Harry, my boy, I’m glad you’ve come, said Mobius. I’ve been doing some thinking about this conjectural parallel universe of yours.
‘It gets less conjectural all the time,’ Harry told him. ‘Only its nature is conjectural now.’ And he quickly brought the dead mathematician up to date.
Fascinating! said Mobius. And indeed it confirms my own thoughts on the matter.
‘Well, I have to admit it only baffles me,’ said Harry. There is light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak, but … I mean if there are two gates on this side, why does there only appear to be one on the other?’
Only one? What makes you say that?
‘Faethor talked about a shining white door in the shape of a sphere. One door. If there’d been two, wouldn’t Old Belos have mentioned the fact?’
Well, whether he did or didn’t, there are two, I assure you. Mobius sounded convinced. Two on this side, and two on that. I can explain the principle very simply, without going into a lot of mathematical detail.
‘I’m all ears,’ said Harry.
Right, Mobius got down to business. Let’s consider these ‘gateways’ a little less intensely, a little more basically. These ‘doors’ which defy the physical laws of that state which we call space-time. We know there are several sorts, and that all of them warp the ‘skin’ of this space-time dimension. Modern scientists readily admit of one such: the black hole. And they make guesses about another sort, which they’ve termed white holes. In fact a current theory has it that white and black holes are two ends of the same tunnel. The black sucks material in, and the white expels it. Agreed?
Harry nodded. ‘So I understand,’ he said.
Very well. Now, even if the theory is wrong and they’re not two sides of the same coin, there remains one factor common to both.
‘Which is?’
That they’re both one-way systems.’ Once you enter a black hole, you don’t get out again. And once you’ve been expelled from a white hole, there’s no way back in. The way I see it, the same thing applies to your grey holes: this Gate at Perchorsk, and the second Gate which you believe lies somewhere along the course of this underground river.
‘One-way systems?’
Each of them! Emphasis on ‘each’. You go in through one, and you come out through the other!
It stopped Harry dead in his tracks. Finally he said: That’s brilliant! Once you use a Gate, it’s out of bounds. Having passed you through, it won’t accept you again, no matter which end you started out from. But a second gate will! So all I have to do is find the second Gate. In fact, I already know where it is! It’s the Gate the Wamphyri have been using to send their monstrosities through to Perchorsk.’
Ah, but that’s what it is, not where it is, said Mobius.
‘It’s a step in the right direction, anyway,’ Harry replied. Then he sobered a little. There is however one small drawback. If I come through that Gate into Perchorsk, they’ll not only shoot me, they’ll probably fry me, too!’
Ah-! but here Mobius could only shrug.
Thanks, anyway,’ said Harry. ‘You’ve confirmed what I was already suspecting: that there have to be two Gates. The Wamphyri have been using one for thousands of years, and now they’ve started using the new one, which Luchov and his crowd inadvertently blasted into being at Perchorsk. It’s the only explanation. So … if you’ll excuse me now I’ll be on my way. I have to say goodbye to my mother. She’d never forgive me if I did something like this without telling her.’ He sighed. ‘She’ll want to try to talk me out of it – even knowing she can’t. But . . . she’s like that.’
All mothers are like that, Harry, said Mobius, very seriously. Good luck, my boy.
But in fact, luck would have very little to do with it…
The next morning Darcy Clarke met Harry at E-Branch HQ in London, and while Harry checked his equipment, making sure he knew how to use it, Clarke took the opportunity to pass on a little information.