Mesopotamia - The Redeemer (15 page)

"But you know the Gnostics will
never give in. The only way to dissuade them from their plan is to
eliminate them. The pacifistic Pythagoreans would never agree to
fight, even if their survival was dependent on it".

"That's why I'm here. In the known
civilizations, there is no greater expert than you on the subject
of consciousness. We need your assistance to influence the
Pythagoreans to converse with the Gnostics or at least to protect
themselves with our help".

Enosh thought quietly. A few
minutes earlier he had still been in a festive mood, inspired by
the Festival of Knowledge, and here, in a sharp about turn, he was
now pondering the complex problem Diotima had presented to him. His
brain was working feverishly – he had always enjoyed the challenge
presented to him by tough problems. Finally he said, "There is no
chance we can persuade the Pythagoreans to abandon pacifism. Maybe
we should fight the Gnostics unilaterally".

"Filan wants to promote the
military option in order to take over the processor. We need to
make sure that every diplomatic option has been tried before that.
It's possible that I'll be forced to lead an offensive on the
forces of the Gnosis, but I must be careful that Filan does not
gain personally from such an attack," she said, and he nodded. "I
fear that after he eliminates the Gnostics, Filan might try to take
control of the processor himself".

Enosh nodded again.

"The aim here is to avoid war. We
need to find a way of influencing the Pythagoreans and the
Gnostics. You know of the historical loathing between them".

"I know it well. How do you expect
to solve a conflict seared into both sides for so many years?"
asked Enosh.

"Now do you understand why I came
to you?" asked Diotima.

"I never thought I'd regret meeting
you".

“S
ophia
here. All is well. Samos is functioning well. How are you?”

She waited as the message traversed
through space to reach Planet Octavia and return from it with a
slight delay.

“Hello, Sophia. Nicomachus here,”
answered the supervisor in charge of communication with the space
stations. “All is well here. The citrus is at the peak of bloom,
the latest space station is currently underway and the good Lord is
smiling down on us in a clear way.” That was the Pythagoreans' way
of saying that there were no disasters. Were there disasters, he
would have said that the good Lord was smiling down on them in a
way that was beyond their understanding. “How can I be of
service?”

“Did you happen to send us a ship
from Octavia or from one of the Pythagorean bases?”

“As you are well aware, every
Pythagorean visit is coordinated with you ahead of time, but let me
check and see if there was some sort of error.”

Sophia waited a few seconds.

“According to the computer's log,
the last ship that was sent your way arrived three months ago. Why
do you ask?”

“A single Pythagorean ship has
arrived without prior coordination. The sole passenger of the ship
is a male suffering from space amnesia.”

“I gather that you moored his ship
and brought him up to the station,” said Nicomachus sharply,
cutting short the relaxed atmosphere.

“He was unconscious and lacked the
means to navigate the ship. I exercised my judgment as master of
the station and decided to bring him in,” Sophia said with
conviction. “I will send you the ship's identification number and
would appreciate it if you could locate its origin.”

To Nicomachus' chagrin, he could
only respond matter-of-factly, “Wait a minute or two.” He hoped
that the station would not come to any harm due to her negligence.
This was uncharacteristic of Sophia. 'I should notify headquarters
immediately,' he thought to himself. To her surprise, Nicomachus'
critical tone did not unsettle her; she was confident in her
decision. Nicomachus continued in the same reproachful tone as he
relayed the ship's details. Her fears were confirmed. It was a
Pythagorean ship that had been stolen from an airfield base in Zur,
one of Octavia's outermost moons.

“Thank you, Nicomachus. Goodbye,
Octavia.”

“Goodbye, Samos.”

Sofia continued her usual routine
as master of the station. She managed the scientists' meeting,
which dealt with upgrading the mobile version of the simulator;
after that, she marked the progress of the students in the advanced
stages of the engineering track; she complimented the culinary
technician on his menu enrichment program; and finally, she dropped
in to visit the stranger at the information system station,
whereupon she sensed some sort of unease.

