Dark Mirror - Diane Duane [80]
“Third action: neutralization of Tarellian plague ship attempting to make landfall on Haven. Fourth action: recovery of stolen T-9 energy converter from Ferengii Alliance ship. Fifth action: prejudicial terraforming and orbital reconfiguration of Ferengii home planet. Sixth action—”
What did we do to them? Picard thought, shocked. While not exactly fond of the Ferengii, he felt that they had as much right to live untroubled as anyone else. He swallowed. “Computer—clarify intervention at Ferengii home planet.”
“Planet surface was cleansed of alien life-forms; later relocated to orbit around gamma Cephei prior to resettlement by approved species.”
He swallowed again. “Go on.”
“Sixth action: excision of hostile alien life-form on Rubicon III and incorporation of native species into Empire. Seventh action …”
It went on and on that way, and he made himself sit still and listen to it: the destruction of the Jaradan species, the murder of the intelligent inorganic life-form on Velara III so that the terraforming of that planet could continue, the punitive decimation of the Aldeans after their attempt to abduct Enterprise crew. … It was a long recitation, and when the computer finally fell silent, Picard was shaking with horror and rage.
He got up and started to pace, unable to keep himself still. At least, he thought, trying to force himself to calm, we should be thankful for small favors: they’ve never met Q. Or the Borg. Though he found himself wondering whether a meeting with the Borg might not have been good for these people—for this Empire as a whole—if the catalog of Enterprise’s pillagings, slaughters, planetary destructions, and other horrific actions was typical of this universe’s Starfleet. The Borg might even be beneficent by comparison, he thought bitterly. They might be cold and inhuman, but they aren’t sadistic or purposefully cruel.
That thought, that he would wish the Borg on anybody, no matter how they acted, so shocked Picard that he stopped himself in his tracks and just breathed in and out a few times, which his own Troi would doubtless have told him to do if she were there. Picard turned to the bookshelves, desperate for something dependable, some breath of plain clean air in this miasma of destructiveness and cruelty, and reached out to the Shakespeare.
It fell open, typically, at a favorite spot near the end of The Merchant of Venice. Despite his distress, he smiled at the sight of the page: Portia’s speech. The quality of mercy is not strained; ar it falleth as the gentle rain from heaven ar upon the place beneath; it is twice blest; ar it blesseth him that gives and him that …
He blinked. Expectation and familiarity had deceived him, for the words weren’t there. Or, no, some of them were, but— He scanned down the page. Por. And hath this Shylock not such right to justice
as much as any other man in Venice?
Did not Antonio the merchant there
know well enough the rigor of the bond
when first its terms were named? Yea, though he
did,
did he not laugh, and bind himself therewith,
no matter that he did not love the Jew?
Though justice be his plea, consider this:
that even so the Jew lent on his gold,
trusting the just completion of his bond.
And now Antonio comes, and mercy asks,
in lieu of justice in this noble court.
What, shall the weight of our old dreadful law
be bent by mere fond pity and soft loves,
the oak bowed while the reed stands by and mocks?
The quality of mercy must be earned,
and not strewn gratis on the common ground
as pearls for rooting swine, to any fool
who staggers eyebl into his own folly
and cries, “Oh pity me!” Else mercy’s
self
grows cheap and tawdry from her overuse. Shy. O wise young judge, how do I honor
thee!
Now, forfeiture: now justice, and my bond! Por. Nor shall men trifle with our law’s
sense,
seeking their own escape. Saith not the bond
“a pound of flesh”? And who beyond child’s years
is such a fool to think that flesh is cut
without blood shed? Such wry and cogging thought
does but betray itself as treachery,