Straits of Hell Read Free

“mercy,” to my knowledge, comes to us from the Old Testament, when God spared Lot from the destruction he rained uponSodom and Gomorrah. That, however, might be cynically explained as the practice, common at the time, of allowing a few witnesses of a terrible act or massacre to go forth and spread the word of what will happen to others who do not submit to, or obey, a conquering king, warlord—or God. I strive to resist cynicism of that sort as best I can, though the struggle does grow tedious at times. Still, I endeavor to adhere to my own considered definition of mercy, which, simply put, is to avoid killing anything, either beast or sentient being, just because it appears menacing. Some may, on occasion, disagree with my personal judgment regarding whether certain creatures “need” killing, and I confess I may have been mistaken a time or two, but death is so amazingly permanent that I do prefer to “err” on the side of mercy when I can.
    So. If mercy is not “natural,” then the question would seem to be: from what does it spring? The Grik did not know mercy, as a race, though General Halik once demonstrated surprising restraint when he agreed to an exchange of prisoners. Clearly, that was in his interest at the time, and one might argue that true mercy was no part of his equation. Or was it? Subsequent behavior, addressed later, may pose that question to readers again, or to philosophers of another, gentler time.
    Lemurians did not show mercy to their enemies until we taught it to them—but do most understand it even yet? I wonder. Some do. Chack-Sab-At showed it to the beaten Doms on New Ireland, for example, when he had to be tempted to slaughter them all. But Chack was ever remarkable in many ways—and Doms were not Grik. What if they had been? Would any have been spared? Is mercy so selective? Once the most peaceful of races—with some interesting exceptions—Chack’s people embraced the warrior’s path so quickly and firmly that I still remain at somewhat of a loss to explain it. No doubt they were strongly influenced by self-preservation, the most powerful instinct of all, but their apparently latent talent for war, which we encouraged, argues vigorously for the thesis that their passivity was never instinctual and they were not always as peaceful as when we met—and as their only relatively recent histories suggest. Lemurians are generally
good
people who understand compassion and friendship, and who are amazingly tolerant of other races with which they share basic values. But I personally witnessed some few displays of what I considered quite uncharacteristic . . . harshness at the time; more like the aforementioned house cat than any thinking being. Granted, they’d hadlittle enough “mercy” shown them across the ages, so the concept must have been difficult for them to grasp. I suspect many showed restraint toward their enemies when occasionally asked, at least at first, only to please us.
    Apparently only my human friends from
Walker
, and then the Empire of the New Britain Isles, fully understood the concept of mercy in those early years to the point that they not only desired it for themselves but were willing to grant it on occasion. Does that mean that humans in general are more devoted to mercy? No. The people of the evil Dominion were human, just like us, but on the whole the “true believers” of their twisted faith behaved just as cruelly as the Grik. If anything, they were worse. And those who did learn mercy—and appreciated it when it was shown them—as evidenced by Arano Garcia and his troops, who swore their oaths to Sister Audry and Governor-Empress Rebecca McDonald, had to throw off entire lifetimes of indoctrination to accept mercy and learn what it was.
    Could that be the trick, then? I have no doubt that mercy is a gift from God. He has surely shown me enough of it in my life! But does the