“And God said: ‘Let there be light.’”

            Tao scowled at the reference, his sharp features gathering into a maelstrom of anger and annoyance.

            “How can you,” he asked the priest, “with all the proof we have, still cling to that archaic tribal god of your culture’s antiquity. At least we in China realized our folly.”

            “Mao’s Cultural Revolution hardly counts as scientific revelation,” another voice said from the depths of the passenger bay. It belonged to the newly elected president of the expedition, a stout and sour man whose KGB ties had him exiled from Russia when the old regime had fallen. Apparently Putin had decided even Siberia was too warm for him. He surveyed the ship hopelessly, looking out of the massive window, knowing that it would be his only comfort for the year’s voyage ahead.

            The priest leaned against the portside viewer, although “port” was a label in his head only. There are, after all, no real directions in space. He breathed deep sighs, condensation clutching to the colourless plastic as he looked at his home below. For a moment he thought he saw South America and in his mind he pictured his humble home in the slums of Sao Paulo. Many other members of the Church with his list of accolades and followers could have afforded villas and mansions on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro, but Jẽsus Dominica had always preferred to live a life more strictly in accordance with the words he preached. He had never expected it would culminate in turning down the bishopric for the slim chance of joining the Martian expedition as a chaplain, but as he looked out at the gleaming jewel in his window, he understood that no matter how many riches his colleagues surrounded themselves with they would always be poorer than he. He turned his head back to the Chinese scientist.

            “The real question, Mr. He, is how can you possibly not believe the truth in His word when you are now a member of the tiniest fraction of the human race who has seen His creation in its entirety?”

            Tao smiled this time, his glasses nearly falling off his face, his grin was so wide. “This is not beauty, it is science,” he proclaimed, his arm sweeping across the image of the Earth. “See the gaping craters where billions of years of bombardment forged a planet. See the overflowing oceans where our first terrestrial ancestors climbed to the unseemly shore. Witness our planet orbits the sun, as trillions of others do each day, proving against all doubt the illegitimacy of your Church’s teaching.”

            “See its marvel and forget everything.” That was the voice of the captain of the expedition, echoing from the control station. He looked towards his motley crew and his face held the perfect visage of contempt. He placed the auto pilot in control of the ship and walked its length to the window. His head was held in shame, but not for his own actions. “What would they say, those bigoted, heartless thugs, if they were able to see this now? Would the distance between their land of supermarkets and bibles and mine of bazaars and Korans seem so great? Would they still look at me as an alien, an outsider, the one who will never belong, or would they see this majestic planet and worship the miracle that we as the humans, who are all aliens, ever belonged in such a beautiful place to begin with?”

            The Russian laughed a deep throaty guffaw that tore his lungs and shredded the ears of the audience. “It was an astronaut that sent me to this dreaded planet you call Mars, Mr. Herodotus. He seemed to have no difficulty banishing me, even after he had seen this…” he gestured haphazardly to the Earth, “this diamond in the rough. Or perhaps you would change your thesis to reflect that differences in politics are far more difficult to reconcile than those in religion?”

            “Is not religion just a form of politics?” inserted He again. “Is it not part of the fundamental equation between the conservatives and liberals, the rational and the irrational?”

            “And who decides which side is which?” asked Dominica, amused. “Can you perchance forget rationality and think of your spirit, your soul, your essence of humanity. How can you look at that pearl in an endless ocean and think of ancient meteor showers and tadpoles crawling to the godforsaken surface world of Darwin’s past? Can you not see the etchings of white, like an artist’s brush on the canvas? Are you blind to the dots of colour He sprays across the surface with such a talented, delicate hand? This is the true painting, the finest sculpture and most beautiful music known to man and yet you cannot see, touch or hear it until you believe it exists.”

            “What a fragile gift that can only exist with a hallucination. One would think that it isn’t real at all?” mocked He.

            “Strange from a man who must himself make up facts about his own existence.”

            “What do you mean?” sneered He.

