Mindguard (31 page)

“It was very
cold and you had landed in the middle of a snowstorm. The terrain was risky and
visibility was poor, so you decided to stop and wait for it to pass. You were
both so excited he… you… you kept talking about the future of mankind. 
When the snowstorm passed and the weather cleared up, you were so excited to
return home and you… he said…”

She choked up as
the story advanced. Her words became almost unintelligible.

“…you were so
excited you got… you got overconfident… you were still talking, but you weren’t
paying enough attention to your surroundings and you… you… he said…”

Nikolaos put a
reassuring hand on her shoulder and she completely broke down. She hugged him
as tightly as she possibly could, this man who had been as much a father to her
as Horatio Miller. She hugged him until they both could barely breathe. Still
caught in his embrace, Sophie spoke that which had been unspeakable: “He said
you fell down a crevice… he said you fell…”

It was a few
minutes before Sophie stopped sobbing. Nikolaos held her tightly throughout.

Though she was
visibly exhausted, the girl wanted to continue the story. She wanted to face
her fears. Nikolaos loved and admired her more now than he ever had. He also
felt sorry, so sorry, for being forced to cause her heartbreak. She let go of
him first, took a deep breath and continued speaking. Her voice was a lot
calmer, she had no energy left for emotion. 

“He said you
fell so far down that he could barely see you. He said he struggled to get you
out but couldn’t, that he continued speaking to you for the next forty-six
hours, just so that you’d answer and he’d know you’re still alive, even though
it became clear you wouldn’t survive. He said at one point you must have either
tried to move or you might have lost consciousness because you slipped and fell
farther down, farther than he could see. He spent the next six hours calling
out to you but he got no answer. In the end, fearing for his own life, fearing
he himself may never live to tell the world about Opus Caine, he went on.”

“So why didn’t
he tell the world about them?” Nikolaos asked, in the way of someone who
already knew the answer.

“He said they
wouldn’t understand.” Nikolaos clenched his fists but Sophie couldn’t see.

“He said we had
to go back, gain knowledge and evidence first. He wanted me to go because…
because his absence so shortly after your… death, might arouse suspicion. He
told me to gather as much information as I could about the Opus Caine and come
back with proof. He told me we had to do it… for
you
!”

Now Sophie was
shouting and, though she was shouting at him, Nikolaos knew that the anger was
directed at her father. “He said we… we can’t let your death be for
nothing.” 

“Sophie,”
Nikolaos said, ”I know how incredibly hard this must be for you. It hurts me so
much to upset you, I wish -” 

 “It’s not
true.” Her words carried the weight of a sentence. Nikolaos didn’t know how to
reply.

“You’re going to
tell me it’s not true, aren’t you?”

“Sophie, I’m so
sorry…”

“You’re going to
tell me that everything my father said was a lie.”

Holy Brother
Torje, our departed Protector, our healer and most valued friend, bless this
day and help us carry on forward, so that we may live on and praise you and the
God to whom you have dedicated your life’s work. Please mend our suffering from
the world beyond, as you have done on Kalhydon , be with us and guide us
through the darkness of sorrow and suffering, towards the deliverance of love
and the absence of pain. So may our prayer be heard!

Prayer to Holy
Brother Torje, patron saint of Kalhydon and Suffering, originated five years
after Brother Torje’s death, on the occasion of his sanctification. Brother
Torje is not recognized as a saint by any Christian denomination other than the
Christians of Kalhydon

Nikolaos had been
quiet for an uncomfortably long time. He didn’t know how to begin. Sophie was
just silently staring at him. She sat on the floor next to Sheldon’s bed, as
though the unconscious mindguard were a watchdog, guarding her from a dangerous
intruder. Nikolaos imagined how she must be feeling: angry, confused. He kept
searching for a right way to phrase what he was about to say, but he found
none. He decided to speak from the heart.

“Sophie, please
believe that I am telling the truth. I know why your father said what he said,
and though I do not understand his intentions, I am certain that I understand
his reasons.”

No reply from
the girl. Nikolaos sighed and looked away. He found it easier to tell the story
if he wasn’t looking at a face whose expression he could no longer decipher.

“I told you what
I saw in your father’s eyes. It was not the joy that I was feeling in my heart.
You have to keep in mind that we had stopped right at village entrance, as if
hypnotized. We had never even set foot in it. It might as well have been a
mirage.

Communication
was established directly in our minds, we had neither seen nor met a single
member of Opus Caine. We don’t know what they look like. Everything was planted
in our heads and we had no way of knowing if… it was even true. As a scientist,
I know that you should disregard all feelings, but Sophie, I
felt
it.

