Now that I'm a free agent I mean to make my own choices, and explain them to nobody if that’s what pleases me. - James Blish

Sam was too good a scientist to let that hope creep into his hypothesizing.

It is written:
That given any one of a thousand million possible paths, life will take them all;
That worlds which will support life will give birth to it;
That worlds which cannot support intelligent life will be colonized;
And that where both can take place, both will take place.
It is written that this is what the vast, unknowing interstellar stage is for: To be given consciousness and purpose while its gift of existence lasts.
It is written:
That this is a random process;
That in the end all will be darkness and silence again;
But that while it lasts, life spreads through it, to make it aware of its own vastness and beauty, which otherwise it can never have known.
This is a gift; but the Giver is unknown.
That too is written.

The express pulled into the Stazione Termini in Rome five minutes ahead of schedule with a feminine shriek. Ruiz found a porter with no difficulty, tipped him the standard 100 lire for his two pieces of luggage, and gave directions. The priest’s Italian was adequate, but hardly standard; it made the facchino grin with delight every time Ruiz opened his mouth. He had learned it by reading, partly in Dante, mostly in opera libretti, and consequently what he lacked in accent he made up for in flowery phrases; he was unable to ask the way to the nearest fruit stall without sounding as though he would throw himself into the Tiber unless he got an answer.