|
I was aware of a rather cool breeze suddenly, and glanced over myshoulder. The veldt and the humans were long gone. The shadowyferns rose so thickly behind us that it took me a moment to realizethat rain was falling from the sky, high above, striking the topmostgreenery and only touching us with its soft, soothing sound.
There had been no humans in this forest ever, that was certain,but what manner of monsters were there, which might step from theshadows?
"Now," Memnoch said, easily moving aside the dense foliagewith his right arm as we continued to walk. "Let me get to thespecifics, or what I have organized into the Thirteen Revelationsof Evolution as the angels perceived them and discussed them with God.
Understand, throughout we will speak of this world only梡lanets,stars, other galaxies, these have nothing to do with our discussion.""You mean, we are the only life in the entire universe.""I mean my world and my heaven and my God are all that Iknow.""I see.""As I told you, we witnessed complex geological processes; we sawthe mountains rise, we saw the seas created, we saw the continentsshift. Our anthems of praise and wonder were endless. You cannotimagine the singing in Heaven; you heard a mere taste of it in aHeaven filled with human souls. Then we were only the celestialchoirs, and each new development prompted its psalms and canticles.
The sound was different. Not better, no, but not the same.
"Meantime, we were very busy, descending into the atmosphereof earth, oblivious to its composition, and losing ourselves incontemplation of various details. The minutiae of life involved a demandon our focus which did not exist in the celestial realm.""You mean everything there was large and clear.""Precisely and fully illuminated, the Love of God was in no wayenhanced or enlarged or complicated by any question of tiny details."We had come now to a waterfall, thin, fierce, and descending intoa bubbling pool. I stood for a moment, refreshed by the mist of wateron my face and hands. Memnoch seemed to enjoy the same.
For the first time I realized his feet were bare. He let his foot slipinto the water itself, and watched the water swirl around his toes.
The nails of his toes were ivory, perfectly trimmed.
As he looked down into the churning, bubbling water, his wingsbecame visible, rising straight up suddenly to great peaks above him,and I could see the moisture glittering as it coated the feathers.
There was a commotion; the wings appeared to close, exactly likethose of a bird, and to fold back behind him, and then to disappear.
"Imagine now," he said, "the legions of angels, the multitudes ofall ranks梐nd there are ranks梒oming down to this earth to fall inlove with something as simple as the bubbling water we see before usor the changing color of sunlight as it pierces the gases surroundingthe planet itself.""Was it more interesting than Heaven?""Yes. One has to say yes. Of course, on reentry, one feels completesatisfaction in Heaven, especially if God is pleased; but thelonging returns, the innate curiosity, thoughts seemed to collect insideour minds. We became aware of having a mind in this fashion,but let me move on to the Thirteen Revelations.
"The First Revelation was the change of inorganic molecules toorganic molecules .. . from rock to tiny living molecule, so to speak.
Forget this forest. It didn't exist then. But look to the pool. It was inpools such as this, caught in the hands of the mountain, warm, andbusy, and full of gases from the furnaces of the earth, that such thingsstarted梩he first organic molecules appeared.
"A clamour rose to Heaven. 'Lord, look what Matter has done.'
And the Almighty gave His usual beaming smile of approval. 'Waitand Watch,' He said again, and as we watched, there came theSecond Revelation: Molecules commenced to organize themselves intothree forms of Material: cells, enzymes, and genes. Indeed, no soonerhad the one-celled form of such things appeared than themulticellular forms began to appear; and what we had divined with the firstorganic molecules was now fully apparent; some spark of lifeanimated these things; they had a crude form of purpose, and it was as ifwe could see that spark of life and recognize it as a tiny, tiny evidenceof the essence of life which we in abundance possessed!
"In sum, the world was full of commotion of a new kind altogether;and as we watched these tiny multicelled beings drift throughwater, collecting to form the most primitive algae, or fungi, we sawthese green living things then take hold upon the land itself! Out ofthe water climbed the slime which had clung for millions of years toits shores. And from these creeping green things sprang the ferns andthe conifers which you see around us, rising finally until they attainedmassive size.
84/163 首页 上一页 82 83 84 85 86 87 下一页 尾页
|
