The Priest

The narthex had two doors on either side. The door to the north was locked, but the door to the south opened into a room with a large glass window looking out into the sanctuary. I slipped inside and closed the door behind me. I wasn't sure what the room was usually used for, not being all that religious myself, but it was quiet and peaceful. It was the first truly peaceful place I'd been in months. I could hear a the priest talking through a speaker in the ceiling, doing some sort of ritual, but the volume was turned way down so I couldn't hear anything clearly. It didn't really matter, though, since the quiet of the room was soothing after traveling to this station on a cargo hauler.

"Why did you come here, Jonas?" asked the voice in my head. "You don't need the trappings of religion. You've already experienced what you need to know!"

"Shut up," I whispered, trying to maintain the respectful quiet. I rubbed my eyes, which were dry and sore from the lack of sleep. Ever since the mission on Tantus IV, I'd been drifting from station to station, trying to run from both Fleet Medical and whatever it was that was now living in my head. I took a few deep breaths, then looked up again. The church was gone, replaced with the hall of the temple that the xenoarcheologists had opened.

The being of light formed in front of me, then knelt down. "I told you, you'll do," it said in a voice both small and as large as the universe.

"Why me?" I asked, again. "I'm just a grunt. A soldier. Why are you still in my head?"

"Why not you?" the being asked, then the temple exploded in a flash of light. I closed my eye and when I opened them again I was in the quiet room of the church, staring through the window into the sanctuary.

"Fuck me! Not again!" I exclaimed, then whispered to the cross in the room, "Sorry." Somehow, I could feel amusement from the idol. I shook my head and took some deep breaths. I must be going crazy. I'm hearing voices in my head and now feeling emotions from statues! Looking through the window again, I realized that whatever ritual was going on was finished and the church was now empty. Damn, I should just--

I jumped as the door opened and the priest came in. He looked middle-aged, with salt and pepper hair, old-fashioned glasses, and a sweater over his black shirt and collar. "Hello there," he said, sounding friendly. "I saw you sitting in here when we finished up, so I thought I'd check in on you. Do you need something? Although, if you just want some time alone, I can leave and you can stay as long as you like."

The world shifted again. This time, both the priest and I were in the temple, but instead of the being of light, it was the priest outlined in light. I knew, somehow instinctively, that he was a good person and maybe he'd be able to help. I blinked again and were back in the room, but the priest had moved further into the room to stand before me, carefully not touching me. "Are you all right, soldier?" he asked.

"How did you know?"

The priest smiled and pointed to my right shoulder. "The Fleet patch on your arm."

I turned looked at my shoulder. The gold thread in the patch gleamed in the room's light. "Oh. I should have taken that off a while ago."

He sat down next to me. "Do you need help?" he asked again. "When I came in and asked if you wanted to be alone, you stared into space. I called out to you several times. A flashback?"

I put my head in my hands and scrubbed them through my hair. "Sort of? I don't know, Father. I mean, I've been treated for PTSD, but something about these flashbacks aren't that. I've been to a bunch of therapists on several different stations, but they all want to commit me. I don't think I'm crazy and I know what PTSD feels like. I was in the Commorand Conflict before I signed on to Fleet Security. This is... not that." I shook my head.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Jonas," I replied.

"Good to meet you, Jonas. I'm Father Sean. I take it something happened on a mission recently?"

I nodded, taking deep breaths again. "I'm-- I'm the only survivor of Tantus IV."

The priest was quiet for a long moment, then just said, "I see."

I shook my head. "I shouldn't have come here--" I said and started to stand.

The priest reached out and took my arm gently. The touch exploded in my mind with a bright light, stopping me in my tracks. "Wait. Please," he said. "At the very least, you can tell me your story. Then, we can figure out what to do. Yes, I saw that Fleet Medical is looking for you, but unless I feel you're going to be a danger to yourself or others, I will not tell anyone you're here. I took a vow to protect those in need, Jonas, and I take that very seriously."

My chest seemed to loosen a bit, and I sat down again. "Ok," I breathed, more to convince myself than to answer the priest. "Ok."

