Fly on the Wall

She also listened in as Stephen April told her about his own personal revelations.  Eve hadn't been sure whether to stay or not... so she had.  It was a rather fascinating tale that he told.  Eve was (as practically everyone knew) a voracious reader.  She would read anything she could get her hands on.  That included texts from other races and times.  She had once glanced over a copy of a book called the Holy Bible.  It was a religious text popular in Earth's past.  The story had hundreds of characters... but it mainly centered on a man known as Jesus.  He apparently was the son of God, an all-powerful entity whom apparently created the entire universe.  She had stopped reading when the book took an exceptionally ominous turn.  Jesus was arrested, tried... and executed.  Not just executed... but by one of the most heinous forms of killing Eve had ever read about.  He had been nailed by his hands and feet to wooden posts.  The posts were then hoisted up... and he was left there, hanging by his own flesh.  Eve hadn't slept well for a couple of nights after reading that.

Eve had never taken Stephen April to be a religious man.  Bartokians had no actual religion... although she often prayed to her ancestors for guidance.  But asking your forebears for advice was much different than believing in a being that created an entire universe and everything in it in six days.  And quite frankly... Eve had never pictured Stephen April as being a man who would believe in such a story.  Yet... as he spoke... Eve heard in his voice a conviction she had never heard before.