Mick's statement was correct. The old Einstein conjecture that the space of our universe is actually curved around on itself to make a hypersphere had come back into favor. Vernor knew, every child knew, that the space of the universe was a hypersphere—just as he knew that the space of the Earth's surface was a sphere. But Vernor had not been prepared to actually see a hypersphere. He couldn't actually see it all at once, but he had been seeing it in installments as he observed the various-sized spheres in front of him. Just as a sphere is a stack of circles, a hypersphere consists of infinitely many spheres, joined to each other in some unimaginable fashion.
"Mick," Vernor said finally. "I'm ready to believe anything else you tell me if only those things out there are each the universe."
"If those are each . . . " Mick echoed. "How can each one of those different hyperspheres be the same universe?"
"They're shiny aren't they?" Vernor said. "I figure they're sort of reflections of each other. But that can wait. The real problem is how to get inside one of 'em."
"You thought throwing that shit out the hatch was going to push us into it?" Mick asked pityingly.
"You got any better ideas? Or should I bring on the analogies?"
Mick shook his head. "Let's just rest. Maybe it'll come git us. I think I could probably get myself in there, but I don't think there's anything I could do to maneuver the ship into the right position."
"Like making a disk stick to a sphere," Vernor mused. "We really should try—" he started, but broke off in a yawn. He was bone tired. They lay on the scale-ship's floor watching the fluctuating cross-section of the hypersphere.
"I bet it's helps to get into it if you're already out of it," said Mick. He lit a stick of weed and passed it across to Vernor.
"Just a second," Vernor hissed a few minutes later. "There's something different out there. Moving towards us—up there." He pointed. There was, indeed, something approaching the scale-ship from above the hypersphere. It was irregularly shaped and seemed to be moving with a sort of beating motion.
"Oh, come back tomorrow," Mick exclaimed. "It's going to be something else trying to eat us." The object drew closer. It was shaped almost like a man, but there could hardly be people floating around here . . . smaller than an atom, larger than the universe. Strangely, the object did not shrink as it approached the scale-ship . . . could it penetrate their field and devour them?
Mick gave a sudden whoop, "Hey, Professor, we're in here!"
"But can't be," Vernor moaned. "But can't be!" Sure enough, it was Professor Kurtowski. Reaching the ship he climbed in the hatch, sat down in the pilot's chair, and beamed at them.
"I'm dreaming," he offered by way of explanation. "I often come here when I get uncoupled. I was never quite sure before that this place was . . . shall we say real?"
Vernor's mouth opened and closed silently, but the resilient Turner was not at a loss for words, "Professor, is that thing there the Universe?"
"Go on in. Maybe you'll find out." Kurtowski replied.
"That's the problem. We can't get in," Vernor said, finding his voice.
"It's something you do with your head. Keeping still. Go to sleep. Sleep. Sleep." Professor Kurtowski was fading, and then he was gone, but this occasioned no outcry, as the two passengers of the scale-ship had dozed off.
After all had been quiet on the ship for some time, the ever-shifting sphere drew closer and dwindled to point-size. To an observer on the scale-ship it would have appeared now that the hypersphere had disappeared, but it had only moved "under" the ship.
Immanuel Kant called space an "ineluctable modality" of human thought, but Mick and Vernor were far gone enough to prove him wrong. All barriers were down, and the hypersphere rose to assimilate them.
Vernor snapped awake. Such a strange dream . . . first Kurtowski, then Alice, and then . . . what? There was an expanding sphere of darkness in the scale-ship with them. A darkness marbled with streamers of light . . . growing towards him. The scream stuck in Vernor's throat as he realized that they were home free.
"The Professor was right," Mick remarked. Strange, had he had the same dream? But no dream could compare with what they were witnessing now—everything, everything at once.
