‘That was my line of reasoning, too.’ Harry admitted, ‘ – until recently. But you and me, why, don’t we both contradict that very fact?’
‘Eh? How’s that?’
‘The Mobius Continuum,’ Harry answered, by way of explanation. ‘You yourself admit that it’s a purely metaphysical plane, not of this universe. Step into the Mobius Continuum and you step out of the three mundane dimensions. The Mobius Continuum not only transcends the three dimensions of mundane space but time also, and runs parallel to all of them! And what of a black hole?’
‘What of it?’ (Mobius’s mental shrug.)
‘Well, isn’t a black hole an exit from this universe? That’s how they’ve always been explained to me: a focus of gravity so great that space and time themselves are drawn into the whorl. And if they are exits from the here and now, then where the hell do they lead?’
To another part of the universe,’ Mobius answered. That seems the only likely explanation to me. Mind you, I haven’t really looked at black holes yet. I have them scheduled, though.’
‘Are you missing the point or deliberately avoiding it?’ Harry wanted to know. This is my question: if a black hole goes somewhere, emerging maybe light-years away, what of the space in between? Where is the material which is drawn into the hole, between its disappearing and its reappearing? You see, to me this all seems very much like our Mobius Continuum.’
‘Go on,’ Mobius was fascinated.
‘OK,’ said Harry, ‘let’s look at it this way. First we have the … let’s call it the mundane universe. And we’ll say it looks like this:’
He showed Mobius a mental diagram.
‘Why the bends?’ the mathematician was immediately curious.
‘Because without them it would just be a pair of straight lines,’ Harry told him. ‘The bends give it definition, make it look like something.’
‘Like a ribbon?’
‘For the purpose of the exercise, why not? For all I know it could be a circle, or maybe a sphere. But this way we can envisage a past and a future, too.’
‘Very well,’ Mobius conceded.
‘Now in this diagram of the universe,’ Harry went on, ‘we can’t go from “A” to “B” without crossing the edge. We can go up the ribbon from “A” to the edge, then down to “B”. Or down to the edge and up, it makes no difference. The edge represents the distance between “A” and “B”, right?’
‘Agreed,’ said the other.
‘Now this is how I see the Mobius Continuum,’ said Harry:
And he continued: ‘It’s the ribbon universe we know with the half-twist of your Mobius strip. “Now” has turned through ninety degrees to become “forever”. Which means that “A” and “B” are now on the same plane. We no longer have to cross the edge. We can go from one to the other instantaneously – “now”!’
‘Go on,’ said Mobius again, but much more thoughtfully.
‘Previously we’ve thought of it like this:’ said Harry. ‘Like . . . like putting on a pair of seven-league boots and striding to our destinations in seconds. Covering distances that should take hours in minutes. But I’ve checked it out and it’s not like that. In fact we go there instantaneously -accordingly to Earth-time, anyway. It’s not simply that we go there faster, but that the space in between actually disappears!’
After a little while Mobius said, ‘I think I understand. What you want to know is this: if for us the space between “A” and “B” reduces to zero – if it disappears – ‘
‘Exactly!’ Harry cut in. ‘Where does it go to?’
‘But it’s an illusion,’ Mobius cried. ‘It’s still there. It’s we who have disappeared – into the Mobius Continuum, as you insist upon calling it!’
‘Now we’re getting somewhere,’ Harry took a deep breath. ‘You see, the way I see it, the Mobius Continuum is no-man’s-land, it’s limbo, it’s the middle ground between universes. “Universes” – plural! It has doors to the past, the future, and to every point in present time. Using it, we can go every-where and -when – or at least I can, because I still have a life-thread to follow. But the point I’m trying to make is this: I believe there may be other doors which we haven’t found yet. We don’t have the equations for them. And I believe that one of those doors, when I find it, will – ‘