I felt that the
Opus Caine spoke the truth. I saw it as a revelation. But your father… he was a
better scientist than I. At first, I didn’t understand. I said nothing and we
both headed back to the meadow where we had initially stepped out of the
gateway. Your father was unusually quiet. We traveled back to Carthan. The
weather was… the same as before. The very second  we set foot on Carthan,
your father stopped me and said he wanted to talk.”

●

“Niko, hold on!”

Nikolaos had
felt from the beginning that there was something wrong with his friend. Why
wasn’t he ecstatic? Today was the most important day in the history of mankind.
It was the day that announced the end of suffering and greed, the beginning of
a love that knows not the boundaries of flesh.  

“Horatio, what
is it?” It was as much a question as it was criticism.

“We need to
think exactly how we’re going to proceed.”

“What do you
mean?” Nikolaos felt confused but his friend radiated a frightening
determination and clarity of mind.

“We will go back
home,” Nikolaos said, “ and we will announce the end of the world as we know it
and the beginning of a better one.”

“A better one?”
Horatio hissed. Nikolaos was familiar with that tone. Horatio always used it to
ridicule anyone he felt was making a laughable statement. 

“Do you even
doubt it?” Nikolaos asked. He was trying to tread carefully, for he always feared
angering his friend. There was a dormant fury inside Horatio, like a volcano
that could erupt at any time. Though he had never seen him angry, Nikolaos
feared his rage in the way man can fear only the unknown.

“It seems to me
that you’re a bit confused, perhaps intoxicated,” Horatio said. “It would be
understandable after what these… creatures… have done to us, but we need to
carefully plan out what to do next. I can’t allow your credulous beliefs to
sway your judgment now, not in the face of this important matter.” 

“What are you
talking about?”

“What these men
have become is an abomination.”

“Abomination?”

Nikolaos
couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The Opus Caine were the culmination God’s
work. Even if Horatio did not believe in God, how could he not view them as the
culmination of human evolution? For the first time in his life, he felt like
his closest friend was actually a complete stranger to him.

“Niko, open your
eyes! Try to regain your strayed reason. This creature that calls itself Opus
Caine is a threat to mankind.

“A threat?”

Horatio was
visibly starting to lose patience with the way Nikolaos just repeated his
statements.

“Yes, damn it,”
he yelled. “This
thing
… is the offspring… the creation… of the seven
hundred ninety-two traitor telepaths! They are - legally and morally - enemies
of mankind!”

“Enemies?
Horatio did you not see, did you not
feel
?”

“Feel?” Horatio
spat out the world like the crudest obscenity. “What exactly was it that we
have
seen, Niko? For all we know, we’ve had the wool pulled over our eyes. We
haven’t seen anything but what may very well have been an elaborate
holoprojection. The Opus Caine might be setting out to destroy everything we
stand for, and using us to do it.” 

“Why? Why would
they want that?”

“Why did they
flee in the first place?”

“They fled so
that they can become what they are now. They fled because Old Earth would not
allow them to evolve. Mankind was refusing its own salvation.”

“And what does
this ‘salvation’ consist of?”

“Harvesting the power
of the mind without the boundaries of the body, becoming one with -”

“What, God?”

“No, this is
beyond becoming one with God. The Opus Caine want to become one with
themselves
.”

“That is such a
load of shit, Niko!”

“Humanity -”

“Humanity? That
multi-brained beast that tried to cast a spell on us is not human. It has
become something else, something we were never meant to be.”

“It is
us
,
Horatio. It is us in our most evolved state.”

“No!”

“Opus Caine
gives us -”

“No, Niko! It
gives us nothing! It
takes
from us! It takes away our individuality, our
solitude… it takes away our achievements.”

“Is this about
your own ego?”

“This is about
everything I have worked for all my life. Everything I have ever struggled to
achieve, everything I’ve sweat, bled and cried for, while others have just sat
merrily by doing
nothing
. This is about what I’ve given the world, while
others have given it nothing! I have fought for who I am, I have worked for
everything I have and others simply have not. I am not willing to share and
neither should you!”

“It’s more than
sharing your… your individual accomplishments, Horatio. You share love. You
share a common goal, a common interest. This will be the end of suffering for
everyone.”

“Well, perhaps
not everyone deserves an end to their suffering.”

“My God,
Horatio, how can you not see -”

“You are the one
who cannot see, Niko! If every man were absorbed by Opus Caine… then those who
have given the most will have the most taken from them, and those who have
offered nothing will have everything granted to them!”

“You can’t think
like that. Please, try to look beyond yourself!”

“I am who I am
because of the choices I have made in life, because of how I chose to accept
certain beliefs and reject others. Life is a game of choice, not a parade of
equality. Without choice and without struggle, everything you do becomes
meaningless. Perfection becomes trivial. I would choose dynamic chaos over
static order, a thousand times.”

“Have you never
felt pain? Have you not known despair?”

