In the morning they caught the Hellevator back to the mortal realm, careful to get off at the right stop. They didn't want to get carried on down to Hell by accident!
They emerged in Mock Hell and made their way out, ignoring the temptations on the way. They took a carpet to the rocketport—and discovered that it had been replaced by a saucerport.
I don't want to get on a saucer! Vita protested. Jolie laughed. "This one isn't going to the Moon! It should be safe enough."
The girl was not completely reassured, but didn't argue. Jolie bought a ticket by charging it to Luna's account, as she had been told to do, and the charge was accepted.
The saucer was really preferable to the rocket, because it had no need for acceleration restraints and its quarters were generous. Indeed, they sat in an easy chair and watched through a genuine window as it took off, lifting from the pavement without a jolt and sailing over the city.
A man came over. "Looking for company?" he inquired in a tone that all three of them recognized.
Jolie turned the body over to Vita. "I'm underage, vacuumhead!" she snapped.
The man moved on. It was evident that he had judged her age correctly, but hadn't been bothered by that detail. However, he did not want the kind of scene she threatened to make.
"But you know, I don't feel underage when I'm with Roque," she remarked.
It is because he respects you as a person, Orlene thought. He disagrees with the letter of the law, feeling that the maturity and discretion of those concerned should be the determinant, rather than an arbitrary figure. Your experience and judgment indicated—
"Oh, pooh! He was just too hot for me to hold back!"
That too, Jolie thought. The girl did not want reason, she wanted passion. But the Judge would never have done it for passion alone.
"Anyway, he knew one of you two would scream if you thought it was wrong," Vita concluded. "And you didn't scream, did you!"
Not loud enough, Orlene agreed, laughing.
The saucer arrived in remarkably short order. Its velocity was deceptive; without inertia, it could travel at very high velocity without seeming to.
They took another carpet to Luna's estate. Luna was there to greet them. "Tomorrow is Saturday," she said. "I will be out for the morning, but I have asked Judge Scott to look in on you. Meanwhile, I am sure you can use a good night's rest, after your extended tour."
They discovered that they were indeed tired, emotionally as much as physically. They greeted the griffins, who seemed for a moment not to recognize them, and settled down.
They were, of course, ravenous; they had seemingly spent two days without food. Actually, only the time they had spent traveling to and from the Hellevator, here in the mortal realm, counted; still, there was a psychological effect.
"One thing I must be sure you understand," Luna said. "You may have been absent longer than you thought."
Vita was in charge at the moment. "Two days," she said. "But you know, in that short time they had changed from a rocket to a saucer. It—It was okay, but we'd rather have ridden the rocket."
"Two years," Luna said gently.
"What?"
"Unless special dispensation is made, the time that a mortal spends in Purgatory differs from that of the mortal realm. It may be extended or compressed, but normally seems to be a year here for a day there. I regret I did not think to warn you before; certainly I should have."
She's right! Jolie thought. I knew that—but I forgot, because it doesn't happen to immortals. Only to mortals who go physically into Purgatory, which seldom happens. What an oversight!
What an oversight! Orlene echoed, appalled. What have we done to Vita?
"But I feel the same," Vita said.
"You are the same, dear," Luna said. "You have aged only a few hours—the time you spent in traveling—for the aging process in the Afterlife is so slow as to be meaningless in mortal terms. But the time has passed here, and you are now legally two years older."
"You mean I'm still fifteen—but the law says I'm seventeen?"
"True, Vita. You are now that much closer to the age of consent, if that is important to you."
Vita chewed on a mouthful, knowing that Luna knew her situation with the Judge, and also knowing that it must not be spoken. "So if I went back to Purgatory for another couple of days, I'd be nineteen, and—"
"And legally of age to make your own decisions, in this region of the mortal realm," Luna said with the faintest of smiles.
"Gee." Vita's notions were stirring up like the winds of a tropical storm.
They had trouble falling asleep, because of amazement over the passage of two years and horrified reflections on the recent (or was it recent?) events of the saucer-jacking and Atropos' change of personnel. So they turned on the commercial holo, and satisfied themselves that the news was indeed two years later. Then it went into a rather soupy romance, and they soon became oblivious.
In the morning, true to her word, Luna left on her errand, and they changed into something nice in anticipation of Roque's arrival. But not too nice, because Vita was determined that it not remain on her long.
