Mesopotamia - The Redeemer (35 page)

Smoke was surprised by Sophia's
words but even more surprised by his own reaction. He was seized by
anxiety. Anxiety that he could not identify its source. Sophia
noticed his hesitation, and slipped into his consciousness through
a crack that had opened for an instant. She stretched out her hand
to him in open confidence. “Are you ready for me to be by your side
and take part in your world?”

Her hand remained extended in the
air. He thought about Truth and wondered if his relationship with
this Pythagorean woman was crossing some boundaries. What would
Truth say? What would Truth do in his place? On account of his
admiration for Truth, he would do anything. Truth was the one who
had anointed him with the sacred oil during the initiation rites.
Truth had watched him as he proudly passed the ritual of the blood
challenge. Truth even broke the law when he grabbed hold of his
hand as he walked along the edge of the abyss during the test of
courage. He had taught him the mantras of nullification and the war
songs. He shook himself to his senses. 'I came here to carry out a
mission,' he reminded himself.

“Let's go back to the simulator,”
he said.

She led him from the samples room
back to the simulator. She had also felt a shiver when she turned
it on.

Smoke sat comfortably in his chair.
Sophia knelt beside him. The snake, the Master of Light, filled the
entire ceiling with colors of mustard and blue in diamond patterns.
Slowly, the patterns dissolved into fragments against the dark
background and the melody of the spheres. From the edge of the dome
came a pale light that reduced the darkness on the ceiling into a
vague, dark rimmed circle. The conjured hyena once again crossed
the desert and vanished into the red ruin on the horizon. On the
ground were flickering shapes that vanished as quickly as they
appeared, faded barracks, a heavy wooden wall and buildings in the
shape of black cubes. She didn't bother him with questions because
she understood that this was the Gnostic compound.

Aircrafts crossed the ceiling of
the simulator from side to side, trailing a wake of white smoke.
There was the sound of dim thunder. The shadow began to beat to the
rhythm of the thunder. The shadow slowly changed its circular shape
and at the center of the ceiling emerged the silhouette of a human
figure. Smoke, who up until that moment had been stirring
restlessly in his chair, began to relax. His breathing slowed, the
world around him shrank and the stiffness in his limbs disappeared.
His hearing dulled. The music from the spheres seemed far away. He
forgot himself and went into a trance. The silhouette transformed
into the head of a woman. Smoke and Sophia looked at the simulated
face of the woman on the ceiling that slowly materialized.

Sophia tried not to look at Smoke
lest he become distracted. He sank deeper and deeper into the
experience. Pythagoreans generally required more time to lose
control of their thoughts, but she realized that the training in
Gnostic self-nullification had conditioned him to be a perfect
object of reception for experiences like this. They understood the
true nature of devotion.

The woman smiled and bobbed her
head from side to side as if she were playing with a baby. Smoke's
head swayed with hers at the same pace. She hummed a simple rhythm
comprised of only two notes. Gradually, the two harmonic tones
intensified, shaking Smoke and Sophia down to the tiniest nerves in
their bodies. Smoke was slouched in his chair. His head still
swayed from side to side in time with the woman's face. His gaze
was locked in her eyes, his mouth open with longing. The rhythm
slowed. The image blurred and her eyes grew sad. He tensed, as if
ready to grab on to her before she could slip away.

He mumbled something she couldn't
understand. “Mother,” she heard him whisper. “Mother,” he said
again more clearly.

The features of her face returned
and become clearer. Her expression remained sad. The background
darkened and between the monotonous, rhythmic beats there appeared
a bedlam of blurry barrages. The woman looked at him with pity.

“You know that we must part, my
love. If only I could stay with you. It pains me to leave, but you
must be strong. Take care of yourself. Stay in the shelter until
you don't hear a single blast,” she said with a stifled cry. “I
love you, my son.”

