Ceteroquin: Drunken Doctor Prayer Circle
This is the fifth part of The Trapping of the Ceteroquin. This story appears in full in M/U's 2020 speculative fiction anthology, Demiurges and Demigods in Space, Vol. 1 and will be run as a serial online every Tuesday and Thursday for the next couple of months and each entry can easily be found here. To read this in its entirety, along with all of the other brilliant pieces included in the collection, you can obtain paperback and PDF copies in our store, with Kindle versions available on Amazon.
After a couple of hours, Dr. Frietag found himself wide awake. For a moment, he lay in the darkness of his untidy room. All seemed well. Then he remembered about the trap and sat bolt upright, almost short of breath.
A man of science and medicine, he knew he was not taking proper care of himself. He had resigned himself to it, surrendered himself over time to his arguably harmless but base appetites and weaknesses, and not without a small dose of private shame. He was, after all, a member of the Group. He was bound by no vows of chastity or poverty, abstention or austerity, but there was still that general ethos of fitness that he wasn’t living up to. He’d had all the training and kept up with the periodic continued education expected every few years of long-term Group members. He’d always excelled and he’d forgotten none of it. He was roughly as old and as experienced as the Captain and had similarly distinguished himself in his own ways on various ships and assignments over the years. This was why the Captain still kept him around and still treated him with a certain modicum of respect despite his frequently disgraceful presentation.
Still, his alcoholism and general failure to maintain himself had yet to cause any serious problems. He was never predatory or violent or disruptive. He understood boundaries, always arrived on time, always played with tremendous ability in his musical performances, and never did anything to jeopardize any part of the mission.
The saving of souls and general uplift of the human spirit, he still firmly believed, was a noble pursuit, a fine thing toward which to dedicate one’s life. He also (mostly) still believed this pursuit to be its own reward. It was also heartbreaking and gut-wrenching. Self-sacrifice as a one-time act, like martyrdom, that was one thing. Not something he was interested in, mind you, but at least once you did it, it was over. Even the one-tour sacrifice made by most who joined the Group – usually two or four years –that was also one thing. Not a one-time thing, and certainly not easy, but it was defined and finite. But to be a lifer? Certainly it was a better deal than those spiritual orders that still clung to notions of austerity and chastity. It wasn’t the pleasures of the flesh that he’d had to leave behind, nor even the possibility of some measure of family life. The Group tolerated and accommodated romantic and familial arrangements of all shapes and sizes.
But a life with no measure of simple ignorance, a whole lifetime spent with the veil permanently drawn back such that one can no longer see anything “ordinary” because there is no longer any such thing, this was not a path to which most were suited. Changing this was, of course, a primary goal of the Group, but even the most starry eyed True Believers understood that even in a best case scenario, it would take generations before everyone could be expected (or even invited) to eat from that table. He’d proven himself worthy of eating these foods of the gods, even in such unworthy times, had withstood their spice and richness for decades, but at some point it had all come to weigh so heavily. It had all proven cumulative in ways he hadn’t expected.
The thing with booze, as humans have known for tens of thousands of years, is that it’s a great chemical to help one continue on. For the busy, for the driven, for those committed to thankless lifelong underground struggles against antagonists unseen, it reliably provides the desired club to the head without doing much to slow or stop forward motion. Certainly, as many argued, it made spiritual and physical development more difficult, but most days, most people know that those problems can be put off for another day.
He got out of bed.
He was still in the same clothes he’d been wearing earlier, so he stripped them off. He threw a loose, thin, light blue robe over his shoulders, leaving it open, stepped into his cool, snug slippers and went out into the hallway. The lights were dimmed, as was customary during downtime, but he still had to shield his eyes for the first few moments. He began to scout the scene – surely somebody was up. Frank, if no one else. Quite possibly the Captain. One never knew.
Molly’s quarters were nearest to his; he knew it would be empty and it was, door open. His thoughts turned slightly toward the lascivious as he continued onward to Ben’s closed door, conveniently at the end of that same hall, and paused outside of it. He didn’t have to wait long for the sounds of love he’d been hoping to hear. He figured – mostly correctly – that they wouldn’t mind if he caught a whiff of their pleasure for himself. Still, there were limits. He drew the line at walking about the ship openly brandishing in erection like a common lecher. He was better than that.
