“And he’s certain this was no natural eruption?” “No way. He’s talking about a spontaneous conversion of energy to matter. Nature doesn’t work that way, or at least it hasn’t since the Big Bang. Disaster, my friend. The temperature at the Sun’s surface plunged very near to absolute zero.”

“Sort of redefines the expression, ‘It’ll be a cold day in hell when that happens,’ doesn’t it?”

Justin grinned. “The doomsayers of antiquity believed that when the world ended, beauty would take over. But I don’t see anything beautiful coming from all this senseless evil, do you? Our once and sometimes beautiful civilization is reduced to utter nakedness, to the very fear from which it sprang.”

“Then we must survive until we can rise up against our enemy. If we are patient and allow ourselves time to grow, we will become strong enough to defeat evil.”

Justin put a hand on Joshua’s shoulder. “Ever the optimist,” he said. “You have just given one of Christianity’s oldest arguments for the existence of evil. Without evil we have no understanding of goodness, no basis for comparison. The purpose of evil is that good may fight it and come to know itself.”

“Where is the sense in that?” Joshua asked. “I’m here with you today because followers who judged me evil chased me off the Earth. So much for our understanding of what is ‘evil’ or what the word means. It’s a very severe gift of DNA, what the Earth gave me. First time around, for my Jewish twin, it was the Jews who became frightened and hateful. This time it was a sect of Christians.”

“Allow me to disagree, my old friend, before you carry that story of being persecuted by your own people too far. History does not uphold it.”

“How so?”

Justin laughed. “In India we had the story of Saint Issa, who came out of Israel around the time the Roman roads began linking east and west. He was-a very bright child. Our scholars found him preaching very remarkable sermons near the River Jordan when he was but twelve years old. They brought him east, where he was educated. And from the description of him, I’d venture to say that it his blood that flows in your veins.

“There are hints of his story even in the Gospels. Remember the three wise men from the east? Where do you think they came from? Where do you think Jesus disappeared to for nearly twenty years of his life?”

Joshua did not answer.

“Have you never wondered why Buddhism and Christianity both urge followers to live a life of service to others rather than one of profit and indulgence, why they both contain the Golden Rule and tell us that ‘those who live by the sword shall die by the sword?’ Why they both contain stories of an immaculate conception and the promise of a second coming? And why they both advocate a direct approach to salvation rather than the traditional use of rituals?”