Priest and Pariahs

by J. Alan Veerkamp

  It barely registered when Priest found himself alone in the vast room.

  Why couldn’t he grasp a handhold to climb out of this haze? He’d seen tragic events play out in front of him before. Why did this one affect him so much more? He ambled forward with his muddy thinking to where Arbor fell. Something brushed against his boot, making him look down.

  Arbor’s shoulder bag lay on the floor, the strap in two pieces where the phaser had cut it free, a fine char on each severed edge. Priest stooped down and picked up the satchel. The durable leather was softened with wear, but the bag contained everything Arbor needed to make his day-to-day life easier. He wanted to be part of that too. A few salty drops darkened the leather as he clutched the bag to his chest.

  He needed to be there for Arbor. He needed Arbor. The fog snapped away and Priest bolted out the door. He couldn’t get to sick bay fast enough.

  The infirmary was abuzz with activity when Priest stormed into the room. Mac and Sheldon were lying down and awake, being tended to by separate crew members. Danverse, pale and shaken, hovered over Mac. One crew member was cleaning up Angus as he sat still with a small device resting along his cheek and nose, apparently repairing the damage.

  Costa lay alone, sleeping peacefully, unaffected by the bustle of men and machines around him. In spite of the blood and bruising along the side of his face, with the dark circles under his eyes abated, he looked somehow angelic.

  One bed was obscured from view. A flexible screen was drawn, segregating it from the rest of the beds. Was that the surgical station? Where were Dr. Bosch and Carson? A new layer of fear bled in from the fringes. Where was Arbor?

  Dr. Bosch stepped out from behind the screen wearing a stark white surgical gown and clear safety goggles. “Sterilize the wound tract and I’ll be right back.” Stripping off his latex gloves, Dr. Bosch went to each triage station and wasted no time assessing each injured man. In less than a minute, he was satisfied enough to raise his voice above the activity.

  “Thank you for all your help, gentlemen, but now I need fewer people in sick bay and I have to ask everyone to leave.” He motioned his hands, ushering the extra crew outside. Priest didn’t want to leave—he’d just arrived—but found himself swept along with the herd into the hallway. “The automated medical sensors can take over from this point. Mac and Sheldon will be staying overnight. Strictly for observation. Otherwise, I need it quiet to work. That goes for you, too, Captain.”

  “But, Mac—”

  “Will be perfectly fine.” The doctor had to practically shove Danverse out the door. “You can coddle him tomorrow.”

  “What about McQuillen?”

  “A stasis field is in place and he’s medicated so heavily he won’t wake up for hours.”

  Danverse pointed at Costa. “I want that man under control, Doctor.” His hand trembled with rage, blunting the force of his command.

  “I think you’ve done enough for one day, Captain.” Dr. Bosch’s words were edged with venom, mirroring the intensity of his stare. A professional decorum was likely the only thing keeping him from exploding.

  Before Dr. Bosch could turn and leave, Priest pushed forward from the crowd. “Doc, how’s Arbor?”

  Dr. Bosch flashed a disdainful glance at the captain. “He’s fortunate to not have been cut in half.” Priest’s stomach rolled. “Even still, he’s barely stable and there’s a lot of damage to regenerate, even after we remove all the burned tissues.”

  “Is he going to be all right?” Priest’s lungs stilled, unwilling to continue in the silence.

  Dr. Bosch paused for a moment, uncertainty flickering across his eyes. “I’ll do my best, Priest.”

  The sick bay doors slid closed as the doctor hurried back to the surgical suite. Priest’s breath rushed out, taking his strength with it. He leaned forward, splaying his fingertips on the hard surface as if he could reach Arbor through the metal. The touch didn’t cause the door to open. Dr. Bosch had locked them all out.

  “How long have you known McQuillen was para-human?”

  Priest turned and faced the captain, finding his worried expression covered by the alpha mask he wore. Natural charisma made Danverse the leader and influenced others to follow. This time, however, it was a frayed facade with little tremors of mania along the edges.

