‘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.’