The stranger had been through some
rough days. He tried not to let it show on the outside, but inside
a storm was raging. He alternated between depression, rooted in his
inability to recall who he was, and the fear that he would never
remember. In practice, he did not totally lose his memory. He spoke
Interstellar fluently. He knew that he must brush his teeth. He
remembered the social codes of language and dress. He knew how to
greet the people at the station and how to engage in small talk.
But in spite of all this, he still could not recall who he was and
where he came from. He felt displaced and alone. He spent most of
his time learning history in hopes that some detail would jog his
memory. When he wandered through the station, he wondered what his
own home looked like. The exaggerated serenity of the station felt
almost inhuman to him. 'Inhuman compared to what?' he asked
himself. 'Compared to some awareness buried deep inside me, albeit
inaccessible.' He tried not to think too much, not to sink into
frustration. 'I must focus on my studies and have faith that
everything will fall into place.'

When Sophia came to visit him, he
was learning a chapter of Neo-Pythagorean history. Her eyes lit up
when she saw that he was happy to see him.

“How are you?” she asked him.

He enthusiastically recounted how
he wandered the corridors of the station for hours learning about
his new home, expressed his admiration of the Pythagorean
technology and architecture: how the solid spheres wrapped around
each other and how the passage between them was carried out via the
elevators. He still could not grasp the phenomenon that no matter
what direction the elevator traveled, it emerged right side up
despite Samos' spherical shape. Sophia explained that the
elevator's bottom was always aligned toward the station's center of
gravity. If it remained relative to the center of gravity, it could
never flip over. The advanced technology went hand in hand with the
design. The pearly hues, the curvature of the walls and the
harmonious music fostered a sense of tranquility.

“I'm glad that you like it here,”
she said and continued, as though in defiance to Octavia, “let me
show you more.” She took his hand in hers and led him through the
station's corridors out of the database, until they reached a
circular space that was colored in shades of light brown and
interspersed with various objects.

“This is the collection of
samples,” said Sophia from behind him.

“Samples?”

“Yes. These are the samples created
by the processor.”He saw a red hibiscus flower buzzing with
honeybees, a swordtail fish adorned with a fan of blue and green
fins swimming inside a round bubble that was floating in space, as
well as a model of a solar system complete with planets orbiting
the central star.

“The processor created all of these
things?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“In the meantime, just try to enjoy
the items' form, beauty, harmony and symmetry. That will help you
relax and will heal your thoughts; for there is healing power in
orderliness.”

The stranger breathed deeply and
looked around with interest. He listened to the wonderful
harmonies. “Is music central to your lives?”

Sophia touched the bubble of water
and the swordtail brushed her fingers with its tail. When she
retracted her finger, the water bubble rippled and returned to
place.

“It is very central. All the
Pythagorean children are musically composed by the time they turn
twelve."

"composed?"

"Yes, when a Pythagorean child is
born, we locate sixty heavenly bodies that traverse a twelve-year
orbit that are closest to him at the time of his birth. After these
twelve years, the planetary movement is transcribed into musical
notation. My mother, Orithea the musician, is the one who arranges
the music,” she said proudly. “She weaves each Pythagorean into his
unique cosmic destiny and then plays its music to him.”

“Can I hear your melody?”

Sophia moved from the swordtail
toward the model of the solar system. She touched one of the
spheres and set the entire system in motion. “Computer, play
'Sophia's melody'.”

With mouth agape, the stranger
listened to the delicate combination of notes caressing him with
penetrating richness. He heard the roll of thunder, the babble of
brooks over rounded river rocks, the vibration of strings and the
howling of the wind. Sophia's voice also blended into the symphony.
The music rose, weakened and then escalated once more, but this
time bore motifs of disharmony that only served to emphasize the
beauty of the music. The stranger felt himself melting at the
beauty of the music.

“Did you like it?” asked Sophia
shyly.