  “I didn’t find out until after we left Alpha Centauri.”

  “Why didn’t you report him?”

  “Because he didn’t do anything wrong.” Most of the men excused from sick bay had halted and were watching the exchange. Their curious gazes only fed the growing anxiety, dark and ugly, slicing through Priest.

  Danverse edged closer, his formidable size eclipsing Priest. “You didn’t realize he was crazy?”

  “He’s not crazy. Costa’s a manipulative dick sometimes, but he’s not trying to kill us. He could have found a way to do that weeks ago. All he wants is to get to Omoikane. His powers were getting out of control and he ran out of Calm. He wasn’t prepared for a trip this long. His supply ran out.”

  “You should have told me the second you found out. You put all our lives at risk.”

  Priest wilted at the captain’s domineering pose and venom. “I didn’t realize any of this was possible. I was trying to convince him to go to Doc Bosch when the engines stopped. Then all hell broke loose.”

  Apparently the answer was insufficient, because Danverse grabbed Priest by the collar and pinned him against the sick bay doors. He grunted at how the molding edges dug into his back, and dropped Arbor’s satchel. Danverse loomed forward, his fierce snarl making his fury unmistakable. “I’m holding you personally responsible for the danger you put all of us in, Priest. Every crew member could have died today because of you. Five people ended up in sick bay.”

  It wasn’t anger bubbling up in Priest, rising to the surface. It wasn’t even the guilt singing its tawdry verses in his ear about his hand in this debacle. It was fear. Fear for the future of the wounded man behind the medical screen. Fear for a future he might never know. Fear cutting like poisoned blades under his skin, demanding a reaction.

  Priest slapped Danverse’s hand away and shoved him backward. “And you put two of them in there!” A sick tremor paired itself in a chilled rush of sweat as he glared at the captain. “You’re so full of shit. The only person you gave a damn about today was Mac, and you’re trying to justify how you tried to execute an unconscious man.”

  “I was protecting the crew—”

  “You fucked up and shot an innocent bystander! The man who saved us all! Costa may have lost control and people got hurt, but he tried to stop it! He was in so much pain and he begged me to help him, but I didn’t know how!” Priest inhaled sharply to hold back the shame threatening to spill over into tears. “Arbor figured it out. He saved Mac’s life and turned Costa off. So what did you do? Tried to kill one and probably ended up killing the other. Your own crewman. As long as the ship is safe, what’s a little collateral damage, right?”

  All the vitriol bled out of him as the swelling in his eyes made it hard to see. Danverse rose taller, an impenetrable wall of force. The seething flowed off his body in a tangible wave.

  A shudder wracked Priest as the words, coarse with sadness, continued. “Congratulations. You’ve saved us all. You should be so proud of yourself. I hope you’re happy. Mac is going to be fine. You’ll have your happy ever after.” Priest gasped. The words were becoming harder to speak. “Your man will walk out of here.”

  “This is not about Mac.” Danverse’s quiet menace could be felt as well as heard. “This is about how your holding back information nearly cost the lives of everyone on board. Your keeping secrets ultimately led to every one of these injuries, no matter how they happened. Give me one good reason not to throw you in the brig and forget you’re in there.”

  “Arbor knew. How do you think he figured out how to shut Costa down?” Priest’s eyes burned and his voice became hoarse. “Maybe you should punish him for not narcing out Costa too.
No, wait, you already did.” A single tear raced down his cheek, his vision blurring as his body shook. “And since you need to punish someone, you might as well punish me too. Go ahead! Protect the crew! Go on, Captain! Do it! Right here in front of everyone! Put a gun to my fucking head and punish me already!”

  Startled by the raw outburst, Danverse’s mouth hung open, a response refusing to form. Priest slumped back against the door, the sturdy barrier preventing him from becoming a pile on the floor. Nausea twisted inside him as haunted silence filled the corridor with its suffocating aura. Shoulders listing, the heat in Danverse’s eyes faded as he regarded Priest. Every man stood as if in unspoken prayer, unwilling to overpower even the most marginal sound.

