The Source - Michael Cordy [116]
This beautiful stone, however, really was sacred. Its demonstrable miraculous powers would become the brilliant cornerstone of the Holy Mother Church, underpinning its power, eclipsing all other religions. He felt giddy at the prospect of what the future held and had to suppress a nervous impulse to laugh. Whatever the pope and Vasari had felt about his coming here, Torino knew that after seeing this the Holy Father would forgive – and give – him anything. He got to his feet, stepped closer and studied the hydra growing out of the fertile crystal. Radix, meaning 'root' as well as 'source', took on a fresh significance. This must be what Orlando Falcon had meant by vita quod mors arbor, the Tree of Life and Death.
But why death?
He walked round the chamber. As well as the entrance from the glowing tunnel and the opening in the ceiling, through which the water flowed on to the monolith, there was a darker exit, which appeared to lead down into a warren of black passageways. He thought of the rock worms and shuddered.
There was a sharp intake of breath behind him. Bazin was standing in the doorway to the chamber, his face illuminated by the monolith's rainbow hues. 'It's so beautiful.'
Torino smiled. 'Now who can doubt that God exists?' Suddenly he felt magnanimous. 'Let Sister Chantal and the others come in. Everyone should see this once before they die.'
70
When Sister Chantal saw the monolith she did exactly as Torino had done: she fell to her knees and prayed. After waiting centuries to see it she had no doubt in her mind that it was God's work – it was too beautiful and awe-inspiring to have been anything else. She noticed Torino watching her.
'Surely now you understand why the Holy Mother Church must claim it,' he said.
'No religion may claim it. It's far greater than any church. Whoever sees this glorious jewel of creation – whether Christian, Jew or Muslim – will see their God reflected in it, and that's how it should be.' It dawned on her then that religion was merely a language. How we spoke with God depended on which culture we were born into. Nothing more. Nothing less.
As Zeb Quinn stared wordlessly at the monolith she knew, with utter certainty, that the object before her had nothing to do with any abstract god but with Gaia. When people talked about climate change, global warming, acid rain and every other ecological concern – it all boiled down to one thing: keeping Mother Earth alive, keeping her heart beating. This pulsing crystalline rock, with its tree-like growth, was nothing less than Gaia's beating heart, the engine of life that drove all that was good on Mother Earth.
She considered mankind's unique and contradictory position as the one species capable of both protecting and destroying Mother Earth. This pulsing rock epitomized humanity's stark choice: either to nurture the mother that had given it life, or to exploit her.
As a doctor, Nigel Hackett saw nothing remotely religious or spiritual in the monolith, but he was no less awestruck by it. The monolith's significance was so immense that he felt no need to overlay it with God or Gaia. To him, this was simply the point of origin for all life on the planet, the first genotype, containing the original building blocks and base genetic instructions that had led ultimately to humanity's current genetic programming: DNA. He could feel the radioactive charge in the air and wondered what level a Geiger counter would show. He knew that