There was a chime, and Vita sailed to the door. There he was, and indeed he looked a bit older. Vita didn't care. She leaped into his arms. "Oh, Roque!" she exclaimed between ardent kisses, "I didn't know it was so long! Can you forgive me?"
"Do I have a choice?"
She looked at him archly. "Have you found someone else?"
"No. It has been a legal and lonely period."
"Then you don't have a choice! Oh, my love, my honey, my grand man, I'm so sorry, I thought it was only two days, I never would have done it if I'd realized, I don't want you to suffer!" She paused. "You did suffer?"
"Horribly!"
"Then we have two years to make up in one terrific splurge of passion! Get your hands in gear—can you feel me while you're carrying me to the bedroom?"
"I can try." He picked her up, and she virtually curled around him, trying to get everything into play at once.
Talk of nymphets! Jolie thought.
One would think she was the one who had been waiting two years! Orlene agreed.
Roque staggered into the bedroom with the squirming Vita, who was kissing him all over his face and neck and shirt collar while she ran her hands around his body, pulling out his shirttail. His thinning hair was hopelessly mussed. They fell on the bed and indulged in a scramble of undressing in which Vita's hands did more feeling than Roque's did. Before it was complete, she wrapped her arms and legs around him and scrambled into the position of mergence, kissing him hungrily all the while.
"A moment."
One might have thought it impossible for either to pause at this point, but this was a peculiarly compelling presence.
They paused.
"Who the hell are you?" Vita demanded.
That's Nox, the Incarnation of Night! Jolie thought.
"True, ghost-woman" the Incarnation responded. "Orlene must assume the body."
But Vita's in the middle of— Orlene protested.
"Then I will change the form of that body to the masculine aspect." Indeed, as she spoke, the change began.
Give me the body! Orlene thought desperately.
Vita, feeling the ghost's horror, yielded the body.
Suddenly it was Orlene in conjunction with him.
"What?" Roque asked, aware of the change, and dismayed.
"It is Nox!" Orlene exclaimed. "She threatens ultimate horror! Oh, what an awful time for her to—"
"An Incarnation?" he asked. "What possible—"
"Now enter my dream." Nox said.
"She is sheer mischief!" Orlene said. "I need her help, and she makes me suffer for it! I must do what she demands!"
Then the dream surrounded them. It was chaos.
"And the Earth was without form, and void," Roque said, actually sounding relieved to be in a changed situation. "We seem to be in the beginning of things."
"I'm sorry," Orlene said. "Nox does these things. I never would have gotten you involved if I had realized—"
"What is that you hold?"
Orlene checked. She was floating separately, with a sphere in her hands. It glowed, showing a scene of swirling chaos similar to the one outside, but with a single speck amidst it. "I don't know; it just appeared. A crystal ball?"
"Let me look at it." He drifted toward her and bent to put his face close to the ball. "The scene within seems to reflect our present situation, but not quite. There are two specks, and one of them is of two children, no, two people, a man and a woman—why, that's us! Our image is in there!"
"We're locked in a crystal ball?" Orlene asked, dismayed.
"I think the ball represents the vision we are in, in the manner an inset represents the scale of the larger picture. This shows where we are." He tried to touch the ball, to turn it, but his hands passed through it without effect. "The other speck—it is hard to see—seems to be a house, enclosed by a metal fence..."
Luna's estate! Jolie thought. That's where we want to return!
Yeah, I've got pressing business there! Vita thought. We were just getting into it, when—
"Could it be Luna's estate?" Orlene inquired. "Where we wish to return?"
"Yes! Yes, that is it!" he exclaimed. "Nox is showing us where we are relative to where we wish to go. Now I see a faint line, a thread—a connection between the two. But it winds all around the globe; it is a devious path, if that is what it is."
"Nox does not yield her secrets readily," Orlene agreed grimly. "I don't know why she sought me out this time, but I am sure we had better follow her directives, or we shall be most uncomfortable."
WHAT directives? Vita demanded. There I was, just getting into it with—
That would have become awkward, if she had changed you into a man, Jolie pointed out.
She can do THAT?
She can. That's why Orlene had to take over and learn her will. It would have been difficult if you had changed while—
I got the picture! Vita thought, appalled.
"It is apparent that Incarnations are not to be taken lightly," Roque agreed. "Even those we thought did not involve themselves in current affairs."
Such as MY affair! Vita thought violently.
"But what does she want of us?" Orlene asked. "She wouldn't take this trouble with us for nothing!"
