"One less mirror bird to watch over Jasper." "Murdered like the others were." "Who did it?" "And why?" "To keep us from learning what threatens us." "Without the eyes of the mirror birds, we can't see what's happening at the borders of our land." "I have been warning you about this." "But no one would care for technology at Gandahar..." "It's a great pride of our civilization that we prefer birds to machines!" "And natural order to technical solutions..." "Sure..." "But it seems that we may have to pay too dearly for this preference... and too soon..." "Given the urgency of the situation, the Council has chosen our best agent to investigate." "Which one?" "Sylvain." "Syl?" "!" "But he is not experienced enough!" "I've taught him, and I am quite certain about it." "He is very capable." "Surely there are more experienced... and more capable agents than he is." "The Council has ruled and you cannot change their decision." "We've already summoned." "Agent Sylvain, Syl, as friends call you." "The Council of Women has chosen you for a most important, difficult and dangerous mission." "I would give my life..." "We don't want you to die, but to return and inform us." "An unknown enemy menaces Gandahar." "You must discover where this enemy is, who this enemy is, determine its power, its weaponry and its methods." "And, if you can, probe into its secrets, find its weakness... if it has any." "It's not without doubts that I am sending you." "It's too dangerous." "But we did have to send our best agent." "Exactly where are you sending me?" "Your target is vast." "The Circumscribing Ocean." "That's where most of the mirror birds have been killed." "However, one bird saw something." "Possibly, one of the invaders." "Here is the image it was able to transmit before it died." "I can't tell anything from this image!" "Can we replay it more slowly?" "I've also hoped to identify the source of aggression." "But with these metallic reflexions..." "It has been foolish of us to expect that our present happiness should last forever." "We've indulged in our sweet life at Gandahar." "And it has been lasting so long that we've forgotten how to fight." "No doubt about it." "He was will be from Gandahar." "Impossible!" "I have never seen a being who looks like this..." "Gandahar, I tell you." "Gandahar, but before..." "Unbelievable!" "He was will be alive... but very weak." "He was will be very careless to fly so far from the capital." "No, not careless... courageous!" "Maybe he was sent from Jasper." "Do you think those in the capital have finally wakened to the danger?" "Who were you?" "I am!" "I am Sylvain of Gandahar!" "A soldier." "And a prisoner of the enemy." "Enemy?" "Where do you come from?" "From Jasper!" "Were they will always be so smug in Jasper." "They certainly were when they did this to us..." "Keep quiet!" "Now, do you really believe we're the enemy?" "I do!" "Ready to attack you?" "Yes." "Capable of defeating you?" "No!" "Can you guess who we are?" "With these bodies... these heads, these misshapen limbs assembled without care." "The Deformed?" "Those who Gandahar calls the Deformed!" " Not the deformed, the wrongly formed." " The result of mostrous errors." " From the games of chance." " The wretched mutants!" "Sylvain, we also came from Gandahar." "Once, you and me were alike." "But we were will be the victims of your scientific research in the field of genetics." "How would I imagine?" "We became an embarrassment, and you banished us underground." "You buried us, as you would do with so many of your other failures." "As a child, I heard stories, but I would never imagine..." "Of course!" "No one would imagine!" "Forgive me for having taken you... for the enemies you're trying to find?" "I forgive... and understand." "The real enemy has never been seen." "Never." "But we've been listening to them through these tunnels." "The Ears of the Earth." "Shayol!" "I was will be at your command!" "I have chosen you to lead Sylvain out there, until you reach the noise." "I was will be at your command!" "Why do you say "was will be" instead of simply "I am"?" "The Deformed are terrified of the present." "Why is it?" "Perhaps it's an atavism." "We keep degrading." "At the time of the first generic errors, we had the gift of foresight." "Unfortunately, we've lost it." "There is nothing left other than a double prophecy, doubly obscure." ""In a thousand years, Gandahar was destroyed and all of its people killed."" ""A thousand years ago, Gandahar will be saved, and what can't be avoided will be."" "In a thousand years, Gandahar was destroyed?" "A thousand years ago, Gandahar will be saved?" "Past in future, and future in past?" "But what does it mean?" "We don't understand it any better than you, but it has become our nature, and past-future