Frejah said: ‘All right – if you ask the mutability specialists they will tell you it is a natural phenomenon, not a science. They say mutability is best understood as existing somewhere between quantum physics and psychology. That means two kinds of perception, outer and inner, both of which are difficult to grasp. What ordinary people say is that the effects of mutability are real, and also unreal. Something happens, but later you only think it happened. That doesn’t help much either, but at least I can follow it.’

‘It still doesn’t make sense.’

‘That’s what I’m trying to say. Mutability makes physical changes. Most of them are minor changes, not even noticed, but others can be drastic. You can see the changes, be affected by them, but afterwards you can’t be sure they happened. What the hotel worries about is the safety of their guests, because they lose their licence if they fail. A mutability event could change the physical shape of the whole building. The room doors might warp and not be openable, or there could be an electrical fault and a fire, or a flood. The building would become unsafe. That’s why they have extensive precautions. In time, the mutability would stop, things return to normal, and the people involved would start questioning if the event had really happened.

‘About a month ago, there was a serious mutability event in Dearth City. The people who monitor the phenomenon warned that one of the mountains on the outskirts of the city was about to undergo a change of dimensions. Because of the snow coverage, this meant there would be an increased risk of avalanches. It’s happened before. People living in the affected zone were evacuated from their homes, roads were closed and the rescue services were put on alert. Twenty of my officers were involved in that.’

‘A change of dimensions?’ I said, incredulously. ‘You mean the mountain physically changed size?’

‘It changed shape as well. Within a few hours a major avalanche and landslide came down. Three people were reportedly killed. Two of my officers narrowly avoided being overwhelmed. The event was filmed, shown on television. You can find the footage on the internet. My officers were working with the mountain rescue people, and they had cameras monitoring the gully where it began. There’s no doubt it happened.’

I said: ‘How can a mountain change shape? That’s unbelievable! I mean – the avalanche would have been a real event, but not for that reason.’

‘The gully was in an area of the mountain which had developed a measurable bulge. It was surveyed from the air – the survey was still going on when the slip started.’

I said nothing more, it being a subject about which I had zero knowledge, and, in fact, had even less belief. I doubted what I heard. Frejah sounded serious, though.