Roque considered. "She has your baby, as I understand it. Is it possible that she thought you would not succeed in meeting the requirements for redeeming your son, and when you made progress, she decided to interfere?"
Now Orlene considered. "It is possible. But I doubt it. She has only to tell me no, and I will be helpless. Instead she told me how to go about it. I don't think she wishes me ill. She may not have wanted to talk to me at first, so put the awful reverse mountain in my way, but when I won through that, she decided to help. Maybe this is her way of helping me further."
In the middle of my turn with Roque?! Vita thought indignantly.
Roque smiled. "I might question her timing, but perhaps it is so. Let's assume, then, that this is a necessary and helpful thing on her part, this isolation of us here. We must make every effort to ascertain what she wishes us to learn or experience, and to return to our starting point. This globe is certainly a hint. Presumably if we move, we shall be able to follow the line and return to the mortal realm, and resume our mortal activities."
"Nicely put," Orlene said. "But how do we move?"
"We shall have to experiment. Perhaps we can walk."
He moved his legs, but his body did not progress. "That's odd; I was able to move before."
"You didn't walk, before; you drifted."
"So I did. It was my will that moved me, not my legs.
So I shall will myself to move along that line toward our destination." He faced to the side, looking serious, but still he didn't move. "I'm afraid not."
"You moved unconsciously before," Orlene pointed out.
"So I did. But it is difficult to see how an unconscious act could be duplicated consciously." Try a sneeze! Vita thought.
That's not unconscious, that's involuntary, Jolie thought.
"Maybe—Maybe it isn't what we want, but what Nox wants," Orlene suggested. "If she wanted you to look at the crystal ball, then you could."
"Perhaps. But what does she want me to do next?"
Orlene shook her head, baffled. "I suppose we just have to keep guessing until we come across it."
"That notion bothers me. We should be able to work it out logically." He stood for a moment, thinking. "If the globe is an accurate indicator of our position—that is, if we interpret it properly—we are far from home, and must trace a convoluted route there. If the journey is not physical, it may be mental. If we form the appropriate attitudes, we may make progress—"
He broke off, for they had both seen the globe flash. But that was all; the scene inside it was unchanged.
"I think that was a yes," Orlene said after a moment.
"I agree. That certainly is progress. We must see if we can make it flash again."
"I had a ring once," Orlene said. "I gave it to my lover Norton, who named it Sning. Sning would answer questions by squeezing once for yes, twice for no, and three times if neither answer was appropriate. Do you think the crystal reacts similarly?"
"I don't think so, because it didn't flash at all before, when we were evidently not doing what the Incarnation wished. I suspect it merely remains inert unless triggered by our progress toward Nox's goal. But this remains useful; no reaction is an indication that we are not making progress."
"And when you said that our attitude was the key, it flashed," she agreed. "Does that mean we shall have to change our attitudes on—"
The globe had flashed again.
"I believe we do have the key!" Roque said. "Now we shall have to determine to which attitudes it is attuned. Legal? Social? Political?" There was no flash.
"Ethical?" Orlene supplied, with no better success.
"Practical? Mathematical?"
Sexual? Vita thought.
"Vocational?" Orlene inquired.
Religious? Jolie thought.
The globe flashed.
They looked at each other. "That was Jolie," Orlene said. "She suggested 'Religious.' That seems to be it."
"Surely she does not expect us to change our religions!"
There was no flash. "Nox is from the old order, from the dawn of time," Orlene said. "I don't think religion means much to her. Maybe the subject just happens to offer the key to what she wants us to understand." And the globe flashed.
You're getting warm! Vita thought, her interest quickening. And that bulb can hear Jolie and me too; it's pretty smart. Want me to think about how I don't think much of God because of what He let me get into? I mean, that sure didn't help my mother any, or Luna with her research, and that research was to support God!
"The crystal didn't flash," Orlene said. "It must be looking for something else."
Should I think about how the world was made in six days? Jolie thought.
The globe flashed.
"Jolie thought of the Biblical creation of the universe," Orlene explained to Roque. "So that must be—"
That's crap! Vita thought. It took millions, maybe billions of years to make the world!
The globe flashed again.
"Don't tell me, let me guess!" Roque said, growing animated. "Vita thought of science! And what Nox seeks is a resolution of the debate between Creationism and Evolution!"
The globe flickered. "You may be warm, but I think not quite there," Orlene said.