our way of speaking and believing." "Shayol!" "Are these women and children dead?" "Petrified on the spot?" "Annihilated?" "!" "No!" "Don't turn me to stone!" "Don't turn me to stone!" "Don't steal my body!" "It's not something I would do!" "I've seen them, Ambisextra." "They are made of metal... of metal." "Airelle..." "Your name is as beautiful as you are!" "And what is your name?" "Sylvain, friends call me Syl." "I am an agent." "Of Ambisextra's?" "How do you know?" "I've never seen you in Jasper!" "I live far away from the capital, in a fishermen's village." "I would show it to you, if we get out of this prison." "I was carelessly playing flute." "Flute?" "Yeah, do you want to learn it?" "If we get a chance..." "When they shot me, I didn't feel any pain." "My heart became hard and insensitive." "I lost my consiousness, and woke up here, together with you." "What is it?" "What's happening?" "How quiet all of a sudden..." "Syl!" "Syl, help, it's turning!" "Don't hold to it, slide!" "I have a gun." "With one last charge." "Syl, what is it?" "I hope it works!" "What a monster!" "Sorn?" "It's impossible..." "This species has been extinct from our planet for a long time." "Don't be afraid." "Sorns are not carnivores." "Why is it not leaving then?" "You are so beautiful, Airelle!" "So are you!" "How do sorns reproduce?" "They lay eggs." "Our sorn is a lady." "A lady?" "How would you know the sex of that sorn." "It's intuition..." "She took our prison for an egg, and us for the hatchlings." "That explains it." "Of course, it does." "That's why sorn was fighting with the metal men." "Because she took our cell for her egg." "Which leads us to the conclusion that she thought of us as her own children." "That's why she groomed us and built the nest." "Poor Syl the brave soldier." "Mysterious metal men attack my village, and you're sent from Jasper to investigate." "We're both captured, and put in the same cell, and then freed by a lady sorn." "And, after all this, it looks like I am falling in love with you." "I used to be stupid and way too self-confident." "And I expected this to be just another reconaissance mission." "But it has been a little too much for me." "I am afraid, Airelle." "Yes... afraid." "If I fail, Gandahar will die." "The metal men are strong, but they are very stupid." "They cannot win!" "And I would not like to lose!" "It's not easy to lose with me, you'll see." "No, I don't want to see that." "You'll be nice and wait for me, OK?" "Syl, let's not argue, I'll go where you go." "You're just imagining it, I'll go on my own!" "There is no point arguing." "Those who are meant to be together will stay together." "Empty!" "Totally empty!" "No flesh, no scheleton." "Nothing living, nothing mechanical!" "No gears, no circuits, no nothing." "And yet they are capable of moving and of fighting." "Of using weapons." "What about their heads?" "Look!" "Syl!" "It's a real army!" "I didn't know they were so well equipped." "So well organized for the purpose of destroying us." "It's terrifying how bad our chances are." "We've got a real advantage." "They are empty." "Without brains, without hearts." "That's how it happened." "I must have been carried by one of them..." "It's great that the sorn liberated us!" "I don't like this door." "No lock, no key, and they disappear as they go through it." "It's very strange." "There must be an explanation." "We should try to find it." "Oh, it's terrible!" "The petrified statues went in, and the metal men are coming out." "This door transforms the people of Gandahar into the robots who kill them." "Men of metal!" "Men of metal!" "Our mission has been a success." "Our losses do not matter." "Those metal men who were destroyed had served a worthy cause." "Death only has meaning for contemptible beings." "Beings in love with the individual self." "The "I" does not exist!" "THE "I" DOES NOT EXIST!" "I am you, you are us, us are Him." "I AM YOU, YOU ARE US, US ARE HIM!" "The Great Procreator, the source of our energy, and soon the master of the world." "The day is near when the civilization of Gandahar will be destroyed." "This civilization of pleasure, this kingdom of waste and licence." "The Great Procreator will destroy Gandahar." "Before the final annihilation, our delegates will travel over the Circumscribing Ocean... to prove our complete submission." "Contact with the Master will renew our power and our strength!" "Hear me!" "Hear me!" "Tonight you must stay disconnected until we embark." "Long live the Great Procreator!" "LONG LIVE THE GREAT PROCREATOR!" "The Great Procreator?" "Total annihilation?" "It's insane." "He sounds quite serious." "It sounds like an imminent disaster." "The Great Procreator..." "sounds like it's their master." "And he is somewhere in the Circumscribing