“Yes, it was extremely moving. Did
your mother compose it?”

“Yes, not only for me but for all
the Pythagoreans. We each have our own melody.”

“Where do the notes come from?”

“That is the music that the station
plays when its spheres are turning. In order to play the piece, I
drew the notes of my own melody from the station's sounds.”

The swordtail drew closer to the
edge of its water bubble and shot him a quick glance. The stranger
turned to the solar model that was spinning in space.

“In your melody, I noticed
beautiful disharmonious notes. Where did these sounds come from if
the heavenly bodies are meant to be perfectly harmonious?”

Sophia's face fell and the stranger
was taken aback. He sensed that he touched upon a nerve.

'My song is damaged,' she thought
to herself, 'but that is none of his business.' She coughed lightly
and looked away from him. She never talked about this. The movement
of the heavenly bodies that corresponds to each Pythagorean child
is not just a metaphor for the cosmic order and Orpheus' law; it is
a melody that accompanies him throughout his life, which defines
him and completely delineates his life. Upon her birth, sixty
heavenly bodies were chosen to accompany her. One of them was an
arid planet that orbited a broad path around a small yellow sun.
When she was six years old, an asteroid the size of a small moon
slammed into the planet and shifted it off of its course. When her
melody was composed, there was a noticeable dissonance in it. A
defect.

“Disharmony, as its name suggests,
is a disruption of harmony,” she answered him finally.

“But that dissonance I just heard
is beautiful!” he protested. “It only serves to emphasize the
holistic beauty of the melody,” he said and looked at her in a way
that reminded her of Thales.

Sophia was silent. The stranger
decided not to pressure her and instead steered the conversation
toward the subject of her family once more.

“And how did your father come to be
part of the Pythagoreans?”

Her voice was flat now, perhaps due
to her grief regarding her planet. “My father was not born
Pythagorean. He came with his mother to Octavia when he was eight
years old. They were among the few refugees that the Pythagoreans
liberated from Earth.”

“What does he do?”

“He was a cosmographer.”

“Was?”

“Yes. Pythagoras was not just a
theorist. He wandered for thirty eight years studying with the
Phoenicians, Hebrews, Canaanites, Egyptians, Babylonians and
Persians before returning to the island where he was born, Samos in
Greece. Cosmography is an intrinsic part of the Pythagorean
mission.”

“Hence the name of the
station.”

“Precisely. My father's name was
Atar. He continued Pythagoras' work by conducting research
expeditions. He was sent to Earth in order to collect samples of
life for the processor's database. Before he disappeared, he and
his colleagues managed to send many samples. The hibiscus that you
saw was created based on the formula we derived from the samples he
sent.” She stated the facts pragmatically but the stranger could
sense the emotional turmoil she was suppressing.

“Disappeared?”

“Yes. He went out on an expedition
to collect water flora from the marshes of Uruk and disappeared
without a trace. His colleagues suspected that he was kidnapped by
Gnostics.”

“I'm sorry,” he said sadly.

Sophia did not appear to be sad. “A
short while afterwards, an enormous explosion occurred and the
Gnostic compound in Uruk, along with thousands of Gnostics who
inhabited it, was wiped off the face of the Earth. We believe that
my father perished in the explosion, though there is no
verification of this.”

The stranger was taken aback by her
lack of expressive emotion. “Aren't you sad about his death?”

“That's just how we are. We believe
that he fulfilled his purpose in time and space. That was his
body's destiny and now he has moved on to a different vessel,
another incarnation, another mission in his journey.”

He did not want to cause her pain
but his curiosity was getting the better of him, so he asked,
“Don't you miss him?”

The corners of her mouth curled
downwards. Her eyes revealed sadness but her carefully crafted
words were calculated and deliberate. “My father was a hero. One of
the pioneers of space and life exploration. He gave his life for
his mission. The Pythagoreans name their children Atar in his honor
and there are space stations named for him as well. His memory
lives on in us.”