"Then let's make it broader. Does Nox seek our exploration into the nature of ultimate reality?"
This time the flash was almost blinding. He had nailed it.
"But why?" Orlene asked. "Why should Nox care what we think? She has seen it all, long since!"
"Why should anyone care what anyone else thinks?" Roque asked in return. "Why should the Incarnations care which way souls go, or whether they are separated at all? Why should God care, or Satan? I think we just have to accept as given that entities of all types do care, and that Nox is normal in this respect. She now wishes us to explore the matter of reality and come to a conclusion. Perhaps she is aware of some interesting complication that this exploration will engender, and which will amuse her. So let's start by arguing the case of Evolution. Who will support that?"
"I support it, of course," Orlene said. "Don't you?" He smiled. "You forget: I am a judge. I try to be impartial. I am not certain that the verdict is in, and in any event, it is not mine to make."
How can he be uncertain about Evolution? Vita demanded. Everyone knows it's so!
That's not true at all! Jolie protested. God created the world in six days!
"Our components disagree," Orlene said. "Vita says Evolution, while Jolie says Creation."
"Then we have our opposing views, "Roque said. "We shall have to make trial of them. When we make a decision on the matter, Nox will let us return home."
The globe flashed.
"Let me be the narrator," Roque said. "I have a fair familiarity with both theories. I suspect that since you are the one, Orlene, who wishes a favor of Nox, you must make the decisions, after hearing the arguments." The globe flashed again. "So, in effect, I am the judge who keeps order. Vita is the apologist for Evolution, Jolie is the apologist for Creationism, and you are the jury who must come to a conclusion. The faster we complete the process, the faster we shall return."
"But I'm really not an objective jury!" Orlene protested. "I already believe in Evolution!"
"But can you honestly consider the evidence for another view? Are you able to change your mind if the preponderance of the evidence suggests that you should?"
"Well, yes, of course. But I really can't see that Creationism could—"
"That's enough," Roque said. "Reserve your conclusion until you have seen the evidence from both sides." He looked at the globe. "Now, as I make it, we are at the initial stage of the universe, the void, where all is chaos. What does Creationism have to say of the first stage?"
In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth, Jolie thought.
What do you mean. God? Vita retorted. Where the Hell did God come from? Who created God?
Roque smiled. "I can see by your expression that your advocates are already mixing it up. I wonder whether we can get them to manifest separately, so that I can see and hear them, and so keep proper order?" As he spoke, the globe flashed.
We can do that? Vita asked. We can take separate form?
Apparently so, here, Jolie agreed.
But it's my body! How can I exist apart from it?
Like this. Jolie withdrew her spirit from the body. She appeared as a ghost, clarifying her form. "Now you do likewise, Vita."
I don't know if I can! But she tried—and succeeded. She emerged as a diaphanous form, translucent and vague. Gee...
"Concentrate on your form," Jolie said. "Remember, this isn't a true situation; it took me decades to master ghost form, but you should be able to do it immediately, in this vision."
The form squeezed together and assumed human outline. The mouth opened. "And can I talk too?"
"Yes, in this situation," Jolie agreed. "It's probably just your thought, but we can hear it."
"But what about my real body? I mean, how can I—"
"Perhaps Orlene can assume a different form, for this," Roque put in.
"I'll try," Orlene said, surprised. "It is strange, being the only soul in this host!" Her form changed, becoming similar to her living one.
Before long the three of them were settled, each looking and sounding like herself, even though Orlene was actually using Vita's physical body. "It's weird!" Vita exclaimed. "Knowing I'm a ghost, and that Orlene is really my body!"
"That is not the least of the weirdness," Roque said. "But let us proceed with our business. Suppose I put questions to each advocate in turn, conducting this exploration in an orderly manner. Jolie, how does Creationism describe the beginning?"
"In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth," Jolie replied promptly.
"And I want to know just who created God, then?" Vita said.
Roque shook his head. "That remark is out of order. You must give the Evolutionist version of the beginning."
"Well, it—gee, I've got to remember stuff I forgot in school! But it's something like how the universe formed in a big bang about fifteen or twenty billion years ago, and—"
"Who created the big bang?" Jolie asked.
Vita looked nettled. "Well, I don't know, it just sort of—hey, isn't that out of order?"
"Yes, unless you wish to permit direct debate. For the sake of order, I will direct the question to each in turn. Jolie, who created God?"