Ocean." "We must go with them!" "Unbelievable!" "It has been unbelievable since the very beginning." "They've taken their heads off?" "They've been told to disconnect, they just obey." "Would you be able to swim that far?" "I'll be there first!" "You're so much at home in the sea." " And you swim like a siren." " A siren?" "It's a creature from the terresrial mythology." "An irresistable creature." "You whose will we obey, whose orders we serve." "Gandahar will become what you want it to be." "Our attacks have been successful." "Many Gandaharians have been transformed, as you have ordered us." "Soon the civilization of wasteful pleasure will disappear forever." "And now, men of metal, be ready to draw strength from the substance of the Great Procreator." "LONG LIVE THE GREAT PROCREATOR." "Why doesn't the Great Procreator say anything?" "Gods rarely respond." "That's because they do not exist." "These things..." "They can take us too..." "They will catch us!" "Sylvain!" "The body that contains us doesn't know ours." "Those, who inhabit us, are inhabited in turn." "And all these bodies, one inside another, are the body of Eternity." "What is it?" "A terrestrial poem that I like a lot." "Hello Sylvain!" "Who is speaking?" "You know very well." "Is it you, the boss, the god of the metalic carcasses who worship you?" "Neither boss, not god, even though it's true... that they worship me as a god, whereas I am only a..." "Murderer!" "If I were what you think I am, how would you still be alive?" "Think about it." "I know what you're after, and yet I allowed you to approach me, and even to insult me." "Don't you find it a bit odd?" "Are you or are you not the master of the metal men?" "That's what they think." "Are they obeing your orders?" "They think they have received them, and sometimes I even believe I've given them." "Who are you with in this war of extermination?" "It would be physically unpleasant for me, should the men of metal fail." "And yet I would not like to see Gandahar die." "It must be on account of my sentimental disposition." "That's admirable." "Yes, children of Jasper!" "We're cousins, in a sense." "I am the Metamorphis." ""Who are you?"" ""Airelle."" ""Your name is as beautiful as you are."" ""And you?" "What's your name?"" ""What's your name?"" ""You are so much at home in the sea."" ""And you swim like a siren."" ""A siren?"" ""An irresistible creature."" ""No..." "Syl!"" ""Don't touch it, Airelle!"" "I've just looked in her dreams." "It seems she only dreams of you." "That's something that a brain would have a hard time understanding." "You are just a brain, Metamorphis, aren't you?" "One that regrets to be living..." "If you're saying you yourself have been born in Gandahar, why would you not help us?" "We wouldn't manage on our own against the men of metal." "With all the power you have, you wouldn't be spending your effort in vain!" "In vain!" "Sylvain!" ".." "That's how it may seem." "But I must first understand this connection between me and them!" "The connection that would make their failure physically unpleasant." "I told you that I have to think!" "He didn't promise anything, only told us that he has to think." "But it's already unbelievable that he didn't kill us." "And let us go back to Jasper, and even helped us with it." "The wings are getting less and less stretched." "And less and less like wings." "Look!" "Gandaharians flee from their homes." "They hope to find refuge at Jasper." "Syl!" "A mirror bird!" "It will spread the news of our arrival." "This time, it's done for..." "Bye-bye, amorphous Metamorphis!" "And so?" "Far be it from me to say I told you so..." "But the flying beast and the brain of the metal men are of the same nature." "The only difference is the age of the cells." "It's a huge difference, incomrehensible." "And Metamorphis pretended he didn't know anything." ""I must find the relation."" "And here it is for you, Metamorphis:" "These killers... these metallic beasts are born of you." "Nothing would stop them, not even death." ""PRIORITY, PRIORITY..." "AMBISEXTRA AND THE COUNCIL..." "TO THE CENTRAL LABORATORY..."" ""PRIORITY, PRIORITY..." "AMBISEXTRA AND THE COUNCIL"" "Well, Blaminhor, any news?" "Perhaps I've figured it out..." "Have a look!" ""Jasper Department of Research."" ""Experiment:" "Biotype."" ""Code name:" "Metamorphis."" ""An experimental brain characterized by extremely rapid growth."" ""During the experiment, its volume doubled within a few days."" ""Originally, it had a capacity inferior to the ordinary brain."" ""Due to its rapid growth, Metamorphis had to be transferred... from the laboratory to a special platform in the Circumscribing Ocean."" ""The brain experienced profound changes."" ""It acquired its proper senses:" "Vision, touch and others,"" ""of