  The awkward hush dragged until Mrs. Claus finally broke through, her pleasant mood shocking in its contrast. “Corporal Jones. Your automated reminder. Your flight shift begins in fifteen minutes.”

  “Your man? Arbor?” Danverse's brow furrowed as he focused. “I thought I heard it was you and McQuillen that were…”

  Priest’s shoulders were almost too heavy to move, but he forced a shrug. “I was still figuring out how I fucked things up and how to undo it. Now it may not matter.”

  “Priest…” Danverse looked lost, as if somehow trying to conjure an apology his instincts didn’t allow. It didn’t make Priest feel any better. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. The gravity of the situation dulled his ability to love or hate any of the men in front of him. Whether they pitied him or judged him, their stares were too penetrating, too deep into feelings he couldn’t manage.

  It took a massive effort to push away from the wall. Priest rubbed the back of his hand across his nose and mouth, trying to sober himself. Without looking a single man in the eye, he walked forward, every step a slow burden. The miniature crowd parted, letting him pass.

  Priest’s voice was as flat as his soul crushed under the invisible weight. “I have to go. I have a work shift.”

  “Take it off. We’ll manage.”

  Stopping in the hall, Priest turned, his weary eyes locked on the captain, barely able to utter more than a whisper. “What else am I supposed to do?”

  With the engines down, there wasn’t anywhere for the ship to go, but no one stopped him as he ambled away.

  PRIEST MISSED THE last meal service, but hunger never visited him on the bridge. The engines were eventually brought online and his shift’s last few hours were uneventful. Only once did he have to divert due to random debris in the flight path. A moment of activity within hours of nothing. Staring out into the blackness and counting the stars made the time pass. So far, the navigator, Micah, had been blissfully quiet. Priest wasn’t in the mood for conversation.

  Captain Danverse hadn’t come to the bridge, and that was fine as far as Priest was concerned. The captain’s presence would make it much harder to stay sane, to keep the events he couldn’t change from eating him alive. His flight shift gave him something to pour himself into, rather than reliving the memory of Arbor falling to the engine room floor over and over.

  It wasn’t as if Priest hated the captain. He didn’t. In all honesty, he admired the man, even with his blatant flaws. The memory of confronting him felt surreal. Priest would have never done anything so stupid in the past, but this time Danverse deserved every hard word. The crew would be outraged if and when the details of the incident became news, but in the end, they would forgive. Danverse gave each and every one a new life and took care of his crew. It was difficult to just forget such a thing. This was the first time the captain’s actions spun into the realm of dangerous. But Priest knew, in the end, the crew would understand why it happened.

  Danverse's love for Mac was inescapable and all-consuming. Losing him would be the one thing to bring the captain to madness.

  Priest was in the Mess Hall the night everyone first discovered Danverse finally got off his ass and approached Mac. It was about time. The fireplug tech had to wait over a year. The pair was eating in the hall and every man in the room looked proud and somewhat jealous of the connection they were sharing.

  An argument broke out when Mac found out Danverse had ordered all the men away from him. A year of avoidance from the crew had isolated Mac, but no one wanted to interfere with the captain’s claim. Mac stormed out, leaving Danverse behind. The crushed look on his face wrote the story of how lost the captain was without Mac.

  Ultimately, they reconciled, and Danverse stopped fucking the crew as a method of punishment or recreation. The two men were devoted to each other—the proof in their fleeting touches and lack of personal space. Watching them together left Priest with a subtle craving for that kind of passion, but the idea never swamped him as a requirement to breathe.

  Not until now. Not until Arbor.

  And he needed Arbor. He needed to see his crooked smile and hear the snark in his voice. He needed to find the man in his bed and spend mornings and nights ruining the sheets. Now that he knew the difference, life without Arbor would be unbearable. It made him understand what kind of devotion could bring the captain to such depths.

  It was awful something so terrible was necessary to make those thoughts and feelings crystallize.

