'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.
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