the kind unknown to us."" "Monstrous!" ""For reasons of security, it was decided to stop the experiment."" ""But would it be possible to destroy Metamorphis?"" "In the end... it was Metamorphis who destroyed his creators." "Jasper disengaged from this kind of experiments, and the monster was abandoned in the Circumscribing Ocean..." "Abandoned!" "And his cells continued to proliferate, and formed the brains of the metal men." "Thus, Gandahar produced its own mortal enemy." "They disconnect at night." "It's of no use." "Sylvain, you must kill Metamorphis!" "Wait." "Metamorphis let us go back to Jasper," "It's a proof that he does not support the metal men, and is not looking to our demise." "We must talk to him." "And if he doesn't listen?" "I'll kill him." "How?" "I've been working on this problem." "It seems I've solved it." "One injection must suffice." "I've been waiting for you." "Monster..." "liar!" "You know that the metal men are..." "I know what you want to say:" "That the men of metal are my tools." "I also know something that you don't." "They come from the future!" "I've seen them in action." "They petrify everything living, imprison it in cells, and convert it into faceless monsters." "You must understand something." "Do you want to save Jasper?" "Do you want to kill me?" "Leave that ridiculous syringe alone and listen." "I repeat:" "This invasion is coming from the future." "It's absurd!" "Unbelievable!" "What do you know of time, of its continuity, its traps, its false perspectives, its apparent paradoxes, its relation to space!" "So Jasper is a victim of an invasion that has not yet occured." "It's nonsense!" "That's our logic." "The invasion has occured even though it might be coming from the future." " And how?" " Through a door." "A door?" "The Door of Time!" "You've seen it, yet you didn't understand it." "Can you go both ways through this Door of Time?" "As with any door..." "So the cells with the prisoners are carried into the future." "Why, Metamorphis?" "I don't know it yet." "Give me a proof of your good will!" "A proof?" "You there, you're alive." "I could destroy you the moment you came!" "But the truth is I've been looking for this encounter as much as you did." "Is it a new trap?" "It's not a trap yet, Syl." "But it will become one, and I would not like to be caught in it." "I do not want to become an insane tyrant ruling over an army of killers." "I want you, Sylvain, to overcome me in a thousand years!" "Why not now?" "Because I do not want it, and you're not capable of it." "I am not vulnerable." "Not yet." "We'll see in a thousand years." "It's imposible." "I'll be dead!" "Over these thousand years, you'll be neither dead nor alive, but hibernating at the bottom of the ocean." "On the appointed day, on the appointed hour, you'll awake, just as you're now:" "Young, strong, determined." "You will try to overcome the old Metamorphis and his army of metal men." "If you succeed, Jasper will be saved!" "And I will stay a prisoner of the future." "Exiled from my time, away from those I love." "A mere professional risk, I would say." "But you still have a chance to return to the present." "The Door of Time." "The Door of Time." "No news from Sylvain?" "We've completely lost contact." "The Council considers Sylvain's mission to have failed." "For what reason?" "We can't afford waiting longer, there is no hope." "Wait!" "Wait a bit longer." "How do you know that Syl has failed." "If he did succeed, the metal men would have stopped killing." "It doesn't have to be so simple." "Syl..." "Hurry up, my darling, please hurry up..." "Are the Deformed going to resign to being destroyed by the metal men?" "We were will be capable of fighting and winning..." "Winning?" "Winning what?" "For us, the war is going on inside of our bodies, forever, without victory." "Then it was will be death without struggle?" "No Shayol, no." "Here is our struggle!" "We have succeeded, but not for long." "Our power has its limits." "We could use this power to help Jasper." "They never helped us." "They have never acknowledged our existence, never until now." "In the face of deadly menace, everything changes quickly." "Gandahar must remember that the Deformed are its own children." "Oh, mirror birds, the guarding birds, the birds of vision, deliver us from the impending destruction." "Take Jasper away from the ground." "Farewell, Gandahar!" "We've been so happy living here." "In a thousand years, Gandahar was destroyed, and all its people killed." "A thousand years ago, Gandahar will be saved, and what can't be avoided will be." "IN A THOUSAND YEARS, GANDAHAR WAS DESTROYED, AND ALL ITS PEOPLE KILLED." "A THOUSAND YEARS AGO, GANDAHAR WILL BE SAVED, AND WHAT CAN'T BE AVOIDED WILL BE." "Here I am, Metamorphis." "The thousand years