Fr. Shaheen took a drag of his cigarrette as he stared up at the night sky. A few stars were just bright enough to shine through the gray haze cast by the town street lights.

Just at the edge of the trailer’s porch light sat an old foundation where a sizeable rectory once stood. It had been far too large for a single resident, so he had it torn down and was now living in a much more modest mobile home. At one point a youth center was planned to take its place, but the number of heads devoid of gray hairs that could be found in the pews of Our Lady of the Cedars could be counted on both hands.

Rare was the night where the priest couldn’t be found puffing away in front of his trailer. Restful nights were few and far between. Maybe his smoking habit was to blame. His new housemate did comment frequently on his snoring, loud enough to be heard from the other end of the house.

That new housemate was awkwardly lying on the bench across from him, a haphazard jumble of limbs. He was covered wet nose to prehensile tail in black and white fur. He broke the silence with a cough. “Why you cleric breathe that smoke stick?” came a tinny robotic voice from somewhere in the tangle of legs. “That smoke make cough. Smell bad bad.” While the little quadruped’s English was improving by the day. The intonation was off, with stressed syllables appearing everywhere but where they should.

“We all have our vices,” sighed Fr. Shaheen. “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

“You cleric friend, ask ask.”

“Why’d Iris insist on you staying with me?”

After a long pause, “She iris think you human maybe follow Light more good than us yinrih. Maybe again you cleric make me friend believe.”

“I think Dr. Staples has been giving you guys the wrong idea about humanity.”

“He doctor show us how strong human, how fast human. Show us beautiful arts. Show us human help other and not think self.”

“Yeah, that’s what we aspire to be,” grunted Fr. Shaheen as he rose to his feet.

“Where you cleric go?” asked the creature as he oozed down from the bench and planted his hexadactyl paws on the wooden porch.

“Come on. We’re going to get more cancer sticks.” The priest walked to a dust-caked pickup truck parked next to the trailer. After a deep bowing stretch the alien trotted behind him.

“Turn off that synthesizer,” said the priest as he turned the ignition. “I need to work on my Commonthroat comprehension.”

The alien complied, slipping the small chording keyer from his wrist and placing it in a pocketed band around his right foreleg. His real voice came in quiet melodic whines and growls, as though a dog were trying to speak Mandarin in its sleep. The priest had to strain to discern the subtle shifts in volume that were just as meaningful as the underlying sound.

«When are you going to give me a human name?» the alien grunted.

“Eh? Don’t you have a perfectly good Commonthroat name? ring…light, isn’t it? So like moonlight, but from a ring around your home planet?”

«Yeah, but I want a name humans can pronounce.»

“What’s wrong with translating your name as is?”

«This planet doesn’t have a ring, and none of you humans have been on a planet that does. I feel like the name falls flat. I want my name to mean something to those around me, not just to the five other yinrih who are with me.»

After a long pause, “Back there before we left, you said you didn’t believe anymore.”

The alien hesitated, then tilted his muzzle up, a rough equivalent to an affirmative nod. «I was a devout pup. I went to liturgies daily, poured over hagiographies, could quote scripture as easy as breathing. Faith helped me back then. I was…am–» The next few words were lost on the priest.

“Maybe rephrase that last part, Those are some new words for me.”

«Well… I’m not sure if you humans experience this, but some of us have something wrong in our brains, a condition that keeps us from feeling happy. I have that condition.»

“Depression,” said the priest. “We’ve got that over here alright. I struggle with depression, too. A lot of humans do. My faith keeps me afloat. Sounds like it helped you, too. But what happened?”

«I always needed something solid I could stand on, something tangible that vindicated my faith. Through my puppyhood I thought I had that something, but I turned out to be wrong.»

“What was that something?”

«Persistence,» said the alien. «For a hundred thousand years the Bright Way persisted. It survived threats from without and from within. It managed to survive so long despite the often profound stupidity of its leaders. I thought only a divine mandate could keep such a mess from foundering.»

“And…?”

«It was a lot of little things. I noticed other Wayfarers could be just as rude and hateful as anyone else, and that made me wonder if the Bright Way is no better than any other group of people, is it really special? Surely the organization that claims to be the bastion of truth and virtue should be BETTER, right? Not just not any worse.

«But the tipping point was when the High Hearthkeeper tried to shutter the missionaries, the whole purpose for the Bright Way’s existence, you know? ‘Go, dearest little ones, spread your light to the stars, and ye shall become brighter yourselves.’ That’s the Great Commandment. That’s our most sacred precept, that we’re not alone in the universe, that we should seek out the Light’s other creatures among the stars. So what? We’re just going to abandon it now? Than what are we? What is our reason for being?

«That’s when it hit me. If our own leader doesn’t care, why should I?»

“You sacrificed a lot. It took you 250 years to get here, and it’ll be at least that long before you see others of your kind again. If you think this mission from God, this Great Commandment, of yours is just a fairy tale, than why bother?”

«As for me,» said the alien, «I’m not a very gregarious person. The other missionaries with me, they’re all I’ve got. If I didn’t go with them I’d likely never see them again.»

“But still… dropping everything knowing you may never return, that’s a heavy choice to make, friends or not.”

«Well, you can blame Iris for twisting my ear. She said if I were right, and this is all nonsense, I will have lost nothing by coming with them. It’s not like we age while in suspension, and it wasn’t like I was pulling up roots by leaving home. But if the Bright Way is right, I will have gained everything by obeying the Great Commandment, so–» He quickly flicked his ears back in a cynoid shrug.

The priest was beaming.

«You’re showing your teeth. Is something wrong?»

“Pascal!” the priest proclaimed. “That’s your human name!”

«I don’t follow.»

“Blaise Pascal, he lived 400 years ago. Most people today know him as a scientist, I’m pretty sure there’s a unit of measure named after him, but he also talked a lot about faith. Pascal’s wager. What Iris told you. We call that Pascal’s wager. Lose nothing or gain everything.”

Pascal looked out the window as the pickup pulled into a sprawling parking lot. At its center was an equally sprawling monolithic building.

«So why’d you bring me here, other than to get more of your foul-smelling smoking sticks?»

“I told you what Dr. Staples showed you was what we humans want to be. That’s all well and good, but you also need to know what we are.” The priest got out of the pickup and Pascal followed.

“You’re definitely going to need that synthesizer.”

Pascal positioned the keyer in his left forepaw, then looked up at the large illuminated sign above the entrance and attempted to sound out the letters.

“W A L M A R T”

To be continued.