he knew that they existed; he'd observed a small boy of four or five years, sitting on a loaded, jouncing travois, playing with a rough wooden model. Between its shafts a pair of creatures like overgrown, shaggy sheep, also carved of wood, strained in their tiny harnesses of leather. So they had the wheel, these people, and beasts of burden; even though none were in evidence here. They could work metals, and with their use of the crossbow their weaponry could hardly be considered crude. Indeed, in almost every respect it was seen that theirs was a sophisticated culture. But on the other hand it was hard to see how, in this environment, they'd achieved any degree of culture at all!
As for the 'tribe' Jazz had expected to see, so far there were no more than sixty Travellers in all: Arlek's party (now fully accepted back into the common body) and Lardis's companions, plus a handful of family groups which had been waiting in a stand of trees to join up with Lardis at the Sunside exit from the pass and head west with him through the foothills. And all of these people going on foot, with the exception of one old woman who lay in a pile of furs upon a travois, and two or three young children who travelled in a similar fashion.
Jazz had studied their faces, taking note of the way they'd every so often turn their heads and stare suspiciously at the sun floating over the southern horizon. Zek had told Jazz that true night was a good forty-five hours away; but still there was an unspoken anxiety, a straining, in the faces of the Travellers, and Jazz believed he knew why. It was that they silently willed themselves westward, desiring only to put distance between themselves and the pass before sundown. And because they knew this world, while Jazz was a newcomer, he found himself growing anxious along with them, and adding his will to theirs.
Keeping his fear to himself, he'd asked Zek: 'Where is everyone? I mean, don't tell me this is the entire tribe!'
'No,' she'd told him, shaking her damp hair about her shoulders, 'only a fraction of it. Traveller tribes don't go about en masse. It's what Lardis calls "survival". There are two more large encampments up ahead. One about forty miles from here, the other twenty-five miles beyond that at the first sanctuary. The sanctuary is a cavern system in a huge outcrop of rock. The entire tribe can disappear inside it, spread out, make themselves thin on the ground. Hard for the Wamphyri to winkle them out. That's where we're heading. We hole up there for the long night.'
'Seventy miles?' he frowned at her. 'Before dark?' He glanced at the sun again, so low in the sky. 'You're joking!'
'Sundown is still a long way off,' she reminded him yet again. 'You can stare at the sun till you go blind, but you won't see it dip much. It's a slow process.'
'Well, thank goodness for that,' he said, nodding his relief.
'Lardis intends to cover fifteen miles between breaks,' she went on, 'but he's tired, too, probably more than we are. The first break will be soon, for he knows we all need to get some sleep. The wolves will keep watch. The break will be of three hours' duration — no more than that. So for every six hours' travel we get a three-hour break. Nine hours to cover fifteen miles. It sounds easy but in fact it's back-breaking. They're used to it but it will probably cripple you. Until you're into the swing of it, anyway.'
Even as she finished speaking Lardis called a halt. He was up front but his bull voice carried back to them: 'Eat, drink,' he advised, 'then sleep.'
The Travellers trudged to a halt, Zek and Jazz with them. She unrolled her sleeping-bag, told Jazz: 'Get yourself a blanket of furs from one of the travois. They carry spares. Someone will come round with bread, water, a little meat.' Then she flattened a patch of bracken, shook out her bed on top of it and climbed in. She pulled the zipper half-way shut from bottom to top. Jazz lit her a cigarette and went to find himself a blanket.
When he too lay down close by, food had already been brought for them. While they ate he admitted: 'I'm excited as a kid! I'll never get to sleep. My brain's far too active. There's so much to take in.'
'You'll sleep,' she answered.
>
'Maybe you should tell me a story,' he said, lying back. 'Your story?'
The story of my life?' she gave him a wan smile.
'No, just the bit you've lived since you came here. Not very romantic, I know, but the more I learn about this place the better. As Lardis might say, it's a matter of survival. Now that we know about this Dweller — who apparently has a season ticket to Berlin — survival seems so much more desirable. Or more correctly, more feasible!'
'You're right,' she said, making herself more comfortable. 'There have been times when I've just about given up hope, but now I'm glad I didn't. You want to hear my story? All right then, Jazz, this is how it was for me…'
She began to talk, low, even-voiced, and as she got into the story so she fell into the dramatic, colourful style of the Travellers — and of the Wamphyri themselves, for that matter. Being a telepath, their manner and modes of expression had impressed themselves upon her that much more quickly, until now they were second nature. Jazz listened, let her words flow, conjured from them the feel and the fear of her story…
15. Zek's Story
'I came through the Gate kitted-up just like you,' Zek commenced her tale, 'but I wasn't as big or as strong as you are. I couldn't carry as much. And I was dog-tired…
'It was night on Starside when I arrived — which is to say I didn't stand a chance! But of course I didn't know what my chances were, not then — or I might simply have put a bullet through my brain and that would have been the end of that.
'I came through the Gate, climbed down from the crater rim, saw what was waiting for me. And nothing I could do but face it, for there was no way back. Oh, you can believe that before I climbed down I threw myself at the sphere in a last desperate attempt to escape; but it just stood there, pouring out its white light, implacable and impenetrable as a dome of luminous rock.
'But if the sight of Them waiting there had scared me, my exit from the Gate had not been without its own effect upon them. They didn't know what to make of me. In fact they weren't "waiting for me" at all — they were there, at the Gate, on business of their own — but I didn't find that out until later. The whole thing is a blur in my mind now, like a bad dream gradually fading. It's hard to describe how it was, how it felt. But I'll try.