Father Sean released me, then, and the light in my mind from his touch receded. In a strange way, it almost felt like losing a friend. "I just don't understand what happened to me, Father."

"Tell me what happened."

"We were on Tantus IV. Pretty standard security detail for University xenoarchaeologists," I began. "There were ten of us and six of the scientists. Two archaeologists, two biologists, a geologist, and a technician. It was supposed to be a short mission to ascertain what was on the planet and if it was safe enough to send a full scientific team. I was just one of the grunts, you know? Standing around, making sure none of the planet's predators decide to eat the scientists, keeping watch, all of that. My PTSD from the war seemed better managed when I did this kind of work and I liked being on the research ships better than battleships. I also got to see a lot of really cool places." I paused, playing with the cuffs of my jumpsuit. "The Baranian PI had decided we'd check out this possible temple ruin first once the docs cleared us to go down, since it seemed to be in the center of an ancient city." I smiled. "You should have seen it, Father! They had these towers that were a mix of plant and stone that looked as if the people had grown them! There were these swirling designs on every building! Trees and leaves actually grew out of the stone and the geologists thought that it was on purpose! It was incredible!"

"That sounds amazing. I'm a bit envious you got to see that."

I blinked at the priest in surprise. "You are?"

"I don't get out into the universe much."

I grinned, remembering that he was a priest of a church on a remote space station. "Oh. Yeah. I suppose not."

He grinned back. "So, the researcher decided to go to what they thought was a temple?" he prompted.

I nodded. "It was taller than all the other buildings and most of it was open to the elements. It was so beautiful, Father! The ceiling was so high that you could barely see where it stopped. The only reason we knew it had a roof was that there were skylights among the leaves. Strangely, there weren't any leaves on the floor, as if the leaves never fell. The scientists were ecstatic. Well, us grunts checked as much as we could to make sure it was secure and there were no surprise fauna, then set up guard posts around the large room. The main room was probably as big as a football pitch, with smaller rooms around the perimeter. Most of those rooms had fallen to the elements and I think one of scientists said that the outer rooms weren't quite as old as the main temple." I looked through the window of the room, not really seeing the station's sanctuary anymore. "There were these low circular stumps around the room and a raised part at one end that had a circular pool with a large carved window above it. There was this film in between the carved pieces with different colors,but I don't think it was glass."

"Fascinating," I heard Father Sean say, but his voice now seemed far away.

The scene replayed in front of me as if I was on Tantus IV again and not light years away. "The pool was carved like the window, and one of the archaeologists went straight for it, and I couldn't blame them, since it was the center piece of the room. I mean, we'd scanned the pool and it just was the strange plant-stone and water. Nothing else. But when they touched it, the pool began to glow. The scientist went rigid. I was closest to them, so I ran over to try and pull them away from the pool, but when I touched the guy, I was thrown onto the floor. And then this being appeared."

"A being?"

I nodded. "It was a being of light. It emerged from the pool and stood over me. They said 'Yes, you'll do' and I remember being surprised because they said it in Standard. Then the being put it's hand on my head, and..." My mind fell again into the vastness I'd felt then, and the face above me smiled, although part of me wondered how I knew they were smiling. I gasped as a touched suddenly slammed me back into room of the church on the station. My breathing was fast as I stared into the eyes of the priest.

"Where did you go?" he asked, quietly.

"I saw the entire Universe! That's the only way I can describe it. It was everything! For one moment, I understood it all, Father. I knew why we existed and why the planets moved and..." I put my head in my hands again. "And now, I can barely remember last week! When I came back to reality on Tantus IV, everyone else had been turned to stone. I was the only one left alive out of sixteen people!" I shook my head. "I ran to the shuttle and called to the ship, told them what happened. Thankfully, I had a body cam on me, but still..." I looked up at the priest, pointed to myself and asked, desperately, "Why am I still alive, Father? Why me? And why, why do I still hear that being's voice in my head? Am I possessed? Is it some sort of demon or something? I mean, it's why I came to a Catholic church this time. You lot are supposed to be expert at these kinds of things, right?" Tears were flowing freely down my face. "I know they want to keep me in the hospital to examine me and figure out why I survived, but I couldn't stand being in that place anymore! I didn't want to talk about what happened over and over, and doctors would look at me with that pitying look that said they thought I was insane." I raised my head and looked into the priests eyes. "I know I'm not insane, Father! I know it, but I just can't explain happened to me on that planet!"

