“We needed time, a home, and a people.”
“A people?”
“Two mandates drive my mission, Mosasa. First, there is a moral duty for us to raise lower forms to receive my light. Second, we must remove those who, in their ignorance, would attempt to stop us or destroy our works.”
“Xi Virginis,” Mosasa said. It was isolated and had a colony of millions without regular contact with anyone else. Had Ambrose done anything drastic around Procyon, all of human space would have been aware of it nearly instantaneously. With Xi Virginis, it would be decades before human space knew.
Before Mosasa knew . . .
Ambrose smiled. “You begin to realize. You were lured here, my devil, my brother. Not just so my light can extinguish your darkness, but to remove your whispers from mankind’s ear. They are many, and we are yet few. Had you remained in their bosom, you might have had them trouble me.”
“You cannot . . .” Mosasa’s voice trailed off as Ambrose stood.
“I cannot what?” Ambrose said, his face darkening. He placed his hands on either side of Mosasa’s head. “Who are you to deny God!”
“I . . . I took you from that wreck. I brought you back to life. We were the same—”
“You are nothing!” Ambrose spat. “You are a shadow. An illusion. A deception that needs to be erased.”
“I—I—” Mosasa stuttered, but no words came out. He was aware of something invasive, a feeling of alien fingers tracing the outlines of his thoughts. As those thoughts were outlined, they ceased to exist. In moments all he had left was a sense of identity, a single spark that could wordlessly think only of its own existence.
Then even that was gone.
FIRST EPILOGUE
Last Rites
It is easy to understand God, as long as you don’t try to explain Him.
CHAPTER FORTY
Mysterious Ways
You are in more danger from the other person’s God than your own.
If you want me to believe in God, you must make me touch Him.
The four of them were crowded in one end of an old-fashioned troop transport. Mallory sat with Dr. Dorner and Dr. Pak along one side of the large passenger compartment. Dr. Brody was strapped to a field stretcher along the wall opposite them. One of their black-uniformed captors was a medic and was crouched next to Brody’s head, monitoring him.
Mallory was thankful that Brody’s injuries were getting attention. His own training as a field medic had been perfunctory and decades in the past. About all he was sure he could do was keep someone from bleeding to death.
A light flashed by the windows, and Mallory looked up from Brody.
A few seconds later, out of a clear blue sky, turbulence rocked the craft, throwing Dorner against him and causing the medic to drape himself across Brody’s stretcher to keep him still.