"No one. He always existed. He is the Eternal."
"And who created the big bang?" he asked Vita.
Vita had evidently used the reprieve for some quick thinking. "I don't know how it started. But if it's okay for God to be eternal, then it's okay for the universe to be eternal too. So maybe it cycles, getting big and then squeezing together, and what we call the big bang is just this explosion, We can't go back and see, but we do know it's here, so why not accept that it's here, no matter how it started?"
Roque glanced at Orlene. "Have you been persuaded by either advocate?"
"I really can't choose between them," Orlene said, surprised. "Either God began and the universe began, or both are eternal. There really doesn't seem to be a conflict there."
The globe flashed—and their surroundings changed. Vita was startled. "You mean that was it? The right answer was not making up her mind?"
"Or keeping her mind open, in the face of insufficient evidence," Roque said.
Jolie peered at the crystal. "I think we are closer to home! The specks aren't as far apart as they were."
"But still pretty far," Orlene said. "I see lightness and darkness, but it is still chaotic." She was breathing rapidly, trying to get air.
"Because this must be the second day," Jolie said. "When God made the sky to divide the waters from the waters." As she spoke, the scene seemed to separate into a portion above and a portion below.
"What are you talking about?" Vita demanded. "It doesn't make sense to divide water from water!"
"What is your version?" Roque inquired. "I must advise you that we of the flesh are finding this realm inhospitable, so a quick discussion would be appreciated." Indeed, he looked as uncomfortable as Orlene did.
"The Earth formed out of dust and gas and debris circling the Sun. The water was part of it, though I think at first it was mostly hot rock. So any water was mostly steam, then."
The scene around them changed, becoming red, molten rock, with clouds of vapor above. They hovered just above the surface, sinking slowly toward it. The heat was stifling.
"Say—it's showing what we describe!" Vita said. "That helps. You can see that this wasn't made in a day!"
"Certainly it was!" Jolie replied. "The day of the separation of the waters from the waters."
"What waters from what waters?"
"The waters which were above the firmament from the waters which were below the firmament. The waters of the deep universe from the waters of the Earth." As she spoke, the scene around them became one of deep night sky above and deep ocean below. The heat abated; now they were cold.
"And all this in just one little day? A billion years is more like it! I mean, molten rock doesn't cool overnight, you know."
Jolie shrugged. "Yes, that day could have been a billion years long."
"Oh, you don't mean one of our days!"
"The word 'day' means different things. A day of Creation means the whole stage, taking just as long as God needs to do it His way."
"There doesn't seem to be much difference between them, then," Orlene remarked. "I see no inherent conflict, merely ways of looking at it."
It was the right comment. The globe flashed.
"Then let's get on to the third day," Jolie said. "God gathered the waters together in one place, in seas, and made the dry land appear."
The scene shifted again. Now there was land rising from the ocean, jagged and dark. It buckled and cracked, making great folds that were mountains. Storms raged, dumping water on the mountains, which wore them down. New ranges formed, in a constant, restless process.
"Well, maybe so," Vita said. "I mean, naturally the water settled to the lowest place, and what was left was high and dry. I say a billion years, you say you call that a day, so okay. But let's get some life here! I figure it started in the ocean—they call it the primeval soup or something—and after a while it crawled up on the land, the plants first."
"Yes," Jolie said. "God said let the Earth bring forth grass, and herbs, and fruit trees, each yielding fruit after its kind." As she spoke, a green carpet formed across the land and trees sprouted, grew, flowered, and put forth many types of fruit.
"And this day could have been another billion years long?" Vita asked, trying for irony.
"Yes."
The girl shook her head, bemused. "I can go with that."
"So can I," Orlene said. The globe flashed.
"And on the fourth day," Jolie said, "God made two great lights, the greater to rule the day and the lesser to rule the night." The Sun and Moon appeared, their light forging through the mists that had shrouded them before.
"Hey, wait!" Vita cried. "There were three days before there was any sun? Plants grew before—"
"There was light," Jolie said. "It just wasn't the Sun's light, until God decided that it should be so."
"Or until the Earth orbit stabilized. You do know that the Earth orbits the Sun, not the other way around?"
Jolie smiled. "I suppose if you stood on the Sun, and watched the Earth, it would look that way. But we're standing on the Earth and looking at the Sun, and we can see that the Sun goes around the Earth."
"There is a case to be made," Roque said with a smile. "Technically, bodies in space orbit each other."
