The abrupt change of subject bewildered Harry. 'Nine teen seventy-seven,' he answered.
'Really?' (Astonishment.) 'As long as that? Well, well! And so you see for yourself, Harry, that I've been lying here for more than a hundred years. But do you think I've been idle? Not a bit of it! Numbers, my boy, the ultimate answer to all the riddles of the universe. Space and its curvature and qualities and properties — properties still largely unimagined, I imagine, in the world of the living. Except I don't have to imagine, for I know! But explain it? Are you a mathematician, Harry?'
'I know a little.'
'Astronomy?'
Reluctantly, Harry shook his head.
'What is your understanding of science — of SCIENCE,
that is. Your understanding of the physical, the material, and the conjectural universe?'
Again Harry shook his head.
'Can you understand any of… this — ' and a stream of symbols and equations and calculi flashed up on the screen of Harry's mind, each item in its turn more complex than the last. Some of it he recognised from talks with James Gordon Hannant, some he knew through intuition, but most of it was completely alien.
'It's all… pretty difficult,' he finally said.
'Hmm!' (The slow nod of a phantom head.) 'But on the other hand… you do have intuition. Yes, and I believe it's strong in you! I suppose I could always teach you, Harry.'
Teach me? Mathematics? Something you worked on all your life and for a hundred years since that life ended? Now who's talking twaddle? It would take me at least as long as it has taken you! Incidentally, what's a Zollnerist?'
'J. K. F. Zollner was a mathematician and astronomer — God help us! — who outlived me. He was also a crank and a spiritualist. To him numbers were "magickal"! Did I call you a Zollnerist? Unpardonable! You must forgive me. Actually, he wasn't far wrong. His topology was wrong, that's all. He tried to impose the unphysical — or mental universe — on the physical one. And that doesn't work. Space-time is a constant, fixed and immutable as pi.'
That doesn't leave much room for metaphysics,' said Harry, certain by now that he'd come to the wrong place.
'No room at all,' Mobius agreed.
Telepathy?'
Twaddle!'
'What's this, then? What am I doing right now?'
Mobius was a little taken aback. But then: 'Necroscopy, or so I'm given to believe.'
'That's picking nits,' said Harry. 'What about clairvoyancy, or far-sightedness: the ability to view events at a great distance through the medium of the mind alone?'
'In the physical world, impossible. You would perpetuate Zollner's errors.'
'But I know these things can be done,' Harry contradicted. 'I know where there are people who do them. Not all the time, never easily or with any great accuracy, but occasionally. It is a new science, and it requires intuition.'
After another pause Mobius said, 'Again I'm tempted to believe you. What point would there be in your lying to me? Man's knowledge — of all things — increases all the time. And after all, I can do it! But then, I'm not of the physical world. Not any longer…'
Harry's head whirled. 'You can do it? Are you telling me that you can scry out distant events?'
'I see them, yes,' said Mobius, 'but not through any crystal ball. Nor are they strictly distant. Distance is relative. I go there. I go where the events I wish to watch are scheduled to occur.'
'But… where do you go? How?'
'"How" is the difficult bit,' said Mobius. 'Where is far easier. Harry, in life I wasn't only a mathematician but also an astronomer. After I died, naturally I was restricted to maths. But astronomy was in me; it was part of me; it would not let me be. And everything comes to those who wait. As time passed I began to feel the stars shining down on me, through the day as well as the night. I became aware of their weight — their mass, if you like — their great distance, the distances between them. Soon I knew far more about them than ever I had known in life, and then I determined to go and see them for myself. When you came to me I was calculating the magnitude of a nova soon to occur in Andromeda, and I shall be there
to see it happen! Why not? I am unbodied. The laws of the physical universe no longer apply.'
'But you've just denied the metaphysical,' Harry pro tested. 'And now you're saying you can teleport to the stars!'
Teleportation? No, for nothing physical is moved. As I keep telling you, Harry, I am not a physical thing. There may well be a so-called "metaphysical" universe, but neither the real nor the unreal may impose itself upon the other.'
'Or so you believed until you met me!' said Harry, his strange eyes opening wider, his voice full of a new awe. For suddenly a bright star was shining in Harry's mind, but shining brighter than any nova in the mind of Mobius.
'What? What's that?'
'Are you saying,' Harry became relentless, 'that there is no meeting point between the physical and the metaphysical? Is that your argument?' 'Exactly!'
'And yet I am physical, and you are purely mental — and we have met!
He sensed the other's gape. 'Astonishing! It seems I've overlooked the obvious.'
Harry pressed his advantage: 'You use the strip, don't you, to go out amongst the stars?'
'The strip? I use a variant of it, yes, but — '
'And you called me a Zollnerist?'
For a moment Mobius was speechless. Then: 'It seems my arguments… no longer apply!'
'You do teleport!' said Harry. 'You teleport pure mind. You're a scryer. That's your talent, sir! In a way it always was. Even in life you could-see things that others were blind to. The strip is a perfect example. Well, scrying in itself would be a marvellous weapon, but I want to take it a step farther. I want to impose — I mean rigidly impose — the physical me on the metaphysical universe.'
'Please, Harry, not so fast!' Mobius protested. 'I need to-'
'Sir, you offered to teach me,' Harry couldn't be restrained. 'Well, I accept. But only teach me what's absolutely necessary. Let my instinct, my intuition do the rest. My mind's a blackboard, and you've got the chalk right there in your hand. So go ahead, teach me…
Teach me how to ride your Mobius strip!'
It was night again and Dragosani had climbed back into the cruciform hills. Across his back he carried a second ewe, this one stunned with a large stone. The day had been a busy one, but its proceeds must surely show a profit; Max Batu had had the chance to display yet again the morbid power of his evil eye, this time to one Ladislau Giresci; eventually the old man would be found in his lonely house, 'victim of a heart attack', of course.
But Max's work had not stopped there, for only an hour or so ago Dragosani had sent the Mongolian out upon another crucial mission; which meant that the necromancer was now alone — or to all intents and purposes alone — as he approached the tomb of the vampire and sent his words and thoughts before him to penetrate the cold gloom beneath dark and stirless trees.
'Thibor, are you sleeping? I'm here as directed. The stars are bright and the night chill, and the moon is creeping on the hills. This is the hour, Thibor — for both of us.'
And after a moment: Ahhhh! … Dragosaaaniiti? Sleeping? I suppose I was. But I have slept a grand sleep, Dragosani. The sleep of the undead. And I dreamed a grand dream — of conquest and of empire! And for once my hard bed was soft as the breasts of a lover, and these old, old bones were not weighed down but buoyant as the step of a lad when he meets his lass. A grand dream, aye, but… alas, only a dream for all that.
Dragosani sensed… despondency? Alarmed for his plan, he asked: 'Is anything wrong?'
On the contrary. All goes well, my son — except I fear it may take a little longer than I thought. I took strength from your offering of yestereve, indeed I did! — and I fancy I've even put on a little flesh. But still the ground is hard and these old sinews of mine stiff from the salts of the earth…