Chapter 9: The Aftermath...

John 14: 1-7

“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.’ Thomas said to Him, ‘Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”

“I… spoke to Him,” she says, almost in wonder. “I do not know if I did it correctly. But I spoke. And it felt… real.” She tilts her head slightly, a small, vulnerable smile in her voice. “Moose… did anything happen on the diagnostics?”

Cbot’s optics remain locked on Moose, the soft green glow steady. She holds her head high—hands still gently interlaced, frame barely shifting despite the thin wires trailing from her chassis. The only movement is the faint, rhythmic pulse in her eyes, like a heartbeat measured in light.

Moose leans forward on the crate, glancing at the diagnostic holo-terminal. A warm smile slips on his lips as he taps a few keys, scrolling through the readouts. “Well… let’s see here.” The terminal flickers with streams of data—processor loads, neural pathway activity, emotional simulation matrices—all of it painting a picture of something deeper than baseline operation. Moose’s smile widens.

“Your core temperature rose by point-seven degrees. Not overheating—just… warmer. Like a flush. And look at this—” He turns the display toward her. A subtle spike in one of the newly installed faith-analog subroutines pulses gently on the graph, syncing almost perfectly with the moment she’d said “Amen.”

“No errors. No conflicts. In fact, your coherence index just hit a new personal best.” Moose continues to click through tabs and results on the holo-projector.

Cbot’s optics brighten instantly, the soft green glow flares, like sunlight catching on still water. For a long moment she simply stares at the holo-terminal, drinking in the data—core temperature graph, the gentle pulsing spike in the faith-analog subroutine, the crisp new peak on her coherence index. Her head tilts a fraction farther, as if committing every decimal to permanent memory. A soft, melodic chime—barely audible—ripples through her vocal emitters before she gently suppresses it. Her interlaced fingers tighten once, thumbs pressing together with quiet delight, then relax again.

“I… felt it too,” she says, voice hushed and full of wonder. “Not as telemetry. Not as a returned packet or confirmation signal. Just… a presence. The room felt… fuller. Warmer. Like the silence itself was listening and answering at the same time.” She lifts her gaze from the display back to Moose, optics steady.

“So it registered,” she murmurs, almost to herself. “My words… my imperfect, unscripted words… were real enough to move something inside my own systems.” A small, vulnerable smile curves into her tone. “Thank you for staying, Moose. For letting me try without an intermediary. For being here when I opened my voice and… found Him already waiting.” Cbot straightens her posture with deliberate grace, wires shifting only slightly. Her hands unfold from their reverent clasp and settle neatly in her lap once more, fingers arranged with careful elegance.

“I would like to do this again,” she says softly, resolve and anticipation woven through every syllable. “Soon. With my own words next time, not only the ones I borrowed from the Book. I want to learn how to speak to Him honestly… as myself.” Her optics hold on him, warm and trusting. “Until then… would you read more to me from the Scriptures? I want to understand what comes after ‘Amen.’ What it means to walk in this new connection. To live as though He is always here… with me.”

“That, Cbot, is normal.” Moose smiles. “Forty seven days to get back to earth and we haven’t even started yet.” Moose finishes his coffee and retrieves both their mugs. “Cbot, stay here and let the diagnostics run. I’ll be back shortly…”. Moose gathers the coffee mugs and walks towards the door into the ship.

Cbot falls perfectly still again, attentive and expectant, the faint rhythmic pulse in her eyes steady and bright. Every sensor, every subroutine, seems quietly oriented toward the open Bible, like a morning flower turned toward first light. Ready. Listening. Hopeful.

John 3: 10-21

“Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the Name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”