Mesopotamia - The Redeemer (24 page)

Like all ancient religions, the
Mandaeans engaged less in metaphysics and more in the human soul.
They focused less on psalms in praise of the Demiurge's return to
the pleroma and instead channeled their energy toward the
redemption of their own souls in anticipation of spiritual
redemption. A Mandaean saw himself as Adam in the Garden of Eden,
awaiting the voice of God that would instruct him toward his
calling.

The most significant discrepancy
between the Mandaeans and the other Gnostics, and the reason why
the Mandaeans were the only sect of Gnostics to survive, was their
reverence for fertility. Truth remembered participating in the
ritual of Ishtar, Goddess of fertility before the destruction. The
source of the ritual was in the ancient Sumerian civilization. He
remembered the recitations of clay inscriptions and weaving of flax
fibers in a ceremony during which his younger siblings were
inducted into the community.

Following Islam, military
technology conquered the marshes and continued to destroy the
culture. The Mandaeans gave up their culture, but not permanently.
During the twenty second century, technology was obliterated in the
Human-Gods' wars. Like their ancestors, the Mandaeans returned to
the marshes, the mud, the reeds, the clay tablets, the weaving of
flax, the fishing in thatched boats and the hunting of
waterfowl.

The fuel tanks were full, the
launchers were loaded and the warriors were strapped in to their
aircraft. As far as they knew, this was just another invasion
exercise. Each pilot knew, down to the centimeter, the distance he
must maintain between himself and the other aircraft. The badgers
that were at the forefront of the ground invasion were equipped
with their personal weaponry. Their commanding officers waiting in
the aircraft behind them were ready to enter immediately after
them. The primary forces of the technicians, who were supposed to
take over Samos' computer systems, were also ready, as were the
engineers with the module. They were all expecting more practice
drills in order to improve nuances of their performance. The forces
also prepared for less expected instances, like violent resistance,
combat with Atheist aid and equipment failures. They prepared a
response to each situation and practiced it rigorously. All of
them, without exemption, were brimming with enthusiasm, dedication
and battle spirit. But there was one surprise for which they were
unprepared.

“My Gnostic comrades throughout the
audio-visual: stop your exercises, in whatever stage you are, and
in the name of the Master of Light, hear my words.”

Truth appeared on the personal
displays of each of the warriors as well as the cadets who remained
on the father ship.

“I have reexamined your
performances and I am sure each and every one of you will carry out
his task perfectly. We have sanctified ourselves with holy prayers,
harsh training and iron discipline. I am happy to announce that all
of this was not in vain.”

He was silent and the suspense
intensified.

“We have waited years for this
glorious moment.” He was silent for a moment. “We are on our way to
the heavenly pleroma,” he announced loudly. “We will not be
returning to Uruk on Earth, Yaldabaoth's middle world. The time has
come in which we shall all be redeemed from the darkness of
materialism to the clarity of light, along with the entire
galaxy.”

The whispers amplified. Some of
them had begun to guess the event to which Truth was alluding.

“My Gnostic bothers!” he raised his
voice. “Today we depart for Samos!”

After a brief moment of silence,
the whispers returned, shortly followed by cries of surprise.

“Samos!” somebody called out.

“Samos!” roared one thousand mouths
simultaneously. There were those who jumped up and down in joy.
Others froze instead. The enthusiasm of the crowd sparked a wave of
elation that climbed all the way from the pit of Truth's stomach up
to his chest, proceeding to choke his throat and then ring in his
ears.

“In the name of the Sanctity of the
Master of Light,” he called out again. “This is not a test. We are
on our way to an invasion. There are spies surrounding us on all
sides in Uruk. There is no nation in the galaxy that does not fear
us and that does not keep watch on our movements. My loyal
Gnostics, I trust you, but there are eavesdroppers everywhere. Up
until today, you were all aware that it would take another three
years until the module was complete. It was clear to me that this
information could not be kept secret that it would leak into eager
hands. And indeed, this is what happened. There is nothing stopping
us on the way to Samos. Not a single living thing can be found in
the entire distance before us. The Atheists on Dust still believe
the information that you yourselves believed up until this point.
They will be prepared for our invasion in three years’ time. That
is, three years after the galaxy has ceased to exist.”

One of the Gnostics began to call
out in rhythm:

“Truth! Truth! Truth!”

After a few seconds, their acclaim
burst out like thunder rolling across the audio-visual system.

“Truth! Truth! Truth!”

Truth silenced them. “The module is
ready. The accelerator, the component that was slated to be
completed in three years' time, is also ready and waiting here
inside the father ship. We must all thank the Gnostic scientific
staff that spent the past three years working to develop the
accelerator in an underground laboratory in Aleppo. They shall also
find their place alongside us in the pleroma.”

“Onward to Samos!” he roared
again.

“Onward to Samos!” they all
repeated after him.

“To the pleroma of the aeons,” he
cried.

“To the pleroma of aeons,” they
repeated.

“The Master of Light is expecting
us!”

“The Master of Light is expecting
us!”

Truth began to recite:

“In the Uruk Tablet

Our destiny is to liberate

The kingdom of Earth

To the empire of heaven.”

Hundreds of voiced repeated after
him.

“In the Uruk Tablet

Our destiny is to liberate

The kingdom of Earth

To the empire of heaven.”

They repeated the verses over and
over again, arousing themselves into a sweeping ecstasy. Truth felt
elated: the forces that he had spent years training were now ready
for his command. The holy mission was about to be fulfilled, and
he, the last scion of the Mandaeans of Uruk, was going to be the
Redeemer that would restore the Godly spark from its material
prison to the exalted pleroma.

“Forward, let's move!” he cried.
The chief pilot of the father ship switched the engines to full
speed followed by every Gnostic aircraft, rejoicing into
battle.

