"But what could he do about it? He didn't even know what he was supposed to do.
"At this moment, as he stared into the small fire, he heard a knock on the door. He stood up and seized his spear. Then, as now, evil men roamed, looking for easy prey. He had nothing worth stealing, but there were men who liked to kill for the twisted pleasure it gave them.
"He called out in his native tongue, ‘Who is it?'
"'No one you know,' a man said. He spoke in Quebecan French but with a foreign accent. ‘No one who means you harm either. You won't need that spear.'
"This astonished La Viro. The door and windows were closed. No one could see within.
"He unbarred the door. A lightning flash glowed behind the stranger, revealing a cloaked and hooded man of medium stature. La Viro stepped back; the stranger entered; La Viro closed the door. The man threw back his hood. Now the fire showed a white man with red hair, blue eyes, and handsome features. Under the cloak he wore a tight-fitting seamless suit of silvery material. From a silver cord around his neck hung a gold helix.
"The clothes were enough to tell La Viro that this was no Riverdweller. The man looked like an angel and might be one. After all, the Bible said that angels looked just like men. At least, that was what the priests had told him. The angels who had visited the daughters of men in the days of the patriarchs, the angels who rescued Lot, and the angel who wrestled with Jacob, passed for men.
"But the Bible and the priests who had read it to him had been wrong about many things.
"Looking at the stranger, La Viro was in awe. At the same time, he felt delighted. Why would an angel honor him, of all people, with a visit?
"Then he realized that Satan was also an angel, that the demons were all fallen angels.
"Which was he?
"Or was he neither? After all, La Viro, despite his lack of formal education and his humble station, was not unintelligent. It seemed to him that a third alternative existed. At that, he felt easier though still far from comfortable.
"After asking permission, the/stranger sat down. La Viro hesitated, then he, too, sat down on a chair. They looked at each other for a moment. The stranger church-steepled his fingers and frowned as if trying to think how best to start. This was strange, since he knew what he wanted and should have had time to prepare for this visit.
"La Viro offered him a drink of alcohol. The stranger said he would take tea instead. La Viro busied himself with pouring the powder into the water and stirring it. The stranger was silent until he thanked La Viro for the tea. After taking a sip, he said, ‘Jacques Gillot, who I am and where I come from and why I am here would take all night and all day if I told all in detail.
‘"What little I can tell you will be the truth—in a form which you can understand at this stage. I am one of a group which has prepared this planet for you whom we resurrected. There are other planets re-formed for other Terrestrials, but that is not at present your concern. Some are being used now. Some are waiting to be used.
"'This world is for those who need a second chance. What is the second chance? What was the first chance? By now you must have accepted the fact that your religion, in fact, none of the Earthly religions, truly knew what the afterlife would be. All made guesses and then established these as articles of faith. Though, in a sense, some were near the mark, if you accept their revelations as symbolic.'
"And then the visitor said that his kind called themselves the Ethicals, though they had other names for themselves. They were on a higher plane of ethical development than most Earth-lings. Notice that he said most. This indicates that there have been some of us who have achieved the same level as the Ethicals.
"The visitor said that his people were not the first Ethicals, not by any means. The first were an ancient species, nonhumans, who originated on a planet older than Earth.
"These were individuals who had deliberately retarded themselves, kept themselves in the flesh, as it were, instead of Going On. And when they saw that there was one species, also nonhuman, which was capable of carrying on The Work, they showed this species how to do it. And they passed on.
"The visitor called this species the Ancients. Yet, in comparison with those who had been their mentors, they were very young.
"Now, this is what the visitor said the Ethicals had learned from the Ancients. The Creator, God, the One Spirit, call it what you will, forms all. It is the universe; the universe is it. But its body is formed of two essences. One is matter; the other, for lack of a better word, is nonmatter.
"We all know what matter is. Philosophers and scientists have tried to define it exactly but have failed. Yet everyone knows what matter is. We directly experience it.
"But what about this nonmatter? What is it?"
20
"A VACUUM!" A WAG SHOUTED. "THE INSIDE OF YOUR HEAD!"
Clemens stood up and bellowed, "Quiet, there! Let the man speak his piece." And then with a grin, "Even if he makes no sense!"
"Thank you, Mr. Clemens," Goring said. "A perfect vacuum is the absolute absence of matter. A learned man once told me that there is no such thing as a perfect vacuum. It does not exist except as a concept. Even a vacuum is matter.
"Nonmatter is what the old religions of Earth spoke of as the soul. But the definitions of the soul were always vague, very abstract. The peoples of ancient and classical times, and their unliterate ancestors, thought of it as a shadowy thing, a ghostly entity reflecting palely the matter to which it had been attached before death.
"Later, more sophisticated peoples thought of it as an invisible entity, also attached to the body. But it could be re-fleshed after death, given a new and immortal body. Some Oriental religions thought of it/as something which would be reabsorbed into the Godhead after numerous trials on Earth, after a good karma had been achieved.
"All these had some truth in them; they saw parts of the total truth.
"But we are not concerned with such philosophical probings. What we need are facts. The fact is that every living creature, from the simplest to the most complex, has its non-matter twin. Even an amoeba has its nonmatter twin.
"But I don't want to get into confusing issues or too much detail. Not at this time.
"The visitor said, ‘Nonmatter is indestructible. That means that your body on Earth had its indestructible nonmatter twin.'
"At this point, La Viro, who had said nothing before, interrupted.
" ‘How many twins does a living creature have? I mean, a man changes in appearance. He gets older, he loses an eye or a leg. He gets a diseased liver. Is this nonmatter image like a series of photographs made of a man? If so, how often is the photograph made? Every second, once a month? What happens to the old photographs, the old images?'
"The visitor smiled, and he said, ‘The image, as you call it, is indestructible. But it records the changes in the physical body it's attached to.'
"'Then what happens?' La Viro said. ‘Wouldn't images of the rotting corpse be produced?'
"As I told you," Goring said, "La Viro was illiterate and he had never been to a big city. But he was not stupid.
"'No,' the visitor said. ‘Forget for the moment about all matter and nonmatter except that composing humankind. The rest is irrelevant for our purposes. First, though, let's give this entity which you call a soul another name. Soul has too many incorrect meanings for humans, too many verbal reverberations, too many contradictory definitions.
"Speak the word soul, and unbelievers will automatically become deaf to what follows. Those who believe in souls will always hear you through the mental constructs which they formed on Earth. Let us call this nonmatter twin the... ah... ka. That is an old Egyptian word for one of the several souls in their religion. Except for the Egyptians, it will have no special connotation or denotation. And they can adapt to it.'