“I have felt more
pain and known more despair in my life than I will ever
allow
you to
see. That’s because they’re mine! My pain! My despair! Not the world’s, mine!
You always claim to be a charitable man. When you pass a beggar, you stop and
offer him bread to eat. But do you open your home to all beggars everywhere? To
come and live with you, share your meals and partake in everything you have? Do
you do that, Niko? No, you do not! You do not open your house to all vagrants
of the world and say ‘come live with me, my home is your home’. You do not set
the table and say ‘share my every meal with me!’ No, charity must come with
moderation. If you open your doors and share your life with all tramps of the
world, then you become one of them. Charity, my friend, is a very fragile
system. And make no mistake, this is what the Opus Caine want from us… charity!
They offer nothing, they want only to receive. They have become something that
is static, unmoving, consumed by its own repetitive existence. Boredom, Niko,
the ultimate downfall of the all-powerful. Boredom. They want us, the tens of
billions of us, merely for one more second of entertainment. Because of what
they are, they are tortured by everything they have. An eternity of everything
means an eternity of nothing.”

“Better still
than an eternity of pain.”

“Here is where
we disagree, my friend.”

“We will let
mankind decide for itself then, when we bring them the message.”

Horatio’s voice
became a secretive whisper. “We can’t do that. Mankind can never know about
this. The history of our species is burdened with foolish decisions and costly
mistakes. More often than not, the masses are a catalyst for catastrophic
events.”

“You are afraid
mankind will disagree with you, that they will embrace the Opus Caine.”

“I am afraid of
any event that will come about as a result of a decision made by a great mass
of idiots! I will not bow to that decision. But, what is once discovered cannot
be undiscovered, you know that as well as I do.”

“Look at the
discoveries we have made together. Look at all the technological advancements
we’ve offered the world. They have made it a better place.”

“And Opus Caine
will make it a worse place.”

“This knowledge
was not meant for you only. You can’t allow yourself to be so arrogant.”

“I’m afraid -”

“That you have
no choice?”

“No, my friend,
that is not what I was going to say. What I was going to say is: I’m afraid
that choice is mine.”

“Then, my dear
friend, we must each go our separate ways, and see where life takes us.”

●

“Then, I turned
my back. I could no longer bear to look at him. It hurt me deeply that we could
have such vastly different opinions on a matter of such vital importance, of
moral
importance. He was my best friend. I loved him. I was heartbroken.”

Nikolaos
stopped. Now came the part he dreaded the most. The girl had been as silent as
a statue ever since he had started speaking. Her empty gaze was frightfully
impenetrable. 

“I was planning
to leave the planet on a different route,” Nikolaos said. “Somehow, it seemed
fitting. We had a backup transporter, so I could use that and we could both go
our separate ways. But I had no time. I didn’t hear him come close, I just felt
his arm around my neck. He… he grabbed me in a chokehold. He was killing me!”
There was no other way to express that last statement than through a scream.
Finally unburdened after two long years.  

“He tried to
kill me!”

He was sobbing
and screaming, convulsing, but Sophie remained calm. When he regained control,
he felt disappointed. He had expected a gesture of compassion from Sophie, as
he had shown her. At least an indication that she acknowledged his pain. He
received none. Nevertheless, he continued: 

“I could not
believe what was happening. I struggled, but his grip was strong. The more I
struggled, the tighter he held. I felt myself fading away, but I would not
allow it. I did not want to die like that, not by the hand of my best friend. I
struggled and fought and clawed and scratched. I think I hit him in the eye
because he took a step backward but did not let go. He tripped and fell and I
fell over him. Because he was still holding on to my neck, he had no way of
cushioning his fall. He hit his head on the ground pretty hard and I could
finally break loose.

I got up and
looked at him. He was struggling to his feet and he looked at me too. What I
saw in his eyes convinced me that this would not end. It would never end. He
would continue to come after me until he finally killed me. I knew of the
determination with which my Horatio pursued his goals, and I realized that
there could no longer be room for both of us in this world. I was devastated,
but I knew I had to flee.

I dialed out and
left, taking a completely new route. I knew that a man like Horatio could not
be evaded for long. There would be no escaping him, at least not forever. The
third planet I traveled to was Thissaia, this very planet. The name was
familiar and I quickly remembered why. The island of Kalhydon is one of four
Soixtet’s colonies in the IFCO. I knew I would eventually be found. My only
hope was that the disease would kill me before Horatio found me. I couldn’t
conceive… I couldn’t
accept
… death by the hand of my best friend.
Somehow, I survived for two years, but the man who attacked me today, the man
you… stopped… had been sent by your father to kill me.”

“That’s not
true!”

Sophie could no
longer be quiet. Nikolaos knew how much she loved her father, how she looked up
to him. He was certain she knew inside that he had told the truth, but she
refused to accept it.