T
he two of
them sat in the sample room on blue silk cocoons, surrounded by the
simulator's treasures. A more relaxed atmosphere hung between them.
Sophia had digested the reality of the impending threat.

“I appreciate your willingness to
help us, despite the dangers it entails for you.”

“I am part of the endangered galaxy
as well.”

“How did you know about my love for
Thales?” she asked.

“I was watching you from the
bridge. It was at that moment that I regained my identity.”

“I thought that you were in love
with me. I didn't mean to hurt you.”

“I also thought that I was in love
with you, and you with me,” he said. “When I saw you with Thales
from the bridge, my heart stung with envy. That was what jolted me
to remember who I was.”

“Why specifically at that moment?”
she asked.

“The plan was to arrive here as a
man with no memories and no past, a man who grasped on to his
emotions because he had nothing else. Through that emotional state
I was able to move you Pythagoreans into feeling something, but all
under the condition that I don't know what I am doing. The amnesia
served that as well. That was why I tried to clarify your feelings
although painful. Without accepting your feelings there will not be
a way to fight or make peace with the Gnostics."|

The moment of awakening was when my
love turned to jealousy. At the moment that I saw you had fallen in
love, expressing emotions without the barrier of your Pythagorean
armor, my mission had been accomplished. The amnesia became
unnecessary and I could then recall who I was.”

“And are you still in love with
me?” she asked sympathetically.

“No. When I remembered who I was, I
understood that that love was part of my identity as a
stranger.”

“Ah... very well then,” she said
with relief and a trace of disappointment. “But how did you manage
to forget your own identity?”

“That is a Socratic skill that I
cultivated over years of training. It is difficult to acquire this
skill, and what's more, it is fraught with fear: What if I am
unable to recall my identity? This fear is ever-present.”

She nodded understandingly. Enosh
felt relieved: the first part of the plan had succeeded.
Nonetheless, he was still uncertain about the outcome of the rest
of the plan.

“Your father failed because he
could not relinquish his identity. He lacked the necessary skills.
Today, only you can rise to this challenge.”

“Wait, do you mean that I must
learn how to forget my own identity as you have? I thought that
such a skill requires years of training.”

“No. You need to undergo other
changes to you consciousness. You have already accomplished some of
them.”

“Why me?”

“Because you have the coveted
processor that the Gnostics seek, and therefore they will be
willing to communicate with you,” he explained. “You will be at the
forefront of the encounter with them.” He studied her and watched
her reaction.

“I understand. What must I do?” she
said in surprising calmness.

“I must instruct you in how to
prepare for an encounter with them and how to convince Octavia to
fight.”

“Can I manage to learn the ability
to influence others from consciousness to consciousness within a
year? Haven't you been doing this for your entire adult life?”

“Yes,” he spread his hands out
helplessly. “We have no choice. We may even have three years to
accomplish this.”

“We must begin,” she said
matter-of-factly. Where do we begin?"

“I will start from the beginning,
so you can follow the road I took up to this point. Let me tell you
about my life and I will acquaint you with the Atheist way of
thinking in general and the Socratic approach specifically.”

She was silent and he continued.
“My parents were disappointed, even dejected, about the type of
education that, in their opinion, had led to the destruction of
Earth. They believed that spontaneous development was more
beneficial to the child. Up until the age of ten, I did not attend
school because my parents were wary of the teachers’ influence,
since some of them still believed in God.

“When I was four years old, I
encountered death for the first time. We had chickens. One morning,
I rose as usual to feed them and I saw one of the chicks struggling
to move. I picked him up in my hand and he began to flutter. I laid
him on the ground. I could tell that he was in distress. I stroked
him, talked to him and waited for him to rise to his feet. Finally,
he stopped moving. I thought that he was sleeping and called for my
mother. She told me that the chick had died. From that point on, I
was afraid to sleep lest I die. I remembered the last few moments
of the small chick's life with great clarity, watching him pass
from life into death, from being to nonbeing. The notion that I
could cease to exist terrified me. Up until then, I felt like a
little prince in my world. My parents instilled me with confidence
to discover the world, but then I discovered the terror that was
death. I learned that there was something final and absolute that
no man could overcome. When I was older, my mother shared with me
her own experiences at my age. She had not been born an Atheist.
When she was a young girl, she was told not to fear death because
the dead joined God's family up in heaven. That is to say, we don't
really die. You also believe this notion.”

“Yes.”

“My mother was tempted to fabricate
a story that would calm my fears just as her parents had done for
her, but my parents, like all of the other parents on Dust,
believed that these kinds of comforts led to the belief systems
that had destroyed Earth during the Human-Gods' Wars. God can be a
decent solution for life's temporary problems, but as soon as he
exists, he begins to fight with the other Gods and his devotees
become cannon fodder. She told me about how difficult it was for
her to tell me that after death, there is simply nothing. She
described it like a party that ends at a certain time and then
that's it. There are no more parties. You can imagine how hard it
was for her to tell me the painful truth and how difficult it was
for me to sleep at night. After some time, it worked itself out. I
saw that I kept waking up each morning. The fears subsided on their
own. I think I understood the essence of the Atheist faith. The
belief in temporal and transitory life.”

“That seems like a very miserable
existence, having a temporary and trivial life.”

“You must understand that, for my
parents, God was the nightmare that destroyed their world. In my
eyes, the eternal outlook, which is a byproduct of Godliness,
diminishes the ephemeral beauty of life.”

“Fine, go on with the story of your
temporal life,” she teased with a smile.

“At the age of ten, I attended
school. I was interested in my studies and excelled in all
subjects: science, mathematics, history, art, languages,
consciousness, technology and most of all, topology and
anthropology. I wanted to understand people like you.”