"Viewpoint," Orlene said. "I still see no inherent conflict." The globe flashed.
"On the fifth day," Jolie said, "God created the great whales and all the fishes of the sea, and every winged fowl." Around them the creatures appeared, the ocean teeming with life, the sky showing birds.
"But are your days still a billion years long?" Vita demanded. "If you give them time. Evolution makes them evolve, so that's all right."
"The days can be that long if you wish," Jolie said. "God did it in the time he did it; it really doesn't matter."
"Then we still don't really have a conflict," Orlene said, and the globe flashed again.
"On the sixth day God made everything that was on the land," Jolie said, and all the creatures of the land appeared.
"Oh no you don't!" Vita cried. "Where are the dinosaurs?" A huge lumbering reptile appeared.
"You mean those bones God put in the ground to amuse scientists?"
"Yes, I mean those bones! The first creatures on land were the insects, and then the amphibians, and then the reptiles, and then the birds and the mammals. You claim the birds and whales came first, but whales aren't fish, they're mammals, and they couldn't have existed before mammals did. Even if your days are each a billion years long, you can't screw up the order of things like that!"
"But there were no dinosaurs," Jolie protested. "Life has always been as it is now, with all the present creatures and no others. God created them together, and then He created man in His own image to have dominion over them, and from that time to this it has been about six thousand years."
"What of the fossil record? It shows how the present animals evolved from the early ones."
"Do you mean that you have a chain of bones that shows an unbroken line from your dinosaurs to the modern creatures?"
"Well, not exactly. The dinosaurs died out. But the little mammals evolved after that, and we have their bones to prove it."
"You may have bones, but they are only what God put there. And I think even so, they do not have unbroken lines. For example, how good a line of bones do you have for human beings?"
"Uh, not too good, for people, I don't know why.
But—"
"Because your notion that man evolved from animals is a fantasy," Jolie said, warming to her subject. "Foolish men see a few bones and think that proves Evolution, but smart ones see that the bones are only bones, put in the ground the same time man himself was put on the Earth. If it were otherwise, the bone record would be continuous and it's not even close."
Vita was taken aback. "Gee, you really believe this stuff!" she exclaimed. "But you know, that doesn't prove anything. I saw a man once looking for a handful of change he'd dropped. He'd had to carry a bag of things into his house, then he came out later to round up the change, and all he could find was a few pennies. Know why? Because it was by a sidewalk, and some coins must've rolled into the gutter and gotten washed through the storm grate, and some fell in cracks between slabs, and some were lost in the grass—and there were people walking by all the time, and they would've picked them up and taken them away. So if you'd judged by what he found, you'd have said that all he dropped was two cents—but he really dropped over a dollar in change. Now you take those bones: some of them were dragged off and chewed to pieces by predators, some got washed into the sea, some got crushed by stones or just plain weathered away in the course of millions of years. Only a few ever got buried where maybe some scientist found them—and that's why the fossil record is so skimpy. I don't think God's a tease; He wouldn't put down wrong clues just to confuse people. He didn't do it at all; it happened by itself. We've found enough to show us the way of it, and that's what the fossil record proves."
"But God could have put down those bones," Jolie said.
"Those bones don't prove how they were put down. You have one theory, I have another. Can we choose between them?"
Orlene shook her head. "I have to confess, I have my bias, but I can't honestly choose between them. It could have happened either way."
The crystal flashed. "We're much closer to home now," Roque said, peering into it. Indeed, they now stood in a setting that was almost modern, with a variety of broad-leafed trees nearby and fir trees in the distance. A deer was browsing several hundred feet away, and there was the sound of birds in the trees.
"But we aren't through with the subject yet," Jolie said. "You mentioned this soup from which life formed, as if this is easy. But the most primitive type of life is unimaginably complex! Even a single living cell has so many molecules, such intricate processes, that it would take a small library of texts just to write out the DNA code! The odds against such a perfectly functioning system coming together by chance are astronomical. Indeed, even your scientists will tell you that it would probably take longer than the whole age of the universe, as they figure it, from start to finish, for that to happen. It has to have been done by design—God's design."