He traversed a side hall, hardly bothering to slow his stride as he passed the priest’s room. He wasn’t sure what he needed specifically right now was the company of a priest; plus, Nick always slept. Times of ease, times of trouble, didn’t matter.
He continued on to the novitiates’ area and as he approached he couldn’t help but smirk. No one was awake, but based on the state of undress and haphazard positioning of the three bodies he could see sprawled on the cushions piled next to the table, which had been unceremoniously tipped on its side, it was clear what had happened here. He was sorry to have missed it.
Perhaps, he considered, he ought to seek out some physical companionship of his own while at the Blue Striper. Trap or no trap, the Captain had said there would be free time. A risky and unlikely proposition – but a viable one. He couldn’t remember how long it had been.
He did not remain long to leer; even with his lecherous temperament, the disorderly post-coital piling of diverse flesh was not particularly attractive. Good for Frank, though, he snickered to himself. Hopefully this had been helpful for him. And the youngsters, too, he mused, although he considered himself far less familiar with their needs.
He turned on his heels and made a beeline for the other end of the ship, passing by Ben’s still-melodious door again. Laura, he knew from experience, while not a cold person, was not fond of unexpected visitors. At the very least, she wasn’t fond of him stopping by her chambers unexpectedly. No, the only hope remaining, he knew, was Captain Hancock himself.
The captain’s quarters were sequestered in their own private area of the ship, accessible only by a dedicated cylindrical lift that could only comfortably fit three or so people at a time. They were not ostentatious or extravagant – this was still, after all, a cooperative endeavor – but captaincy came with some perks. Taking the lift, he strode through the Captain’s dimly lit antechamber and up to the door. It was closed and he couldn’t hear anything within, but he tapped the button next to it for the chime. After a pause of about one second, the door slid silently open.
His eyes were overwhelmed by the sight of the open cosmos. Being at the topmost area of the ship’s interior, the Captain’s quarters had an adjustable pane as its widest wall and part of its ceiling that could range from wholly opaque to wholly transparent, displaying a panorama of stars.
“Hello, Doctor,” the Captain said calmly but with a hint of warmth – and Dr. Frietag was forced to tear his gaze away from the wonder to the humans, the Captain and Laura the unofficial First Mate, seated on raised cushions, angled slightly toward one another but facing out into space. The room was lit only by imitation candlelight.
“Join us,” Laura said, matching the Captain’s tone precisely but in her own way.
He noticed a third raised cushion sitting empty between them.
At last, Frietag began to wake up and regain enough of his composure to behave like himself – whatever that meant, considering he had neglected to have a drink before leaving his room. “I should’ve known I would find the two of you huddled away together,” he teased half-heartedly. They wore their robes open as he did, but this was hardly unusual, and they were seated several feet apart with no signs or smells of conjugation that the doctor could discern. In fact, it was almost as though they’d been waiting for him.
To his disappointment, neither acknowledged his attempted provocation. They just looked at him and silently gestured toward the empty seat. He took it.
“We’re praying,” Laura said.
Frietag found himself, against his own instincts and actual habits, avoiding the urge to settle his eyes in the soft shadows between the part of her robe. She would not have begrudged him his gaze – she never did – but, if only for this moment, it didn’t seem right. He loved the way she was, tall and slender, soft brown hair, approaching 40 and looking all the better for it. But now was not the time.
The Captain seemed to sense the doctor’s present chemical deficiency. “I’m happy to take a pause and prepare you a cocktail, old comrade,” he said genuinely. He gestured over to a small nearby table. “We’ve been warming ourselves a bit with the vaporizer.”
To his own surprise, he declined the drink but accepted the vape, taking two deep drags – holding the sparkling vapor for a judicious period each time – before passing the device back to Laura to place back on the table.
Thus settled, the three of them joined hands, lifted up their hearts, and opened their eyes and the whole of their individual and collectively joined consciousness to open space.