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We had anthropomorphic shapes but we didn't call them thatbecause we had never seen our shapes in material form. We knew ourlimbs, our heads, our faces, our forms, and a species of movementwhich is purely celestial, but which organizes all parts of us inconcert, fluidly. But we knew nothing of Matter or material form. ThenGod created the Universe and Time.
"Well, we were astonished, and we were also enthralled! Absolutelyenthralled.
"God said to us, 'Watch this, because this will be beautiful andwill exceed your conceptions and expectations, as it will Mine.' ""God said this.""Yes, to me and the other angels. Watch. And if you go back toscripture in various forms, you will find that one of the earliest termsused for us, the angels, is the Watchers.""Oh, yes, in Enoch and in many Hebrew texts.""Right. And look to the other religions of the world, whosesymbols and language are less familiar to you, and you will see acosmology of similar beings, an early race of godlike creatures wholooked over or preceded human beings. It's all garbled, but in away梚t's all there. We were the witnesses of God's Creation. Wepreceded it, and therefore did not witness our own. But we werethere when He made the stars!""Are you saying that these other religions, that they contain thesame validity as the religion to which we are obviously referring? Weare speaking of God and Our Lord as though we were EuropeanCatholics?
"It's all garbled, in countless texts throughout the world. Thereare texts which are irretrievable now which contained amazinglyaccurate information about cosmology; and there are texts that menknow; and there are texts that have been forgotten but which can berediscovered in time.""Ah, in time.""It's all essentially the same story. But listen to my point of viewon it and you will have no difficulty reconciling it with your ownpoints of reference, and the symbology which speaks more clearly toyou.""But the validity of other religions! You're saying that the being Isaw in Heaven wasn't Christ.""I didn't say that. As a matter of fact, I said that He was GodIncarnate. Wait till we get to that point!"We had come out of the forest and stood now on what seemed theedge of a veldt. For the first time I caught sight of the humans whosescent had been distracting me梐 very distant band of scantilyclothed nomads moving steadily through the grass. There must havebeen thirty of them, perhaps less.
"And the Ice Age is yet to come," I repeated. I turned round andround, trying to absorb and memorize the details of the enormoustrees. But even as I did so, I realized the forest had changed.
"But look carefully at the human beings," he said. "Look." Hepointed. "What do you see?"I narrowed my eyes and called upon my vampiric powers toobserve more closely. "Men and women, who look very similar to thoseof today. Yes, I would say this is Homo sapiens sapiens. I would say,they are our species.""Exactly. What do you notice about their faces?""That they have distinct expressions that seem entirely modern,at least readable to a modern mind. Some are frowning; some aretalking; one or two seem deep in thought. The shaggy-haired manlagging behind, he seems unhappy. And the woman, the woman withthe huge breasts梐re you sure she can't see us?""She can't. She's merely looking in this direction. What differentiatesher from the men?""Well, her breasts, clearly, and the fact that she is beardless. Themen have beards. Her hair is longer of course, and well, she's pretty;she's delicate of bone; she's feminine. She isn't carrying an infant, butthe others are. She must be the youngest, or one who hasn't givenbirth."He nodded.
It did seem that she could see us. She was narrowing her gaze as Idid mine. Her face was longish, oval, what an archaeologist wouldcall Cro-Magnon; there was nothing apelike about her, or about herkin. She wasn't fair, however, her skin was dark golden, rather likethat of the Semitic or Arab peoples, like His skin in Heaven Above.
Her dark hair lifted exquisitely in the wind as she turned and movedforward.
"These people are all naked."Memnoch gave a short laugh.
We moved back into the forest; the veldt vanished. The air wasthick and moist and fragrant around us.
Towering over us were immense conifers and ferns. Never had Iseen ferns of this size, their monstrous fronds bigger by far than theblades of banana trees, and as for the conifers, I could only comparethem to the great, barbaric redwoods of the western Californiaforests trees which have always made me feel alone and afraid.
He continued to lead us, oblivious to this swarming tropical junglethrough which we made our way. Things slithered past us; therewere muted roars in the distance. The earth itself was layered overwith green growth, velvety, ruckled, and sometimes seemingly withliving rocks!
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