            “Come, come, Mr. He. Can you not pretend that this was somehow a random assignment? Am I supposed to believe that you simply happened to appear on this vessel, one of only a few thousand from a world of eight billion? For you the story is simple. It is the same with every child who was ever born, the need to be special. Only, this is especially the case in a country of one point five billion people, is it not? How could you accept your tiny part as a miniscule and insignificant cog in the giant clock of humanity? How could you live knowing that every thought of your own had been duplicated a billion times, that God had been lazy enough to lend your face and identity to countless thousands of others and nothing you ever accomplished could actually matter? You’re hiding, Tao. You know that in a million years from now, it won’t matter whether you built a cathedral or tore down a city, cured a disease or invented a plague, lived a thousand years or died in your crib. Everything you ever create will be destroyed. Everyone you ever loved will be forgotten. Everything you ever stood for will be irrelevant. Do you really want to believe that? Do you really want to accept that reality? Of course not, and so you create a new narrative for yourself, a less convincing one, but certainly more inspiring. You aren’t just a simple, carbon emitting meat bag, He Tao, you are the exception to the rule. They will build statues in your likeness, name hospitals and schools after you, elect your grandchildren as leaders out of reverence to you. All you had to do was stand out, be different and be exemplary. Not really possible if you believed it was all going down the drain anyway?”

            He stared out of the window and commiserating, knowing he had found a miserable defeat. Jẽsus looked towards the Russian, asking for a challenge. Yuri Gorbachev had never backed away from a conflict and although it had cost him his place on Earth, he was too old to change now. “And what of me, you insolent Catholic, you thief of God and molester of His word? When I see this orb of blue I think only of my lost place at the centre of the Kremlin and in the heart of Moscow. What of God? There is no God. No God of justice at least. How could a just god see the plight of my people and not allow rain to come to the dried plains and peace to wash over the troubled states? How could a true deity allow me, a patriot, a warrior, a dedicated servant to his people to wallow away in this bloody ship while my country is gorged by a monster of its own creation? Where is redemption now? Where is forgiveness? Where is benevolence?”

            Jẽsus tapped the window again. “Not there, surely, if you think like that.”

            “You speak in riddles. No wonder your people so easily brainwashed the muddied minds of the noble American savages.”

            “Is it not a riddle, Yuri, it is a statement of fact. You lack faith and so you lack justice. You live a life of entitlement. X amount of work over time equals X amount of influence equals X amount of power. Don’t whine about your people; if you could rise faster chopping them down then standing them up you’d change your tune in a heartbeat. God has given you a chance to prove yourself for who you are truly are, Yuri. Are you so hell bent on becoming the bitter old man of lost ambitions and forgotten dreams that you won’t even accept the possibility that you could transcend it all? Look out the window, Yuri. You have left the problems of Earth behind. It is forgotten; it is nothing to you. God has given you justice. He has given you salvation! Accept it and it is yours. Prove your worth as a man; don’t whine about the piddling powers of boys. Faith is not a soup kitchen where every man gets his share, but a race where every man runs his lap. Take risks, Yuri. Stretch the boundaries of your beliefs. Alter your ideas of what is possible and you will find more than Putin could ever discover in his mountainous palaces and fantastical treasure troves. Are you going to stay on the island of the past, slowly being eaten away by the acids of certainty or are you going to explore on the lifeboat of faith, anchored by nothing and moved by the tide of chance? Make up your mind and bother me no more about it.”

            Yuri smiled and looked towards the window, keeping quiet as He before him. A long and difficult silence engulfed the cabin until the captain turned to Jẽsus and said, “you have forgotten yourself, my fair imam. What do you see out of that window?”

            Jẽsus closed his eyes in pleasure and held his head against the wall. Tears of joy poured down his cheeks. “My place in creation, and what a glorious creation it is. May He do even better in the next.”

            The computer informed the passengers that the ship was about to leave Earth’s gravity. The engines hummed and stars began to pass the view screen like comets in the night sky. A few seconds later, that little ball of water, that home of a myriad lies and innumerable truths, that proof of evolution and evidence of creation, left their window forever. The four men laid down in their beds, waiting for the cold embrace of sleep and the faithful promise that they would awake on another world, another wonder waiting to be created.