“What are your thoughts?” Nahuel asked me that evening as we ate supper. Thankfully, we’d been entrusted to manage that by ourselves. Eol-2 had shown us a communal area beside the yurts with freezers full of prepackaged human meals and a row of microwaves, along with a small selection of bottles. Before leaving us, Eol-2 imparted our schedule for tomorrow, which was mostly lectures going into greater detail of the pilgrimage and what their equivalent of philosophers thought they could contribute to the God’s deliberations about what universe to usher into existence next. There was also time reserved for us to advance our beliefs to the Olyix, but to me that looked like a polite afterthought.

“I think we need an astrophysicist to start asking some difficult questions about quantum cosmology,” I told him.

“I believe those questions have been asked many times since contact. No substantiated astrophysical proof has ever been provided for their assertion that the universe is cyclic in nature, and each iteration can only exist for a finite time. In that respect, they exceed even our most facile popularist politicians when it comes to delivering on a promise.”

“That’s what I’m finding the most difficult about this,” I admitted. “They reached a technological level that allowed them to build the Salvation of Life and heaven knows how many other arkships. They’ve devoted their everlasting lives to voyaging to the end of the universe—which, face it, is probably going to be physically impossible—yet they can’t provide quantifiable scientific proof that the universe follows the cyclic theory.”

The cardinal turned to face me. “We have enough evidence in cosmological background radiation to confirm the Big Bang, which in itself argues against steady state.”

“At least the Big Bang allows for a theoretical state that will lead to an ultimate heat death,” Nahuel said. “Not that the heat death of the universe is the ideal sequence to birth this God at the End of Time. I’m not even sure you can call heat death the end of time.”

“An emergent god would have to reverse the maximum entropy state,” the cardinal mused. “That’s not an act of creation. It’s regenerating what already exists.”

“We’re getting lost in semantics,” Nahuel countered.

“Forty-two.”

“Excuse me?” I queried.

“Old joke,” the cardinal admitted. “The number of angels that can actually dance on a pinhead.”

“See?” I told both of them. “This is why we need an astrophysicist.”

“You are right, my friend,” Nahuel said insistently. “Everything they do is based on the cyclic theory, but they have provided nothing to prove its eventuality. It could even be said they refuse to supply it. Yet, paradoxically, their belief is so strong, so intrinsic to what they are, that a proof must surely exist. Nobody would travel like this without proof.”