The Source by Brian Lumley

‘ – 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 make 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:

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