More shadows appeared on the screen
and spoke to him with different voices. Smoke lost control. He
frantically tried to discern the shadows, but none of them were
clear enough. There was a jumble of gibberish, guttural noises and
nonsensical groans. Sophia did not react at all when he crushed her
hand in his own. The shadows were trying to say something but
without success. The barrages randomly thundered in the background.
Voices continued to emerge from throats, screeching, nonsensical.
The volleys were approaching, chunks of red and orange against the
black sky. Smoke flinched at the sound of them. His body tensed,
his jaw was clenched. Every noise shot through him, tormented him,
tore to bits any remnant of the image of his mother. He buried his
head in his hands.

Finally the volleys subsided.
Silence reigned. She turned off the simulator. When he lifted his
eyes, he saw Sophia against the blue dome. The pain pounded in his
temples, choking his throat.

After a long silence, Sophia built
up the courage to ask, “Was that your mother?”

Smoke nodded wordlessly.

Enosh, who had been standing
outside the simulator watching the scene unfold, felt proud of his
student.

“Smoke to Truth.”

“Truth here.”

“Communications check. No news to
report. Continuing to make contact with the woman.”

Truth recognized the nuances of
Smoke's voice and immediately noticed a difference. He had not
called her 'the Pythagorean' or 'the female'. He had called her
'the woman,' an expression of intimacy and respect. Truth also
noticed there was no longer tension in Smoke's voice. Smoke was too
calm, too calm for a warrior about to go into battle or a spy
working to keep his cover.

'Is Flash right? Has Smoke fallen
prey to the witch's spell?'

“Give me more information.”

“There is nothing more. I will
continue to make contact and learn about the simulator. I will make
contact tomorrow.”

Truth was filled with concerns.
Perhaps he hadn't been attentive enough, or paid too little heed to
Samos's foreign environment. He remembered that in the second
communication, he had responded impatiently. Perhaps Smoke had
broken under the strains of solitude and was too exposed to the
enemy's influence. Despite the gentler tones he had used in the
last communication, he wondered if he had not done enough. A sudden
impulse prompted him to say something that would compensate for his
possible mistake.

“You are not alone. All the
Gnostics are with you.”

Smoke was surprised. “In the dark
of night we will know the light. Soon we will be in pleroma with
the Gods.”

For as long as he had known him,
Truth had never heard Smoke's voice sound so serene. This was
probably the effect of the station. Perhaps he had erred in sending
someone so elusive. Perhaps he was too sensitive, which made him
easily influenced. He might have done better to have sent one of
the tougher ones, the more impenetrable ones, like Flash for
instance. But what's done is done.

“May the Master of Light be with us
all. Over and out,” Truth said.

Truth wandered about amongst the
warriors on the father ship. He visited the pilots' platform, the
badgers' operations room and the lounges. His soldiers were under
such enormous tension that it was almost tangible; their patience
was wearing thin. For lack of instruction, they milled about
aimlessly. Some checked their equipment. Others found themselves in
petty fights in an attempt to break the tension.

He knew everything there was to
know about the mental preparation required by a fighter before
battle. He could not stretch this situation out much longer.

S
moke
began to wake up and stretch. He expected to see Sophia at his
side. To his surprise, she was not there, and when he noticed that
he missed her, he sat up in a panic. Only when he noticed her
sitting on the couch on the other side of the room did he
relax.

“Did you sleep well?” she
smiled.

“Ah... yes.” In fact, Smoke hadn't
slept so well in years. On the flip side, the very fact that he
took off his armor and was not wary of sleeping inside the enemy
base alarmed him. He jumped quickly from the bed and Sophia held
out a drink to him.

“What is this?” he asked, one
eyebrow raised.

“Hibiscus flower essence. It's
refreshing.” Smoke gulped the drink and found it delicious. He
recalled his mother's image in the simulator. He felt his heart
spreading inside of him.

Sophia noticed the clarity in his
eyes and decided to take a chance with the next stage. “I want to
be honest with you...”

His senses sharpened and his
muscles tensed. Was she trying to mock him? “I'm listening.”

