Jack of Harts 2: Angel Flight by Medron Pryde

read that poem, you know.  It’s beautiful.”
    “Yes, it is,” Jack answered and smiled at her.  “It was about a beach; of course I had to learn it.”
    She was silent for several seconds, and Jack wondered what could possibly be holding her attention for that long.  Her mind ran at the next best thing to lightspeed, using distributed processing that allowed her thousands of thoughts at once, and yet here she was, thinking in silence.  It had to be big.  Finally she opened her mouth.
    “Would he really do that for me?”  Her lips actually quivered, and he felt the need to comfort her as the enormity of her question hit home.
    “I’m not the best person to ask,” Jack answered with a shake of his head.  “I haven’t done the whole religion thing in a long time.”
    “But you used to,” she asked with pleading eyes.  “Didn’t you have an answer then?”
    Jack shook his head.  “I had more questions when I was done than when I started.  I’m sorry.”
    Natalie place a hand over her heart and aimed an anguished look at him.  “I’ve calculated every possibility I can think of, and all I see is pain and loss ahead of me.  If you want me to try this, you need to give me something more.”
    Jack met her tear-filled eyes, and knew there was nothing he could say to stop her.  He just wasn’t the right person for this.  And for a moment, he felt profoundly guilty about that.  He shook his head to tell her that he had nothing.
    “Jesus loves the little children,” were the words that came out of his lips.  He frowned in surprise but for the first time in a long time he thought about that song.  And then he recognized the message in it. 
    “What?” Natalie asked in confusion.
    Jack smiled, realizing that maybe he did have the right words for her after all.  “It’s a song I learned as a kid.”
    Natalie cocked her head to the side in thought.  “Yes.  I know the song now.  Why do you quote it?”
    “Red, brown, yellow, black, and white,” Jack recited carefully, meeting her questioning gaze.  “They are precious in his sight.  Jesus loves the little children of the worlds,” he finished with a smile.
    “I am no child,” Natalie mused.
    Jack rubbed his jaw.  “True,” he admitted with a shrug.  “But Christianity is chock full of allusions and round about ways to say things.”
    “True,” Natalie echoed.  “So what does it mean to you?”
    Jack pulled in a long breath as he considered the words again.  He was pretty certain his first feeling was right.  “The original song came from long ago, back when races of man were divided by skin colors.  Back when my nation still used some of them as slaves in fact.”
    “Oh,” Natalie whispered and frowned in thought.
    “Exactly,” Jack said with a smile.  “We’ve forgotten colors now, but we have new racisms.  Terran.  Peloran.  Shang.  Cyber.  But we are all human.  Isn’t that what you always preach?”
    “Yes,” Natalie said very slowly.
    Jack nodded.  “I read the whole Bible from beginning to end when I was young, and from what I read I think God would agree.”
    “But you don’t believe,” Natalie whispered, her tone asking why it should make a difference.
    “I don’t know what to believe anymore,” Jack corrected with a shake of his head.  “But if he’s real then he loves you.  And that’s the best answer to your question I can give.”
    “If,” Natalie said with a shake of her head.  “That’s a big word to spend a life on.”
    “People have spent a life on less than that,” Jack returned and shrugged.
    “I just don’t know if I can.” Natalie said after a few seconds.
    “Neither do I,” Jack returned, his tone frank.  Natalie blinked at him in surprise.  “Life is strange,” he continued with a smile.  “Some people become stronger under pressure, under questions that shake the very foundations of life we believe in.  Some people fall apart.”  Jack shrugged,