"No it doesn't," Vita retorted. "There may be hundreds of billions of planets just like ours in the universe, all with their soups, so the chances of it happening on at least one of them aren't that bad. But Evolution doesn't claim that a single living cell just popped into existence from soup. It happened by easy stages. Maybe just two molecules came together by chance, at first, and that worked better than the loose ones, so they stayed that way. Then, maybe a million years later, a third one bumped into them, and if mat worked better, it stayed. That's natural selection. All those molecules churning around all the time, banging into each other, some combinations are bound to work together better than others. It may be chance that brings them together, but once they are together, it's not chance anymore. So the key proteins were formed in that soup, bit by bit. When one combination produced life, it was only a little step—but it worked better, so it kept on, and made copies of itself, and then things really got going. Mutation—"
"But almost all mutations are bad!" Jolie protested.
"So those ones die. If one in a thousand mutations makes something better, then that's what survives. It just keeps going, getting better, because the worse ones either die or are less competitive. If more than one version works, then we get different species, and finally we have all the plants and creatures of the world today, including man. Mutation and natural selection, in little steps, with a lot of time—that accounts for everything. We sure don't need God to do it for us!"
Orlene shook her head. "It could have happened either way. God could have done it, or Evolution could have, or God could have used Evolution as His tool to do it."
The globe flashed. They now seemed to be quite close to home.
"We haven't settled this yet," Jolie said. "Even if Evolution could have done it, it still had to have an orderly universe. You claim that everything started in one big bang. How can an explosion lead to the systematic organization of galaxies and stars and planets we find? It could generate only chaos—and only God could have brought order out of that confusion."
"Not so," Vita argued. "In one of my math classes they got into computer-aided designs. You could start with any shape and keep changing it randomly, and if you selected for what you wanted, you could come up with just about any picture you wanted. It's cumulative. It might take a hundred steps or more, but it happened. I started with a V and made it into a flying bat, just by picking the right shapes the computer generated."
"But the universe had no one to pick shapes!" Jolie said. "Except God!"
Vita was taken aback. "You mean I'm arguing your case? No, I'm just saying that out of a random shape, order can come, if something selects for it. It doesn't have to be a person. In the case of the universe, I think it was gravity. When two bits of matter got together, they attracted others, just a little, and formed a ball in time. Eventually there were great stars, and when they got too big, they collapsed inward and made black holes, and they started sucking everything else in, making galaxies. We're just some of the fluff that hasn't gotten sucked into the hole yet. Some organization! I don't see it as any celestial design, just as part of the process. And life isn't all that great, either, it's really just the slime on the surface of our planet. But it's what we are."
"This is a horrible view!" Jolie protested.
"Well, it sure explains why mankind is so creepy!" Vita said. "Look at the way we're ruining the world, look at all the crime and sin and just plain grubbing for money! You think this is God's own image? Then God's a freak!"
"No, this is just the mortal testing God set up. But I agree, it isn't working very well, so any time now God will call a halt and settle accounts."
"We don't need God for that either! Pretty soon World War Three will come along and wipe us all out and it'll be done. We'll end with a bang, for sure!"
"That may be God's design," Jolie pointed out. But she did not look comfortable.
"Have we discussed this enough to enable you to come to a conclusion?" Roque asked Orlene.
"No, I can't decide either way," Orlene said. "They agree that the end of the world is coming."
Once more the globe flashed. But they still were not home.
"Evidently we are overlooking something," Roque said. "We seem to have brought the competing theories into alignment for our purpose, but Nox wants more of us. Unless we come to terms with that too—"
"The Incarnations!" Vita exclaimed. "Where do they fit into this?"
The globe flashed, and the scene around them changed.
They were back in the early Earth, before life appeared.
The globe glowed, and expanded, and floated up to head height. It turned, and one side brightened while the other went dark. Water appeared on it, and land.
"It's the world!" Vita said. "The sea, the land, day and night! Just as we discussed them!"
Then the light of it intensified, flickering about the surface and making the depths glow. It coalesced at the ocean.
"That's life!" Vita cried. "It came from the planet itself!"
But the flickering was not done. Part of it collected at the dark side and part at the light side. The dark side remained constant, but the light side flickering separated into two, and then into seven nuclei, with a number of pinpoints as well. These remained.
"I don't get it," Vita said, when it was apparent that no further change was coming. "What's the point?"
"I suspect that is what we are here to determine," Roque said. "Nox is showing us something, making a point. We merely have to grasp it."
"Light and darkness, the light fragmented," Orlene said. "At the time when life appeared on the face of the Earth. Seven major fragments, like the seven—" She broke off, the realization coming, as the globe abruptly expanded farther.
