‘That’s perverse, Harry,’ Clarke grimaced. He still wasn’t convinced that the other meant it. The thought of the Mobius Continuum fascinated him, but it frightened him, too. ‘It’s like forcing a scared kid to take a ride on a figure-of-eight. Like bribing him to do it, with an offer he can’t refuse.’
‘It’s worse than that,’ Harry told him. ‘The kid has vertigo.’
‘But I don’t have – ‘
‘ – But you will!’ Harry promised.
Clarke blinked his eyes rapidly. ‘Is it safe? I mean, I don’t know anything about this thing you do.’
Harry shrugged. ‘But if it isn’t safe, your talent will intervene, won’t it? You know, for a man who’s protected as you are, you don’t seem to have much faith in yourself.’
‘That’s my paradox,’ Clarke admitted. ‘It’s true – I still switch off all the power before I’ll even change a light-bulb! OK, you win. How do we go about it? And . . . are you sure you know the way there? To HQ, I mean?’ Clarke was starting to panic. ‘And how do you know you can still do it, anyway? See, I – ‘
‘It’s like riding a bike,’ Harry grinned (a natural grin, Clarke was relieved to note). ‘Or swimming. Once you can do it, you can always do it. The only difference is that it’s almost impossible to teach. I had the best teacher in the world – Mobius himself – and it still took me, oh, a long time. So I won’t even try to explain. Mobius doors are everywhere, but they need fixing for a second before they can be used. I know the equations that fix them. Then … I could push you through one!’
Clarke backed away – but it was purely an instinctive reaction. It wasn’t his talent working for him.
‘Let’s dance,’ said Harry.
‘What?’ Clarke looked this way and that, as if he searched for an escape route.
‘Here,’ Harry told him, ‘take my hand. That’s right. Now put your arm round my waist. See, it’s easy.’
They began to waltz, Clarke taking mincing steps in the small study, Harry letting him lead and conjuring flickering Mobius symbols on the screen of his mind. ‘One, two-three – one, two-three – ‘ He conjured a door, said: ‘Do you come here often?’ It was the closest Harry had come to humour for a long time. Clarke thought it would be a good idea to respond in the same vein:
‘Only in the mating -‘ he breathlessly began to answer.
And Harry waltzed the pair of them through the otherwise invisible Mobius door.
‘ – S-season!’ Clarke husked. And: ‘Oh, Jesus!’
Beyond the metaphysical Mobius door lay darkness: the Primal Darkness itself, which existed before the universe began. It was a place of absolute negativity, not even a parallel plane of existence, because nothing existed here. Not under normal conditions, anyway. If there was ever a place where darkness lay upon the face of the deep, this was it. It could well be the place from which God commanded Let There Be Light, causing the physical universe to split off from this metaphysical void. For indeed the Mobius Continuum was without form, and void.
To say that Clarke was ‘staggered’ would be to severely understate his emotion; indeed, the way he felt was almost a new emotion, designed to fit a new experience. Even Harry Keogh had not felt like this when he first entered the Mobius Continuum; for he had understood it instinctively, had imagined and conjured it, whereas Clarke had been thrust into it.
There was no air, but neither was there any time, so that Clarke didn’t need to breathe. And because there was no time, there was likewise no space; there was an absence of both of these essential ingredients of any universe of matter, but Clarke did not rupture and fly apart, because there was simply nowhere to fly to.
He might have screamed, would have, except he held Harry Keogh’s hand, which was his single anchor on Sanity and Being and Humanity. He couldn’t see Harry for there was no light, but he could feel the pressure of his hand; and for the moment that was all he could feel in this awesome no-every-place.