Mesopotamia - The Redeemer (19 page)

The people of the station continued
about their business as usual. He shuddered as he leaned against
the bridge's railing. The harmonious sounds of the station closed
upon him in a deafening uproar. His knees collapsed under him and
he sank to the floor of the bridge.

He closed his eyes. His head ached
and his body convulsed. Fragments of images began to flicker before
his eyes. He saw a chick fluttering in his hands and chirping
weakly. He saw his mother's back as she left his bedroom door and
sensed fear. He saw people surrounding him on all sides and
identified his teachers from various stages of his life. At the
sight of a feminine figure, a rush of love erupted in him. The
feeling of love was soon replaced by gloomy sorrow. He felt a wave
of nausea when he saw empty balloons of alcohol around him and the
odor of vomit rose in his nose. The chain of emotions continued to
wash over him. His heart pounded furiously, his head felt like it
was about to burst and he broke out in a cold sweat. He saw the
academy. He began to calm down. He heard the deafening sound of
applause of the audience he saw before him. He felt proud and
strong.

The noise stopped and his true name
echoed in his head.

A
tar
followed Sin out of the shining laboratory and into one of the
dusty cars. Sin steered the car through the network of tracks.

“Do you smell ammonia?”

Atar detected a faint odor.
“Yes.”

“There is an explosive charge in
the crack in the wall to your right. It is just one out of a
hundred bombs that are scattered throughout the complex. Here's
another one to your left, underneath the railway sleepers. All the
one hundred charges will explode simultaneously, igniting the
ammunition warehouses on the floor below.” Atar shot him a
surprised glance but did not interrupt him. “I know that there is
no danger of you spoiling my plans. You understand as well as I
that there is no other way to stop the Gnostic destruction,” said
Sin calmly. He spoke like one who had made an agonizing yet
inevitable decision that had matured in his heart after much
contemplation.

“How can I help?”

“Everything is ready.”

“So why then are you telling me all
this?”

“In order to relieve my loneliness
during my final moments and to allow you to prepare yourself to
leave this world. Only one day remains until the destruction of the
compound. Tomorrow, the module is slated to be transported from
here.”

'One day?' Atar thought to himself.
The screeching of the brakes jarred him back to reality. Sin
stopped the car on the ground level track. In the light of the
blinding white sun, he led Atar into an empty building. Atar
thought about the tunnels of the Uruk compound filled with lives
that will soon perish and about his entire life that would soon be
gone in a momentary flash. “On the way here, I saw some children
marching in procession. Who are they?”

“They are Gnostics.”

“So young?”

“The Gnostics loathe natural
reproduction, so they prefer to kidnap young children and
indoctrinate them over the years until they become the most devout
Gnostics.”

“When the complex explodes, the
children will perish as well,” he noted apprehensively.

“I wish I had a better solution,
but when I weigh the fate of the children versus the fate of the
galaxy, I have no doubts, despite the pain.”

“And why not just destroy the
module?”

“Because the technology used in
creating the module still exists within the compound. The devices,
the programs, the materials, the computers and the scientists who
possess the knowledge in their heads—all of them are here in the
compound. It would only be a short matter of time before a new
module would be created. The only way to truly make this effective
is to destroy the compound.”

“And how are you planning to
destroy the compound?”

“The explosive system is operated
by remote control.” Sin carefully removed a small container from
his pocket. “Because of the complexity of the system, the remote's
range is limited to a radius of five hundred meters. All I need to
do is press this button and the complex will go up in flames. I am
prepared to die along with the complex in order to save the galaxy.
Just a few more hours of sunlight and then...” He stopped talking
for a few moments as a lump had formed in his throat. He continued,
“And then we will all die.”

“All of us?” Atar whispered.

“Yes, you too, Atar. Even if |I
don't blow up the compound Nergal will never agree to allow you out
of here, and without his permission you have no way of
escaping.”

Atar had still not become
accustomed to the idea of never leaving the compound alive, and now
he was dealing with the reality that he would not survive even the
coming day.

Atar had always excelled in problem
solving; he was better than his colleagues at seeing alternative
options in situations where others had completely given up. He did
not give up this time either. He recalled all that he could
remember about the complex's courtyard and its surrounding wall.
Could he climb the wall? And assuming that he could, how would he
get past the electric fence?

Sin was silent; it appeared as if
he was aware of the ideas racing through Atar's head and was
waiting for him to come to the conclusion that there was nothing
else he could do. Only upon hearing Atar exhale a great breath of
air did he turn to him again.

“Are you prepared to offer your
Pythagorean prayers in anticipation of meeting your maker?”

After a few long minutes, Atar
replied affirmatively with surprising calm. “Thank you,” said
Atar.

“For what?” asked Sin,
surprised.

“For enabling me to say goodbye and
pray before death. Thank you for trusting me. You could have
executed your plan alone, without telling me about it and thereby
endangering yourself in doing so.”

“As I said, it's hard to die
alone.”

“I think there was another reason
for you to tell me these things.”

Sin looked at him, puzzled.

“You told me so I could take your
place.”

Sin's astonishment increased.

“So that I could detonate the
charges instead of you.”

“Why would I want that?”

“So that you could escape.”

“You are mistaken, my friend. I
have no intention of leaving. All my life has been dedicated to the
Gnosis and I have no other reason for living.”

“No, you are mistaken, my friend,”
replied Atar. “You are destroying the compound because you found
another reason for living.”

Sin shot him a puzzled look.

“It's for the good of humanity and
the galaxy. If those ideals are indeed your motivation for
destroying the compound, you will surely agree with me that you
must save yourself.”

Sin's eyes widened.