“I have no interest in burdening
either of us with the confusion of concealment. That is why I am
going to be frank with you and tell you, here and now, that I know
about the module. I know that in the past, you developed a module
that was destroyed in the Great Blast. I know that you now have a
new module in your possession, one that is waiting with Truth in
the orbital route.”

'It's a trap,' thought Smoke. 'I
should notify Truth immediately.' “It does not surprise me that you
are trying to wrap me in your witchcraft,” he protested.

“Have you heard of Attar?” she
asked.

Smoke deliberated whether he should
answer her question. In the end, he decided that there wouldn't be
any problem admitting that he heard of Attar, since there was
nothing about that that admitted to the existence of the module. On
top of that, if he afforded her the chance to continue, it was
likely that her plan would become apparent. “Yes,” he replied, “He
was the Pythagorean that was killed in the explosion.”

“Let me tell you something that the
Gnostics do not know. Attar was my father.”

This was not what Smoke had
expected to hear. He looked incredulously at Sophia. She nodded and
continued. “He was my father. He understood that he was going to
die at the hands of the Gnostics in any event, so he decided to
commit a suicide operation. He destroyed himself along with the
module and the entire Gnostic research compound in Uruk. He
sacrificed his life to save me, save the galaxy and, indirectly,
save you.”

“The Gnostics saved me! My life
belongs to the Gnosis! You lie. The compound was destroyed by the
condemned one whose name has been erased,” he said firmly, but a
sort of confusion had sprung up inside him. He didn't know what to
think. On the one hand, he thought that there could be a grain of
truth in her words. It was possible that Attar had collaborated
with the condemned one whose name had been erased.

“So you owe an enormous debt to the
Gnosis,” replied Sophia. “They saved you from the worst possible
tragedy and gave you a home, a sense of belonging and purpose. They
basically gave you a reason for living,” she continued. “I am not
telling you to wipe out your debt to the Gnosis. I believe that you
must repay your debt to the very fullest. That is why I want you to
save them from the danger that they pose to all of us and to
themselves. Our purpose is to cooperate with you, so save us all
and the Gnosis from itself.” Sophia studied Smoke. He looked
thoughtful. 'Could it be that the Gnostics are more humane than I
had imagined? Could I have possibly succeeded in stripping away a
layer of his defenses?'

She continued. “The Gnostics saved
you from losing yourself. What would have happened if they had not
taken you in?”

“I would have died,” he answered
candidly.

“This is the source of your feeling
that you owe them your life. But I think otherwise. Because they
saved you, you owe them their lives. You must save them!” she said
emphatically.

Her words struck him like an iron
bullet. The shock that he felt from the moment he arrived in Samos
intensified. He was torn between his strict loyalty to the Gnosis
and his commander Truth, and his loyalty to the truth that was
arising within him.

Sophia recalled the fear that she
felt when her spiritual outlook had collapsed in her encounters
with Enosh. “Not long ago, I was in your shoes,” she said
understandingly. “Had my eyes not been opened to my blindness, I
would still have believe in the Pythagorean ideal. I would have
still been trapped in the repetitive logic of perfect order, which
allows no room for changes or spontaneity. I would have been
trapped in hermetic fullness, which would not have allowed me any
ability to relate to you or to accept you.”

The pulse in Smoke's head pounded
wildly. Sophia verified that Smoke was listening and continued
cautiously. “Today, I still enjoy the beauty of order, but I am no
longer imprisoned by it. I know now that order is not everything
and that complete order would be stagnation and death. As you said,
the bombs did not fall according to any order. But the Pythagoreans
and I refused to acknowledge this. We insisted on seeing only the
order and ignored all the rest. I could not imagine a situation in
which I would have a relationship with someone who was planning on
killing me, someone whose culture turned me into an orphan.” Smoke
was speechless. “I invite you to trust me and free yourself from
ruination.”

His eyes beckoned her to
continue.

“Just like you trusted your
parents, the Master of Light and Truth.”

Whatever had been opened inside of
Smoke during the encounter with his mother and now begun to close.
'How?' he repeated to himself. 'Traitor!' he heard Truth's voice in
his head.