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world for you—in a matter of hours?” Austin wiped his brow. “What is He?” There was a note of capitalization in his voice now. “You
told Sean He has a beard. Does that mean that He looks human?”
                 “Well,
I haven’t met God. Few people have apart from the clothed man. He has a human
form, yes. Now, that is. A beard. Pink
robes. He reigns in Eden , but his senses are everywhere. You see, He’s particular and general. It’s my opinion that we
defined God for Himself as we arrived, and now we’re all trying to evolve to a
stage where we can understand what we specified.”
                 “So
we have a superbeing . . . who was sitting here, doing what? Looking for some
way to define itself? A being with the power to transform a whole world, the
power to create . . . What did this being evolve from? How? Is it a single
being? Or one of many?”
                 Sean
squinted aloft. The sky was no longer quite cloudless; some rain was drifting
down in sheets from a solitary anvil cumulus, though falling nowhere near this
meadow. The cloud reminded him of a watering can. Overhead, swallows and swifts of ordinary size darted and veered in a swarm, as one
creature. They swooped about a tiny, child-like body with long blue wings. He
spotted another of these imp-birds —then a unique kind of flying fish: it was a
long sage-green torpedo with wings which seemed to float upon the air as though
the air was water. It looked rather like an earthly shark, fitted with long
wide insubstantial whale flippers. One of the imp-birds darted around it as it
slowly sailed the air.
                 Sean
pointed. “What are those up there? Cherubs?”
                 “Sprites,”
replied Jeremy. “Metamorphs. Evolving
phases.”
                 “Phases of people? Or what?”
                 “Maybe, maybe not. I’m not up there, am I? And there’s a
skyfish, look.”
                 The
flipper-shark banked lazily, following some unseen aerial stream as the sprite
landed on its long back. With its own wings widespread
the sprite stood erect, on tiptoe, balancing like a surfboard rider—and was
borne away.
                 “Does
this superbeing have a name?” asked Austin .
                 “If
He has a particular name, He hasn’t told us. You know, asking His name seems a
bit ridiculous. Unlike asking yours , Athlone!” Jeremy gave a wicked grin. “The clothed man
could possibly answer you. He’s His confidant. I’m just His fall-guy. Or so it
seems at times.”
                 “Does
the planet have a name?”
                 “Gardens, Eden and Hell—that’s all we call it. Depending
on where you are. Three worlds in one.”
                 “Oh,
and I suppose we have a trinitarian God!” jibed Tanya. “How
original.”
                 Jeremy
peered at her. “Perhaps He’s a dialectical God: thesis, antithesis and
synthesis?”
                 “Give
me strength!”
                 “He
will. And that’s the sun up there. It had a number, didn’t it? Can’t recall
what it was.”
                 “4H
. . . Oh never mind,” said Austin . “Whatever He is, He’s switched our ship off. Does He have messengers—those
flying sprites? Can we get in touch with Him?”
                 Jeremy
looked, instead, at the magpie perched on the ramp. “Birds are messengers. Birds of death, birds of life.” “Caw,” said the magpie. “Caw-caw.” It preened its feathers, ducking its black beak
under a ruffled wing.
                “The difficulty is sometimes in
understanding the message.”
                 “That bird is intelligent!” creid Denise. “It’s listening to
us.”
                 “Well,
it isn’t dumb.”
                 “Caw , ” the bird agreed. A glossy eye