It was a comfort, Mary had said while he had eaten the meal she had saved for him. There is comfort in our Belief, she'd said.
And what she had said was true. There was comfort in Belief, comfort in knowing that it all was planned, that it was for the best, that even in the End it would be for the best.
They needed comfort, he thought. They needed comfort more than anything. They were so alone, especially so alone since the stars had stopped their spinning and stood still, since you could stand at a port and look out into the emptiness that lay between the stars.
Made more alone by the lack of purpose, by the lack of knowing, although it was a comfort to know that all was for the best.
"The Mutter will come and the stars will stop their spin and they will stand naked and alone and bright in the depth of darkness, of the eternal darkness that covers everything except the Folk within the Ship. . . ."
And that was it, thought Jon. The special dispensation that gave them the comfort. The special knowing that they, of all the things there were, were sheltered and protected from eternal night. Although, he wondered, how did the special knowing come about? From what source of knowledge did it spring? From what revelation?
And blamed himself for thinking as he did, for it was not meet that he should think such things at meeting in the chapel.
He was like Joshua, he told himself. He questioned everything. He wondered about the things that he had accepted all his life, that had been accepted without question for all the generations.
He lifted his head and looked at the Holy Picture —at the Tree and Flowers and the River and the House far off, with the Sky that had Clouds in it and Wind you could not see, but knew was there.
It was a pretty thing—it was beautiful. There were colors in it he had never seen anywhere except in the Pictures. Was there a place like that, he wondered, or was it only symbolism, only an idealization of the finest that was in the Folk, a distillation of the dreams of those shut up within the Ship .. .