When I finished, the priest stayed quiet. He didn't have that pitying look at all and for some reason I knew he actually believed me. After nearly a minute of thought, he said, "There are times, Jonas, where a person can borrow enlightenment for a brief moment in this reality. It's rare and it's difficult for the person it happens to. Buddhism basically evolved around this concept, and even for the first Buddha, enlightenment was a hard thing to comprehend." He paused. "It's why priests and shamans and spirit workers exist. Those of us who do this work all see some aspect of enlightenment that gives us our vocation."

Confused, I asked, "Are you saying I'm a now priest or something?"

"I don't know, Jonas. That'll be up to you," he replied with a shrug. "Just know that the hardest part for people who experience something like you went through is coming back to this world. Reality is messy and imperfect and complicated, not perfect and beautiful like what you experienced. Some people go into deep depressions because they can't find that same beauty or feel the answers again."

I took a breath. "How do I live with this, though? What do I do about the voice in my head?"

The priest dug into his pants pocket and pulled out a small, well used notebook and small pen. He thumbed through it, read something, then pulled out a page and wrote something down. "I have a friend on Sarnalia Prime named Erasmus. They let me call them that, since I can't pronounce the Sarnalian name to save my life!" He chuckled, then continued. "Anyway, he's a shaman who specializes in helping people who have experiences similar to yours. There's a New Jesuit monastery there, and I can send you there under the guise of a prospective initiate, which means you won't be bothered in transit."

"But, I'm not a priest!"

"That's for you to decide, but this will get you to my shaman friend, and they can help you, at the very least, control what's happening to you so that you can make more sense of what happened to you."

"But, I could pay--"

The priest shook his head. "The church makes provisions for this, and us priests have a network. When humans headed to the stars and we started meeting other peoples, there were many, like you, who experienced things beyond what they could understand. We made friends with other spiritual practitioners from other worlds, and that's when the Pope realized that we needed to have the means to not only send our own priests, monks, and nuns around the galaxy, but also to help seekers find their way. It's a small fleet, but it's free to those of any religion to use for transport." He smiled. "What's interesting, is that the pilots themselves are their own monastic order, but that's a story they can tell you on the way." He handed me the paper. "When you're ready, go to docking bay forty-seven, ask for Sister Jean. She's the pilot. Tell her Father Sean sent you. And when you find Erasmus, tell him that, too, and he'll take you in. The travel and accommodation won't be fancy, but it'll get you there."

I stared at the man in surprise and took the paper. He was serious. There was no pity, no disbelief in his eyes. I relaxed a little. Finally! said the voice in my head, and this time, I felt that same way. "Why are you helping me?" I asked. "You could get in trouble!"

"Don't worry about Fleet. Their psychologists can pound sand. Most of them couldn't see or understand a spiritual experience if it bit them!" He grinned. "And I'm helping you, Jonas, because, someone helped me find peace with my own spiritual experiences a long time ago," he said, staring at the cross above the sanctuary altar. "While I may not be able to teach you myself, I do know those who can, and I like to pay the Universe back for the life that I have now." He turned back to me. "I wasn't always a good man, Jonas."

I wanted to ask who he was before he was a priest, but I held my tongue. He face had a look that I knew all too well. "Thank you," I said.

"You're welcome," he said. Slapping his hands on his knees, he stood and added, "Well, come on then, it's almost dinnertime at the rectory. You can stay here tonight, since I know that the next ship won't be leaving until 0600 tomorrow. Brother Bob makes a good chili." The priest raised his eyebrows. "It really would be a shame if you didn't have some. He makes enough to feed half the station!"

I laughed and said, "Yeah, sure. I'd appreciate that!" The priest nodded, and he left the room. As I followed him out, the voice in my head, for once, was quiet, as if I finally found the right place to be.