lecture

“…previous lecture, a topological space T is ‘Hauwitzer’ if each distinct point has a disjoint neighbourhood around it. If you can pick 2 distinct points, but can’t give them nonoverlapping neighbourhoods, they’re not. A few examples: the empty topology is vacuously Hauwitzer; the real number line, with standard topology, is Hauwitzer, as is N, Q, products thereof…”

Nonsense. Absolute nonsense. Abstract nonsense. These academics, playing with their letter numbers and number letters, having the means to make things better but wasting their time. And they wanted to waste her time with this.

“Saw you watching. You have intense eyes,” said Vincent, upon completion.

“Yeah. They’re my mother’s.” That was a lie, they were her father’s. There wasn’t even a reason to lie. Maybe she misspoke. Maybe she’s a bad person.

“What’d you think?” said Vincent.

“What’s a set?”

“Uh… a mathematical primitive. An object such that one can ask if another set is contained in it.”

“Oh, that explains everything, then. I didn’t understand anything, but with that, it all slots into place.”

“I’m glad. I try to be clear.” Pause. “Sarcasm. You are a very weird princess.”

“I’m the daughter of a king. You shouldn’t have any expectations from that.”

“But I do! That’s what being the daughter of a king means! You learn how to rule, and curtsy, and direct troops, and tell the people to build buildings!”

“I can curtsy.”

“Can I see?”

“No. And no, that’s not what being the daughter of a king means. It means they assign you an empty sliver of land to manage, inconsistently send you a stipend, and gradually forget your existence. I agree that being a princess should be more than that. That’s another thing, actually, do you have an explanation why we haven’t been invaded when we don’t have a standing army?”

“We?”

“…Yes. Brune.”

“Is Northpoint Brune?”

“Oh my god… forget it, forget it.”

Blink.

“I can flip 4D,” said Vincent, as if that made up for his not knowing basic geography (yes, Northpoint was Brune).

“Oh, cool, one of my brothers can do that, too.” Well, if he stepped into the hyperspace chest he had. And if he wasn’t dead.

“Is he a topologist?”

“No.”

Did he mean topography? Was that what the whole lecture was about? At a stretch, maybe, Quincy was a topographist. ‘Topology’ and ‘topography’ felt like another ‘psychology’ and ‘psychomancy’.

The conversation had petered out and neither of them particularly wanted to be the one to start it back up so they left.