Pamaros pressed an elbow into the roughly hewn rocky arm of its lunar throne, and gestured as if leaning its head on one hand.

It wasn’t, of course – the wispy plasma edges slowly rotating, gyrating, burning eye-wheels-within-wheels ‘head’ didn’t even touch its darkened bronze gauntlet hand – but it orientated it as if pressed into the chin of an invisible skull, containing within it its actual head.

The first question transmitted via the probe that sat in the moondust in front of it came from a representative of NASA, so permitted because they had organized this mission, on a tight timescale and at great expense.

“Is there anything we need to add to our physical laws or understanding of science?”

I WOULD NOT SAY SO.

“…Not even concerning this, spiritual world you’re talking about-“

YOUR SCIENCE HAS DEVELOPED TO DESCRIBE AND EXPLAIN THE PHYSICAL WORLD. WHERE IT BLEEDS – MYSELF, FOR EXAMPLE, OR THE KNOWLEDGE OR SKILLS EXHIBITED BY INCARNATED SOULS – YOUR SCIENCE WILL INEVITABLY BREAK DOWN. YOU CANNOT EXTEND YOUR LAWS TO IT. NO EXTENSION IS NECESSARY. IT IS NOT A FIELD IN WHICH YOUR, MEN OF SCIENCE, CAN SPEAK.

The format of this interrogation was strange, but had been divined by the specially appointed council for the task after only a few weeks of work. Pamaros had told them ‘speak, and I will hear.’ Initial attempts at simply speaking on Earth had not worked, and had in fact made the people standing outside yelling at the moon look quite silly. Despite misgivings, it was ultimately judged that the best course of action would be to land an unmanned probe on the Moon, that would broadcast – what should be – silent speech into the airless void there.

To the physicists’ absolute horror – or in one case, awed joy – they had seen Pamaros on the camera calmly watching the buggy approach its throne, and when they broadcast a hail, received a response that rang deeply in all their heads, a bass thrum at the base of their skull that hummed up into words in their ears and dissolved still up into buzzing signal noise in their scalps.

The next question came from a theologian, of Christian descent.

“Do you serve God, or a god, or gods?”

NO.

“Did you once serve a God?”

…

WHAT IS IT THAT YOU MEAN BY GOD?

“Were you once bound to orders by a higher force? What shape did it take? Tell us of it.”

I AM NOT BOUND.

“I didn’t ask if you are.” This theologian had long exceeded his allotted term, but this particular question had caught the interest of everyone in the room enough to allow it. “I asked if you ever were? Were you created? Are you an angel?”

‘ANGEL’ IS NOT A WORD I HAVE EVER USED TO DESCRIBE MYSELF. IT IS AN, EXTERNAL, DESCRIPTOR.

“So you are not an angel of God, in the sense Abrahamic faiths talk about?”

THAT WOULD DEPEND ON THE BOOK. AND THE. VERSE.

The theologian was getting irritated now. “Sir. Do you serve God as I believe in Him? Are you a Holy being, or something base? Of matter? An extraterrestial, perhaps? From whence did you come? And why-“

.

That final stop was a loud thud into the skulls of everyone in the room. It was a telepathically transmitted period, something like a book slamming shut. They still felt its presence, staring at them silently, but the dark boiling in their stomachs told them it would be a very, very bad idea to push this topic.

The next question came from a lawyer.

“Are the reincarnated the same people as the deceased?”

THAT IS A MATTER OF OPINION.

“If a reincarnated person lives long enough, will they become identical to the deceased?”

NO.

“Will they regain all their memories?”

NO.

“Are they, essentially an amalg-“

“Hey, don’t hog it!”

There was a shout from off camera; someone shoved the lawyer away, pushed their way to the front. The explanatory text on the bottom still showed the lawyer’s name and occupation for a few moment as they started speaking, before showing that they were a diplomat.

“Will you intervene in human affairs?”

I HAVE.

“…More..?”

NO.

“What powers do you hold?”

I AM NOT BOUND.

The next was another physicist.

“I am the reincarnation of the physicist Galileo Galilei. I incarnated twelve days ago.”

I CAN SEE THAT.

“I know things that Galileo would never have known, however. I have received…knowledge, pertinent to fields that were invented long after his death. I have received skills that he did not hold. How can this be?”

I AM A BEARER OF KNOWLEDGE UNTO THE PEOPLES OF THE EARTH. THE DEAD ARE MY. EMISSARIES.

“So they receive this information from you?”

I HAVE CREATED THE CONDITIONS FOR IT TO BE REVEALED.

“Why?”

I CHOSE TO.

“Why did you-“

.

Next, and final, another theologian.

“Is there a Nirvana?”

WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT?

“Some release? From the cycle of reincarnation? An end, to this repeating?”

.

.

.

 

The angel moved its hand down casually from its ‘face’, so that both hands were placed on the arms of the chair. It lazily raised its other – left – hand.

There was a flash of light like a gunshot, streaking out across the black of the lunar vacuum, and fragments of blown-apart probe went tumbling up out of the orbit of the moon, gone past escape velocity into the sky.

As the billowing clouds of dust settled, the moon’s face was now etched, amongst billions, with one more crater.

Back down on earth, the humans, once they had recovered from the cringe of three sharp telepathic knocks to the skull, that left their guts boiling like they’d been shocked by an infrasound predator’s roar, fell into a furious argument about who had said what, about how they should have asked about karma and sin or hell, about whether they’d angered it with that final question, about what had happened to the probe, and about if that money had all been wasted. This only intensified when it was found – admittedly not to the surprise of many – that their recorders hadn’t picked up a word of what Pamaros had said. Immediately, they began disagreeing on the exact wording of what had been said. Within minutes, several distinct accounts of the interview, to be disseminated to different competing media organisations and different opposed governments and interest groups, had grown up.

But away from this, one scientist – the one who’d smiled in joy when Pamaros’ voice had fallen in through the vacuum, rather than recoiling in startled horror like all the rest – had rushed out of mission control and swung herself onto the balcony outside, to see the pale dimpled penny full moon, hanging bright and ordinary and intact in the sky, same as it ever had been every single previous night of her life, and breathed a sigh of relief.