'Yes,' he said simply. 'And that is what I am.'
'This machine—-' began another.
'No, no, we'll come back to that later,' said Rawlings.
'Your first father', Kalus. What did you mean by that?'
'Barabbas is my father now. I think it is what you would call adoption, though to us it is much more than that. The adopted sons of a childless leader are more dear to him…..' He stopped as emotion swelled in his throat, and he realized with a sudden pang the truth of these words. 'Barabbas is my father now.'
'Barabbas,' replied Rawlings thoughtfully. 'Surely that's not a name given by a machine.'
'Yes. In fact it is. But I too have always thought it strange, and somehow appropriate, since I learned of the Barabbas in your Bible.'
'It's not MY Bible,' said Rawlings quickly. 'But still, how do you mean that?' Kalus pondered for a moment, trying to think how to express it.
'It wasn't Barabbas' fault: that he was freed, and Jesus crucified. He was only trying to survive. And who can say what his crime' was that he should have been imprisoned by the Romans, who seem to me among the greatest criminals of history. And yet for the simple fact of his presence on that day, and his desire to live rather than die in agony, he is branded a villain and hated, by those who need such symbols of hate, and love. Surely Jesus did not hate him.'
At this all were quietly stunned. For until that moment they had retained the subconscious arrogance that Sylviana first experienced, and to which she had lately returned: the belief that a rough man without education could not think or feel as they did, could not possess the same soul, or depth of feeling.
They were wrong.