They were in it, filling a tenth of it. "The All," Vernor said reverently. It was alive. It was alive and glad to see them. The Universe. What did it look like? What does a head of clover look like . . . or a rock or a thumb or a moon or a microbe? Nothing's really any bigger than anything else on the Circular Scale. But still, but still, if you expect a lot, you see a lot. ZZ-74.
The patterns around Vernor told him everything there was to know. When later he tried to express his feelings during those minutes of total communication with the Universe, he could do no better than to quote Wittgenstein, "The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of the problem."
But soon this passed, as it always does, and Vernor was analyzing, differentiating, observing. They were surrounded by a three-dimensional network of light. Pulses of brightness traveled through the network, forking here, merging there. A minute ago these patterns had seemed to be part of him, invisible, but now he could only gape and wonder.
"God's brain." Mick said simply. That was it. And what thoughts were they watching, what had they left behind? The network region near them maintained an increased level of activity. It was still talking to, in, them . . . but Vernor couldn't hear it anymore.
Jolts and trains of energy rippled through the paths around them, weaving back and forth, rising and falling. Out beyond this region Vernor could see more and more of "God's brain," but it didn't go on forever. In many places there seemed to be dark clouds, but even where it was clear there was a sort of glassy barrier out beyond it all—
"Mick, see way out past all the light?" No answer.
"Out past everything. Like a glass wall. You know what that is?"
"Nuh."
"That's us!" Vernor said, happy to one-up Mick on the subtleties of life in a hypersphere. "The space is so curved that we can see clear around it to the back of our heads. Or the back of the scale-ship, anyway."
Mick grunted and turned his full attention back to the universe itself. He seemed not to want to get sucked into the scientific frame of mind. He was right. Once again, Vernor let his attention drift out into the friendly being around them. He found himself praying.
"One size fits all," Mick said presently, and Vernor nodded agreement. On earth as it is in heaven. As above, so below.
But the zest for observation returned, and yet again Vernor sorted his Self out into subject and object, scientist and phenomenon.
They had been shrinking all this time, and the nodes at the intersections of the network had resolved themselves into clouds of bright particles darting around exceptionally bright central regions.
One of the nodes had come to dominate their visual field, and they could see now that matter was continually being ejected from the bright region at the center.
"That must be a white hole," Vernor remarked. "You know, the other end of a hyperspace tunnel which starts at a black hole. Matter falls in the black end and comes out the white end, all cleaned and simplified."
"Where are the black holes?" Mick asked, suddenly brought down. "I'm not too eager to get my matter cleaned."
"It's kind of hard to see them," Vernor answered. They were quiet for a few minutes. The shrinking was proceeding at a good rate and the node in front of them covered most of their visual field now.
"Where do you think the Milky Way is?" Mick asked.
"Well," Vernor replied, "we probably have to go down a few more levels to get to the galaxy level. I imagine it's going to end up being inside one of those bright spots . . . according to my theory we should contract right down into—"
There was something wrong. The light from the objects ahead of them was suddenly getting bluer, brighter. The brightened lights seemed to be rushing in on them faster than before. It was as if the whole universe was somehow hurrying around to get in front of them; leaving only a terrible, hungry darkness behind the scale-ship.
A deep humming from the ship's tensegrity sphere entered the range of audibility. An incredible force was pressing on them; the very air began to sputter, filled with an unheard of energy density.
Without saying anything, Mick and Vernor realized together that they were indeed being sucked into a black hole. There was no way that their Virtual Field could protect them from the real and unlimited forces which they would encounter deeper in this terrible whirlpool of space-time.
There was only one possible means of escape, and Mick thought of it. He went quickly to the control panel and turned off the VFG field. If they were not yet past the black hole's lip, they might still snap back around the curve of Circular Scale to their original size and location.
For an instant there was a charged equilibrium between the expansive force of the suddenly released space of the scale-ship and the contracting force of the black hole's gravitational field. Then, with the sound of all of Frank Zappa's songs played at top volume at the same time, the last minute of their trip was over.