He passed through the door – into a hell of physical and mental agony!
When Harry regained consciousness he was adrift in the Mobius Continuum, apparently in motion through a region of the continuum which was new to him. His body and his psyche both felt badly battered, and that sixth sense of Harry’s which was usually sharp as a razor felt tarnished and dull. Not without a deal of effort, he formed the mental equations and conjured a door; it opened on deep voids of space shot with stars in alien constellations. He closed the door at once and groped for others.
He found a door on future-time and peered through it. No blue life-threads raced into the future here, only his own, which bent violently aside beyond the door to disappear at right-angles to Harry’s viewpoint. The past was equally hostile: indeed there seemed to be no past in this place, just an ocean of interminable, impersonal stars. The lack of human activity, of even traces of activity, reinforced Harry’s opinion that he had been blown off-track and had left the mundane world of men far behind.
Beginning to panic, he tried one last door – and gazed out on the surface of a roaring furnace star! He closed that door, too, then forced himself into a state of calm, a condition in which he might at least apply a little reason to the problem. He was lost, yes, but what is lost can be found again. He didn’t know where he was or how he had got here, true, but since he had come here there must be a way back. Except . . . space is a big place and Harry Keogh felt like an exceedingly tiny mote in the eye of the infinite.
Then-
Harry? whispered a familiar, distant voice in his mind. I thought I recognized you! The voice sped closer, rapidly grew stronger. But what’s this? Are you trespassing?
‘Mobius! Thank God!’ said Harry.
God? That’s outside my line of research, Harry, Mobius told him. I prefer to thank my equations, if it’s all the same to you. Though I suppose it could be argued that they are one and the same!
‘How come you’re out here?’ Harry was calmer now. ‘Wherever “here” is.’
Here is in the constellation of Orion, Mobius answered. And the point is, what are you doing out here?
Harry explained.
Hmm! Mobius mused. Well, first let’s get you home again, and then we’ll see if we can find an explanation for what’s happened. If you’ll just follow me . . .
Harry stayed with Mobius, sped with him homeward, materialized in the Leipzig graveyard. It was evening, which told him he’d spent an entire day (or possibly two?) in the Mobius Continuum. In the grey, wintry light of the graveyard, Harry blinked, staggered; his legs wouldn’t hold him up, so he sat down on the gravel beside Mobius’s marker.
You could do with a good long rest, my boy! Mobius told him.
‘You’re right,’ Harry agreed. ‘But first I’d like to know if you can explain what happened to me.’
I think 1 can, yes, said the mathematician. You yourself have likened my strip dimension to a parallel plane, and this gate at Perchorsk leads to another; they are both gates between planes of existence. Both are negative conditions, blemishes on the perfect surface of normal space-time. Now: take two magnets and push their negative poles together, and what happens?
‘They repel one another,’ Harry shrugged.
Exactly. And so does the gate and the doors which you create in your mind. But the Perchorsk Gate is stronger, and so the repulsion is that much more fierce. When you used that door close to this sphere gateway, you were hurled across the Mobius Continuum like a shot from a gun! Your equations were warped out of focus; your body underwent stresses it could never hope to survive in the physical world; in three-dimensioned space you would have died instantly! The continuum itself saved you, because it is infinitely resilient. Lesson: you may not impose your metaphysical self upon the Gate. Go through it as a man, by all means, if you must; but never again attempt entry using the Mobius Continuum.