Necroscope

yours?'

Harry showed him a mental projection of the Mobius strip. 'It's this,' he said. 'It's what ties the futures of my quarry and myself together.'

Now the other was interested. Topology in the time dimension? That leads to all sorts of interesting questions. Are you talking about your probable futures or your actual futures? Have you spoken to Gauss? He's the one for probability — and topology, for that matter. Gauss was a master when I was a mere student — albeit a brilliant student!'

'Actual,' said Harry. 'Our actual futures.'

'But that is to presuppose that you know something of the future in the first place. And is precognition another talent of yours, Harry?' (A little sarcasm.)

'Not mine, no, but I do have friends who occasionally' catch glimpses of the future, just as surely as I — '

Twaddle!' Mobius cut him off. 'Zollnerists all!'

' — talk to the dead.' Harry finished it anyway.

The other was silent for a moment or two. Then: Tm probably a fool… but I think I believe you. At least I believe you believe, and that you have been misled. But for the life of me I can't see how my believing in you will help you in your quest.'

'Neither can I,' said Harry dejectedly. 'Except… what about the Mobius strip? I mean, it's all I have to go on. Can't you at least explain it to me? After all, who would know more about it than you? You invented it!'

'No,' (a mental shake of the head,) 'they merely stamped my name on it. Invented it? Ridiculous! I noticed it, that's all. As for explaining it: once there was a time when that would be the very simplest thing. Now, however — '

Harry waited.

'What year is this?'

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