Saul of Sodom: The Last Prophet (29 page)

  
Saul’s eyes widened. 

  
“Do you mean to say that your evaluation concluded that he was sound?” asked
the justice.

  
“So long as we are agreed on the definition which you yourself specified, Your
Justice,” Pope replied, “then; yes.”

  
It was a lie.  Pope knew it was a lie.  But why? 

  
Why is he lying?

  
“Am I to understand, then, that our fears are without warrant?”

  
“Oh, I would go further than that, Your Justice,” the neuralist replied.  “On
the contrary, I believe that – provided the appropriate controls are put in
place – this little experiment can be of great benefit to us.”

 
 “How so?”  The justice reclined his seat and gauged the neuralist with
interest.

  
“Well, as you might imagine, my interest in all this is purely scientific. I am
sure Your Justice is aware there are bills currently being drafted by the
Senior Commission which would allow for martial breeding through surrogacy
using the reproductive cells of higher-casters…”

  
“…Go on.”

 
 “Assuming the laws come receive the approval of the Senior Council, this would
be a significant milestone in our history:  The self-sustainability of martial
populations!  I should think the rearing of our future generations is a task
for which we should all prepare ourselves.  At present, for obvious reasons, we
have no data on the integration of children into martial society.  This child
could make for extremely valuable research in which Martial Vartanian might
also prove useful.”

  
Pope looked from the justice to the dock, eyes murky as frost on ice.  Saul
gazed back at him, subdued by the sense that it was all too good to trust.  What
possible cause could there be lingering behind those cold, dead eyes? 

  
The justice slowly nodded. 

  
“Witness dismissed.”

  
Pope stepped down from the platform.  He walked past the dock, down the aisle
and straight out of the courtroom.  As suddenly as he arrived, he was gone like
a spectre. 

  
The justice pushed the spectacles back over his eyes and bowed his head in deliberation,
and an agonisingly long hiatus preceded his next words, which he pronounced in
the same resonating bass, without looking up: “The court accedes to the request
for the child to be maintained within martial jurisdiction,” he announced.  “Request
for controlled access also granted, subject to terms and conditions to be
elucidated within the next three days…”

  
The gavel struck the sounding block.

 
“Court is adjourned.”

  
The justice rose and proceeded back through the double doors, and the galleries
started to empty.  The SGs on either side of the dock marched down the centre
aisle and through a separate exit while Saul lingered in the dock.  The
releasing sound of the gavel rung in his head and held him in a stupor.  It was
over – and so unceremoniously.

  
Saul stood just as Eastman came beside him. 

  
“Where is she?” he asked, immediately.

  
“Her whereabouts will be disclosed before the day is through,” the commissioner
replied. “You will be free to see her then.” 

  
There was a solemn pause. 

  
“I trust we shall see one another soon, Martial Vartanian”   A clear smile
appeared on the vinyl face.   “Good day.”  Eastman marched through the main
exit and the courtroom emptied shortly afterwards.

   By the time the maglev reached Haven District,
the sense of disconcertion of it all had not passed, even as he lay down in the
empty bed and rolled into the small space where that missing piece of him
should have been.  He felt the urge to rouse back to joy at the thought of
being with her again, but could not move to it.  Not until he really saw her –
not until he could hold her in his arms again and ease the fire in his soul
would he have respite.

  
It was precisely 20 digits to midnight when the cell rang. 

  
He sat up immediately, having been lying awake, and reached over to the bedside
table.  His eyes strained when the screen lit up the blanks of his eyes with the
promised dispatch from the martial court (he recognised the format).  He
skimmed through the message until he reached the very end:

No. 1,

8 Block,

 45
^th
Street,

Nozick District

He
read and reread the address.  He knew the place.  The suspicion bubbled up
again when he recalled that last malignant smile on Eastman’s face.  Something
was not right.  He knew it.  The cell screen went blank in his hands.   He got
up, tucked the blade into the beltline, put on his coat, raised the collar and
walked out the door. 

  
The maglev stopped at Nozick 5
^th
Station.  The cold front and the
smell of rainfall blustered through the tunnel path as Saul entered the streets
of the lower city.  The rain showered cold and bitter with the brink of winter,
dripping off the overpass, layering the path with a thick mist of shattered raindrops
under the streetlights.  Above was a moonless, starless sky. 

  
His solitary footsteps echoed through the empty street amidst the pounding rain
as he walked: head down, cold, drenched locks of hair hanging over the eyes
shot with blood, coattails side-swept in the drafts blowing down the side alleys.  
For an instant, he perceived the flanking buildings as war-torn ruins in the
flashes of lightning, and he was a lone ghost drifting among the dead. 

  
After a long, straight walk, he stopped at a crossroads.  A gleam through the
falling rain caught his eye.  The sign on the corner of the crossroad read “5
^th
Street.”

