As evening fell I heard the larger creatures gathering outside, some of whom were probably wild homaroids. I made shuffling noises to keep them at bay while still waving the branch at the insectoids and keeping an eye peeled for any other crawlers who had forded my moat. I rested not a wink that night as Ttch*lok changed beside me. I tossed pieces of his shell outside as the process continued.
The next day was a repeat of the first, only with greater numbers of flying insectoids and creeping, slithering intruders. My branch was worn to a stick and I had to replace it twice as the day progressed.
Halfway through the day my cooler quit and I began to warm up from the exercise of swatting and squashing. I began to grow thirsty, but refrained from drinking my small water reserve until I absolutely had to. Now that the cooler had gone there would be no more condensation to refill the reservoir.
But regardless of my own discomfort I knew that I must keep my vigil, to guard against those who would steal this soul from my care.
By late afternoon of the second day the entrance to our hideout was littered with the remains of the flying, crawling, and slithering creatures that I had dispatched. In the bright light of day none of the larger predators were visible. That did not mean that they were not there. It only meant that they were biding their time, awaiting a moment’s lapse on my part; a nod from me and they could feast on the succulent body lying in repose beside me.
When night fell I could hear the predators coming close, testing my ability to drive them away, testing my resolve to save this soul from the horrors of his own world. Each time I arose and waved my arms in what I hoped was a threatening manner.
I persisted and wondered at last as to why I was doing this. Why, after abandoning my own calling, had I chosen to intervene with this one pitiable creature, this one who was not even of my own species?
My innermost faith had decayed years and years before, long before I embarked upon this journey into the boundless reaches of God’s great Universe. And perhaps the reason for it.
How could a priest serve his flock when the congregation was an ever changing aggregation? When they were people who looked upon the rites as performance, who changed churches, religions, and morals according to the fashion of the time?
Sermons meant nothing to them, being merely an interesting phase in the show, much akin to the musician who plays to amuse the audience between acts. Mention shame and they would get up and leave, talk of sin disturbed them, speaking of death was unthinkable, and asking them to believe in the Trinity was impossible.
Despite this, I had to pander to the needs of the age, for it was deemed better to have a flock of marginal Christians (and the money was welcome too) than preach in an empty church. Yet, despite all of my efforts to make those who chose to attend realize the peril to their immortal souls, it took only one popular figure to state that Mithraism was
Every waking moment I lived in dread of finding myself without a congregation to care for.
In the end I could stand such lukewarm adherence to the faith no longer. I despaired of mankind ever maturing into a life of belief and spirituality. If we few practitioners, advocates of the faith, could not obtain their commitment then humanity was lost; they would only have the taste of religion without being nourished by the substance.
I abandoned my church, leaving the spiritual care of my two dying parishioners for a younger, and less critical replacement and embarked into God’s great Universe on the
Instead I had found Ttch*lok.
By the morning of the third day Ttch*lok’s new shell had finished expanding and begun to darken. The exoskeleton was starting to achieve the consistency of leather. This was some relief for me as the smaller insectoids were no longer a problem, for their tiny apparatus could not penetrate Ttch*lok’s new armor. I no longer needed to wave my branch and crush the occasional visitor. I rested my arms and sucked a few drops of water, the last of my reserve.
When that night fell the homaroids and other predators still lurked, awaiting their chance. Perhaps when the shell hardened further I would have a chance to sleep, to rest from this vigil, I thought.
As I sat there I pondered again at what I was doing. A disturbing simile occurred to me in that haze of sleep-deprived, semi-critical thinking: the similarity of the homaroids’ consumption of the flesh of living thinking beings to the rites I had learned. Was this not a communion of sorts? Wasn’t their consumption partaking of the substance of life itself, a sharing of being more intimate than my own ritualistic taking of the flesh and the spirit?
A reason why these creatures had developed no religion occurred to me as well. Each of them was virtually born anew after each successful softening. Each rose after three days, like the Lord, from the false death of mortality, forgetful of their prior transgressions. Each and every one of them was resurrected in a continuous renewal of innocence.
They were living a spiritual life such as I had never imagined.
I cried at the thought, muddled as it may have been. I fervently wished that we humans could do likewise. That we could shed our baggage of sin and pain and return with refreshed souls, able to grace life with greater facility. I yearned that others could drink of my life and experience and so carry it forward to eternity.
But, unlike these blessed creatures, these sorrowfully predatory homaroids, my own sins would not be shed like their exoskeleton but would stay with me unto my final breath, dooming my eternal soul to ascend without a second chance for redemption. Like all humans, I had only one pass at life; one chance to live, and must die with the consequences of my mistakes.
As I’d had to live with my failure to keep my faith.
With these morbid thoughts in mind I must have dozed momentarily. I was started awake by a slight noise beside me and spied a large slithering centipede who, having taken advantage of my inattention, was chewing at one leg of the slumbering Ttch*lok.
I lashed out with my foot, bringing the suit’s armored heel down square in the center of the ’pede’s back. Its legs kicked as it coiled about to tear at my foot with its sharp mandibles. Several of the pede’s appendages tore futilely at the underside of my leg, the piercing spurs on each of its many limbs failing to find purchase in the metal.
I came erect, keeping my foot squarely on its back, holding the creature in place. With a shock I saw that the pede’s mandibles were actually peeling small slivers of my suit’s armor away with each bite. A line of little scratches marked where it had been nibbling.
I placed all of my weight on the pede’s back and brought my other foot down hard on its head, feeling its crown crack in a satisfying shock that ran up my leg as the gore from its innards splattered in all directions. One more spasm and then it lay still under me, dead at last.
With a feeling of disgust I lifted the thing with both hands and tossed it into the night. I heard the nocturnal predators scramble toward it and then listened to the sounds of a scuffle as they battled over the choice parts.
Then the night was silent once more.
I dozed no more that night but stared at the damage my inattention had caused to Ttch*lok’s leg. I had failed in my mission, just as I had failed my flock.
I think I cried then as well.
In the morning I noted some stirring of my charge and, when I looked closer, I saw that there was some movement of his sensory organs. The eyes swiveled toward me, staring blankly. The feelers writhed aimlessly. Was Ttch*lok returning to consciousness, I wondered?
As yet there was no movement in his limbs: Apparently the muscles had not been released from the protective slumber that God had provided to protect him against damage to the still unhardened integument.
After a few moments the eyes closed and the feelers stopped their movement. I prayed that all was well.
Ttch*lok moved no more that afternoon.
To my testing hand the shell appeared to be as firm and solid as his original had been. Few of the insectoids