“Yes, you must leave this place and
warn the rulers of the other inhabited planets about the danger
they will be facing in another twenty, fifty or hundred years from
now, when the Gnostics succeed in building another module,” said
Atar sternly.

Sin was silent. He mulled over
Atar's words but could not refute them. He felt a slight sense of
disappointment. Earlier, he had anticipated the end to his
suffering in an impressive expression of death, a model of
self-sacrifice. But when he contemplated the situation, it turned
out that Atar was right.

“What you say is true.”

“And why didn't you want to know
that?”

“Because I wanted to die.”

A profound sense of peace mingled
with his grief. Atar breathed a sigh of relief. The purpose of his
spiritual training became apparent to him now more than ever. In
his Pythagorean mind, he viewed the matter as a meeting that had
been arranged eons ago between the soul residing in Sin's body and
the soul in his own body. He had fulfilled and achieved his
destiny. All at once, he heard the sound of thousands of strings
playing the melody of his birth. He embraced Sin and they looked at
each other sadly, one mourning his own death while the other his
life.

About half an hour had passed since
Sin had left the complex. 'In another couple of hours, Sin will be
in outer space and then I will discharge the remote,' thought Atar.
He could not help but think of the notion that perhaps this was all
a dream, but he did not need to pinch himself. The pain preceding
death was as sharp as a razor. He tried to grasp the glory of
heroism and the harmony of the music of his destiny, but he had no
control over his consciousness. Instead of the awesome sense of
transcendence that he had felt in the presence of Sin, he now felt
deep trepidation. Extraneous thoughts continued to trouble him.
'Maybe I will escape,' he thought, and then the rage overcame him.
'Maybe it's better that I wait and stand opposite Nergal. That way
I can at least watch my revenge.' The difficulty of giving up did
not leave him.

Finally, he transcended the
dimension of time. When he understood this, it became easier for
him: he could live another day or even another fifty years in
another world, achieve another destiny; but when else would he be
presented with such a direct opportunity to contribute to the sake
of humanity and the entire galaxy?

The shuttle was on its way to the
Atheist planet of Dust. Sin looked down through the window toward
the Earth, which was quickly growing ever more distant. At first,
all he could see was the trail of smoke from the shuttle. After
that, he could see the launching pad. In a matter of seconds, he
saw the view. He saw the airport with many launchers, a portion of
which held shuttles while others sat empty after having already
launched their loads. He did not bother responding to the
stewardess who greeted him and asked if he wanted anything. He
concentrated on a single point below him.

After a moment, he noticed a green
line surrounding black dots. From above he could not see, but he
knew. He came from there. Those were the reeds that grew wildly
around the swamp. Another moment passed and the broad delta of the
Euphrates river became visible. Like most of the passengers, Sin
wore sunglasses to protect his eyes from the blinding glare of the
sky; but his glasses were particularly dark. Shades of mustard
stretched from the other side of the shuttle towards the horizon.
The great desert as well as the seam between the desert and the
swamps was dotted with step pyramids, which looked like tiny
triangles from above. These ziggurats were over five thousand years
old. They were archeological remnants of the Sumerian civilization.
Some were worn and crumbling, others were preserved and some even
restored.

Atar contemplated the remote
control in his hand. He tried to move his finger but it would not
budge. An unexpected terror seized him.

Sin focused on the small green mark
that was growing ever smaller. He glanced at his watch and strained
to find the complex beside the ziggurat. He waited. Without
especially dark sunglasses, one would not have been able to discern
the flash of white against the backdrop of the blinding desert
glare. Then, a few seconds later, came the flash, followed by a
string of smaller white flashes. None of the other passengers
noticed the tiny change on the vast landscape.

In a short while, the rest of the
inhabitants of Earth and the other planets would learn of the news
of the destruction. He sensed deep sorrow over the destruction of
his handiwork and the loss of the warriors' and children's lives.
His heart wrenched as he thought about the sacrifice made by his
only friend in the world, Atar. He leaned back in the shuttle chair
and could not avert his tearing eyes from the window.

He was the loneliest man in the
entire universe.

S
he lay in
her bed and stared at the ceiling. Her body felt like it did not
belong to her. Could it be that she had become someone else?

The changes that befell her during
the days since the stranger arrived at the station had turned her
world upside down. The stranger exposed the breakdown she
experienced upon the loss of her father, revealing to
her—unsolicited—the depths of her soul. And now, she could no
longer maintain the Pythagorean disregard of her emotions.

From the moment that she allowed
herself to feel pain, the floodgates had opened. Her grief over her
father awakened another emotion, one that had been suppressed
within her for a long time. It became clear to her that she had
been in love with Thales for years, even before he had turned down
a promotion in order to stay close to her. How easy it had been to
repress her feelings under the guise of Pythagorean ethos and
tradition.

This emotional jolt also awakened
her fear regarding what was to come. 'Will I be able to continue my
function as master of the station? Will I be able to continue
living as a Pythagorean?' Despite the collapse of her social
structure from beneath her, she recognized that the path that had
emerged before her was the correct one, for now she was approaching
the truth.

She felt grateful toward the
mysterious stranger yet she also pitied him. She noticed that maybe
he was falling in love with her and perhaps not exactly with her
per se. 'He is aloof and has no roots. It's no wonder that he is
developing feelings toward me. I am the only human connection in
his life.'

Her thoughts were cut short by the
sound of a noise coming from the door's threshold. The display
showed the stranger's tense face. Now she would have to disappoint
him. She sat down and slipped on her clothes.

“Open!” she instructed the
station's computer and the door opened.

He burst into the room in frenzy.
“My name is Enosh. I am Socratic, and I arrived here from the
Atheist planet Dust.”