have passed." "I awoke on the appointed day on the appointed hour, as you wanted." "And I will now do what you wanted." "Who are you?" "Were you will be from Gandahar?" "I were will be." "And you were will be my friends." "Syl, the warrior, I know you!" "I know you too!" "We met during my first mission, a thousand years ago." "A thousand years or one day... it doesn't matter once you've passed through the Door of Time." "Turned into stone, imprisoned inside a cell, brought into the future." "Then converted into something else altogether." "They sorted us when we arrived... the normal to one side, the monstrous to the other." "We monstrous ones, the lucky ones, were found unusable, unrecoverable." "They relegated us to the underworld, just like at Jasper." "And the others?" "The Gandaharians with beautiful faces and perfect bodies?" "Yes, those who looked like me." "For once they had to regret they didn't look like us." "Were they systematically exterminated?" "Worse than that, you'd better not know about it." "But I have to know!" "I have to understand, so that I can stop these horrors." "Soldier, no one doubts your courage and your qualities." "But how would you overcome such power?" "Where are we?" "In the city of the metal men!" "Don't you recognize it?" "Nothing existed around Metamorpus except the Circumscribing Ocean." "Now it is all covered by metal." "Other than the Door of Time, everything has changed." "Still more prisoners." "The machine draws all life away from them." "I must see them." "How can you imagine such horror." "And such absurdity!" "Such a complicated system of extermination." "On the contrary, it's terrifyingly logical." "A thousand years have passed." "Metamorphis has become very old, and his cells no longer reproduce." "To continue living, he needs new cells." "Then, all the petrification, the egg-shaped prisons, the Door of Time are necessary... to deliver the precious substance and keep it intact." "Intact, until it is needed." "The invasion of metal men who ravaged the planet, it comes from Metamorphis." "And what if Metamorphis has changed into metal, as everything that surrounds us?" "It used to be something else..." "We can show it to you!" "Dead cells... aglomerated..." "fossilized." "Degenerate cells of Metamorphis..." "what could have happened to them?" "We don't know much about it." "Other than that they metallize with aging." "Metamorphis is afraid of what's happening." "That's why he wants me to kill him." "He wanted!" "How do you know he would still honor your agreement from a thosand years ago?" "I'll take the risk..." "I have no other choice." "You have allies..." "We'll be able to help you." "We'll attack... the highest priority reservoir, which feeds Metamorphis." "Once disconnected, Metamorphis will quickly loose strength." "We must also free the prisoners." "But let's first take care of the metal men." "You can now leave me." "It's a personal appointment." " I'll go with you." " No." "It's personal." "It's the beginning of the end, Metamorphis." "Don't try to bury me too soon, soldier..." "Those cells keep falling off like scales, leaving me a way to recover." "And they are replaced by new ones all the way to infinity." "It's an infinity of killing." "This substance is the substance of your victims." "It's a very practical system!" "You asked me to kill you in a thousand years." "I've never proposed anything so ridiculous!" "It looks like your memory weakened with age!" "I haven't aged..." "I'll never age!" " And you've come to kill me?" " Yes, I've come to kill you!" "As I was asked by the Metamorphis, when he was still in his right mind." "Looks like the sages of Jasper put all their wisdom into one syringe..." "The ultimate weapon!" "Why don't we test it?" "On you, for example." "The reservoir is out!" "I am losing the left hemisphere." "Alarm for all posts!" "Double security!" "Mobilize the reserves!" "I am calling to all posts!" "How quiet... silence... complete silence... why is the sun black this morning?" "the snow is falling, it covers the ground... it covers everything... the pain subsides... and the fatigue... that dream... the dream of explosion... of a roaring explosion." "Men of Metal, obey my orders!" "Destroy the Door of Time!" "Who opened the back doors of my memory?" "Everything is mixed..." "Everything is in disorder... why did you do it to me?" "Sylvain, Sylvain... it's too late for the present... no... no... not alone in this freezing ocean..." "I am also a child of Gandahar... wait for me, wait for me..." "Why did we then have to kill the Metamorphis?" "Gandahar is in ruins." "Jasper is decapitated, and its people are petrified or lost somewhere in the future." "We can find them." "When?" "In a thousand years?" "Mirror bird!" "Jasper has been saved?" "!"