"Incarnations!" Vita cried. "The seven major Incarnations—all on the Day side! And on the Night side—"
"Only the Incarnation of Night," Jolie said. "She never fragmented. She still governs the dark."
"But that means that they all formed together, and the lesser ones too," Orlene said. "When life came to the world."
"No!" Vita said excitedly. "The world always had its spirit! Like a hamadryad, the spirit of a tree, only this is the big original spirit for the whole planet! Life came when the world's spirit settled around its rim—and the Incarnations are another expression of it!"
"To watch it and guide it and make sure it goes right," Jolie agreed. "As you say, like the nymph of a tree, the Incarnations exist with it yet apart from it, too, protecting it—and if it dies, so do they."
"And there was so much going on by day, when the animals were active, that it took a slew of Incarnations to handle it," Vita said. "But the night shift, when they're asleep, isn't so bad, so Nox stayed just as she was."
"And she's not part of the day, so she doesn't have a say in it, but she still cares about the world," Orlene said.
Now the motion resumed. The globe had become the scene surrounding them. The Incarnations floated nearby, each glowing, but their outlines and features were shrouded. They could be distinguished by external hints, however; one was great and bright, another like red flame, and another seemed somehow inverted or backwards: Chronos, existing in reverse.
"They don't look human," Vita remarked.
"This is before human beings existed," Roque said. "Perhaps other creatures assumed the Offices."
"But there were no other creatures before man!" Jolie protested.
"Yes, there were," he replied. "We established that a Biblical day could be any length, and man was the last to be created. You can accept that."
She nodded, surprised. "So the Offices continued right up to the present, with human beings taking over all of them except for Night."
"And Nox may not be human, but she can assume the form when she wants to," Orlene said. "So now we understand the framework in which we exist: whether science or magic governs. Evolution or Creationism, the immortal Incarnations are with us. Human beings may step into the Offices for a while, but they are merely like the presidents of companies, doing what they are supposed to. The power is apart from the Officeholders. The Incarnations are immortal, though implemented by mortals."
"But why is Nox showing us all this?" Vita asked. "Why does she care about us at all? We are nobodies, even among mortals!"
"I think she is showing us why," Jolie said. Indeed, the scene was changing as they talked. Modern buildings appeared around them, and cars and carpets and saucers. Then, abruptly, it ended in a blinding flash.
They blinked, trying to see. But as their vision cleared, all they saw was molten rock and horrendous cloud cover. "Back to the start?" Jolie asked. "No life at all?"
"World War Three!" Vita exclaimed. "Oh, it's coming, and not too far off!"
"But can't the Incarnations stop it?" Orlene asked, appalled.
"Perhaps they can—but they will need our help," Roque said.
There was another flash, and they found themselves in a building. They were on a bed, the three women coalesced into one, with "Vita, take the body," Orlene said.
Huh? Then Vita caught on, and resumed control of her body.
They were back where they had started—in Luna's house, in the guest room, amidst the act of love. It seemed that no time at all had passed since Nox had interrupted.
When Luna returned, she found a chastened house guest. "Is something wrong?" she asked, immediately responsive to the mood.
"Not exactly," Orlene said. "But perhaps yes. Is the end of the world approaching?"
Luna paused, then abruptly took a seat. "What happened?"
"It is complicated, but the essence is that Nox visited and showed us a vision that explained a great deal—and suggested that World War Three is not far off."
Luna nodded. "Now you have a notion why our research is so pressing. We are trying to head off the disaster that is looming. Not even Satan wants that, but somehow it keeps building. If we don't find a way to head it off, in perhaps five years it will happen. But we know it doesn't have to happen—if we can do what has to be done."
"What is that?" Orlene asked, awed.
"I am not yet free to tell you that."
Jolie suffered a flash of something, perhaps a memory, but could not capture it. Had she once known more about Luna's research?
"But how can we help, if we don't know anything?"
"I suspect you can help, but it is vital that you not know the manner of it. I suggest that you go on about your quest, and after that we shall be in touch again."
"But how can I do something as personal as looking for my baby, when the world may end thereafter?" Orlene asked.
"Nox sent you on that quest, and Nox showed you the problem with the world," Luna said. "I suspect that Nox is no more interested in seeing the world end than we are, but your quest must in some way relate. Complete it, and perhaps then we shall understand."
Orlene gazed at her with mixed emotions. But there did not seem to be any better course to follow.