  The chance Arbor might not survive was a rusty spike in his chest he needed to ignore, no matter how deep the wound might be. He needed to be strong. Arbor’s enormous life in a small body was in the hands of someone with far more talents than he possessed. It could be hours before anyone got word, and sitting outside of sick bay was a complete waste of time. Even if they let him in, he would only be in the way.

  No matter how powerful the urge to run back and hover, Priest would trust in Dr. Bosch’s skills. The man was practically a miracle worker. Arbor was safest in the infirmary. And so was Costa.

  It was hard to believe how his interest in Costa could run so far off course. Priest was still attracted to the slender man, but deep down he knew Costa had no real interest in him and their affair was nothing more than entertainment on both sides. Somewhere, the realization crept around in the back of his mind even when he lied to himself Arbor’s attentions were purely casual.

  So much time wasted. Would he have done things differently had he seen the future? Probably not. At least in the aftermath, Priest could be honest with himself. He still would have tried to bed Costa. Now Costa was unconscious, restrained in his bed back in sick bay.

  Hopefully Dr. Bosch could help Costa. There had to be a way to manage both his addiction and his power. If anyone could find that way, it would be the doc. The man was brilliant. But did he have all the information he needed?

  Priest pulled up his personal logs on the side monitor. It didn’t take long to find the horde of files Arbor had sent him regarding Earth and its para-human history. Nothing had been deleted. Priest had reviewed the com multiple times while he tried to understand the mystery surrounding Costa McQuillen. Would these details be of use to the doctor? There was only one way to find out. One touch to the screen and everything was forwarded to Dr. Bosch’s office. The minor effort made him feel a bit less useless, but not by much.

  “Priest?” Micah's rough voice nearly startled Priest. He’d been so quiet for so long.

  Taking a deep breath, he turned to his navigator. “Yeah?”

  “I read the emergency logs. Is Arbor going to be all right?” Micah squirmed in his seat while his gaze rested anywhere but directly on Priest.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you okay?”

  A long, weak exhale deflated Priest as he turned back to the black void, full of distant stars. “No. No, I’m not.”

  AFTER THE KITCHEN closed, Erron brought a meal up to the bridge, but Priest couldn’t find his appetite. Erron squeezed his shoulder with his unsteady hand, eyes brimming with sympathy, and left the covered dish on the dashboard. An hour later, it sat untouched until he came back to retrieve the offering. Now, with Priest's shift at an end, the thought of food was still nothing more than a distant interest.

  Without
a coherent thought, Priest found himself standing in front of the sick bay doors. He hovered short of the entrance, the fear of what he might find an invisible ward against him. A jagged sensation kept his weight shifting between his feet, standing still proving impossible. The effort to touch the doors was exhausting.

  He pressed his hand to the surface and the doors remained closed. Red text scrolled onto the black com panel next to the door.

  No Admittance. Surgery in Progress.

  It had been at least nine hours and they were still in surgery? An unseen hand squeezed Priest’s heart in its relentless grip. He stumbled back against the wall and slid to the floor. The gasping shudders wracking his shoulders were only held in check by laying his head in his hands.

  “PRIEST? HOW LONG have you been out here?”

  Priest’s head snapped up at Carson’s voice. The nurse knelt over him, weary lines in his unshaven face. Angry muscles screamed their protest as Priest attempted to raise himself off the hallway floor. Somehow, in the aftermath of everything, he’d fallen asleep against his will.

  “I don’t know. I must have gone down a while ago.” He wiped the spittle from the corner of his mouth with a clumsy hand. Nothing functioned as intended, the soreness and fatigue working their curses upon him.

  Carson reached up and placed two fingers to Priest’s neck before holding Priest’s eye open with his thumb, peering into the depths. “You look like shit. Are you all right?”

  Priest shrugged off Carson’s hand, nearly slapping him away. “Fuck off! Stop touching me.” The physical contact garnered an unaccustomed wave of revulsion. Carson and Priest had played together on a lonely night or two in the past, but the touch made him scuttle back along the wall out of reach.

  “I’m only trying to examine you.”