'All that time in the cave, alone and afraid. My only hope was the voice that spoke to me through the glass. To know that it was reading my thoughts and secret hopes, and telling me to remain there….. Just MACHINES. All a terrible hoax.'
'Not all, my sweet Sylvie, and not terrible. The warnings they spoke were true, and may have saved your life. And in the end, I did come to you.' He put his arm around her.
'And is it not a miracle after all? Think of it. I was born fully human, on a night when stars fell from the sky. Then Akar comes to me in Barabbas' cave: I see a terrible vision, and am made an outcast. The Mantis finds you in the mountains of the North and brings you here. We are brought together.' He turned towards her. 'Even if machines could accomplish all or part of that, so many miracles had to come first. Life on Earth. The Universe itself, rather than a great, formless void.
'What are the odds of it?' he continued. 'That you and I should be standing here now, alive and still young, with love and hope, and the chance to make a better life. Is that not miracle enough?'
'I know what you're saying. And of course you're right. It just felt better. . .I don't know. . .to think that God was watching me. That He loved and cared about ME….. I'm going to miss that.'
'When I was a child, I thought as a child,' he quoted. 'When we are young we need such illusions, such security. And who is to say what does and does not exist in the world beyond our sight? Not I. Here I stand, surrounded by wonders I could not dream of. To think that a light from a machine could reach inside my mind, and give me the power to speak.'
At this the woman suddenly stirred, and drew away from him. She examined the machinery more closely, confounded, overwhelmed. It wasn't possible.
'What is it, Sylviana?' Still for a time she could not speak, trying to follow the rapid, and incredible chain of thought.
'My father was a scientist,' she said finally. 'And I knew something of on-going research. This technology: the fire that burned from nothing, the ability to read my thoughts….. And the violet beam, GIVING YOU THE POWER OF SPEECH. Kalus, unless I'm dead wrong. This equipment, and the altar. . .weren't left here by men! We haven't advanced nearly this far.'
With this her weary despondency left her. She was consumed instead by the eager, questioning thought that her father had passed on to her almost without her knowing it: Science, the study of the visible God.