 
 He turned at the sign and continued to walk down the adjoining street,
narrowed by the tall, dark fronts of decrepit blocks on either flank.  The
water began to gush back up from the gutters through the grates in sewage
streams fouling the air.  About a hundred yards on, he stopped again, and
remained standing in the middle of the street.   He lifted his head over his
right shoulder and across the road where -- slotted between two high blocks
like a doorstop -- stood a terraced low-rise about 10 stories lightless windows
and a façade streaked with the black murk of aerial pollution.   A bolt of
lightning split the dark sky from east to west and the white flash lit up the
stained tablet by the black doors of the front entrance.  The inscription on
the tablet was a number “8”. 

  
Thunder cracked an instant after the lightning.

 
 For a long while, he was rooted to the ground, glowering at the ill-omened
façade and when the rain began to drum down with fresh vigor, he sauntered
across the street and up to the doors.  The heavy, malfunctioning doors were
separated by a small gap, into which he slipped both hands.  He pried the doors
with all his force until they gave and opened into a pitch black corridor. 
Another bolt of lightning flashed just as the doors parted and, in the break of
light, a door appeared at the end.

  
His first step into the dark was marked by thunder and he sidled through
leaving a trail of water in his path.  The septic air was supplanted with the
smell of neglect which became stronger and stronger as he came up to the door,
whereupon another flash of lightning bore a number ‘1’ etched onto the door’s
veneer.

  
He stood before the door a solemn minute before raising a closed, two-knuckled
hand.  He knocked three times and each knock sent a churn through the swelling
cauldron of dread in his gut.  He waited for the sounds of footsteps on the
other side. 

  
Nothing came. 

  
Then, without warning, the locks clicked. 

  
The door opened, and a jolt like the instant before death shot through him when
a phantom figure appeared through the frail light in the doorway.  A head,
level with his, stood upon a form draped in shadows and eyes like the blanks of
quasars swallowed him into their gaze. 

  
The figure was an aged man, with an old, deathly grey visage, fraught with the
lines of eons, though his features were strong.  His hair was thick, fraying
tresses of silver, and a black garb shrouded his frame from neck to toe. 

  
The grey figure stood, silent and austere.

  
He had no idea who this strange figure was, but there was an uncanny sense that
he should have known.  He waited, expecting him to speak first, which he
didn’t.  The man simply stood in the doorway, not a shadow of surprise or fear
expressed in him, nor a word spoken.

  
“I am sorry,” he said.  “…I have come to the wrong place.”

  
Just as he turned, the figure in black spoke:

  
“You are in the right place.”

  
A roll of thunder followed his words.  He pulled open the door, turned and
walked away.

  
Saul lingered alone before the threshold awhile before reasoning away his
caution.  With a sense of impending oblivion, he crossed over the brink of the
entrance, coming into a narrow passage only slightly less dark than the
outside.

 
 The air suddenly warmed and was pervaded with a strange, yet pleasing, scent
which he did not recognise.  A staircase ascended to an upper floor, occupying
most of the space in the passage. He noticed his shadow swaying against the
barren walls, and when he looked down the passage he saw the place was lit
entirely by little flaming wicks sticking out of homespun waxen blocks of
varying size and shape. 

  
A draft drew the door shut, snuffing out the two candles nearest the entrance. 

  
The cassocked figure stood just within the reaches of the light.  His head was
bowed and the shadows shimmered over the strong lines of his feature.  His
hands hung idle at his sides, concealed behind the sleeves of his robe.

 
 “You may leave your coat at the door,” he said, with a low murmur.

  
“Where is Naomi?” Saul demanded, as though suddenly woken from a trance.

  
The man in black was slow in his response.

 
 “She is in her room… It is late.  She is sleeping.  It’s best not to wake her…”

  
“I want to see her.”

  
The graying man raised his head, and the dark, dark eyes came into the light.

  
“You will,” he assured with a bow.  “First, we must talk.  Please.  It is
important.”

  
Saul glowered back.  Even though it was yet too early to tell whether he was to
be trusted, he felt a peculiar reluctance to refuse.  A puddle of water had
formed beneath his feet and he removed the soaking coat and left it at the foot
of the stairs in a bundle. 

  
“This way…”

  
The figure in black turned and drifted down the dark corridor.  A pale,
vascular hand reached out from the sleeve, seizing upon one of the candles.  

  
He watched the spectral being disappear through an open doorway before
following down the candlelit passage, through an open door and into small
room.  A solitary flame hovered over a low table set in the middle.  The
candlelight gilded two chairs set on either side.  Strange ornaments the likes
of which he had never seen hung upon decayed walls.

 
 As soon as he walked in, the door behind him slid shut with a sharp click.

  
“Sit,” bid the figure in black as he walked past him from behind and settled into
the seat on the right. 

  
He delayed momentarily before coming forward and lowering into the chair opposite. 
For a long time the dead silence was disturbed only by the faint and intermittent
resonances of thunder from the outside.  He looked up at the figure in black. 
Two flames danced in the blacks of his eyes, and the austere silence endured a
long while before he finally spoke: “Naomi has said a lot about you.”

 
  His tenor was something between a murmur and a whisper and his lips barely
moved when he spoke. “It was a while before she could bring herself to speak.
She was lost and terrified in the beginning.  She would not eat.  She would not
sleep.  She would not leave her room.  I would hear her crying through the day
and through the night…”