Carl F. Neal

(Science Fiction)

incense_dragon@yahoo.com

"Equality of Mercy"

Jarvis sat in the corner of the dark storage room with his huddled family.  Of course, they weren't his real family, but he thought of them in those terms.  And he was their leader.  At only fourteen, leading this small band of orphans and survivors was a great strain.  They were all thankful for Jarvis.  For nearly a year he had kept them safe from the Kaireese warriors that were hunting down every last human on the planet.

Jarvis heard the searching Kaireese coming down the corridor.  He knew they would search the room and find his little family.  Moving with the precision that only experience can teach, he removed the grating over the long unused drainage system and began to push his family into the pipes.  One by one the children scrambled into the stale-smelling cylinder while Jarvis crouched near the opening; ready to create a diversion should it be needed.

For forty years the Kaireese had been seeking out and killing every human in the galaxy.  Their shining ships first appeared in the domain of Humans only weeks after the first Human and Kaireese meeting.  They had come to conquer and pleas for mercy were answered with swift pain and prolonged suffering.  Many worlds once cultivated by man were void of all vestiges of humans by the time Jarvis was born.  They had landed on his world eight years ago.  Four years ago, Jarvis witnessed the killing of his parents from the safety of an abandoned drain.  It was the only reason that he had lived.  It was also the reason that he entrusted his new family to the drain without hesitation.

By the time that the sixth, and final, member of his family had entered the drain, the warriors began prying on the door.  They had never shown an interest in using keys to the many locks the human inhabitants had left.  They opened doors by force, as if it were sport to them.  They often used hand tools to open the doors rather than one of their powerful machines or weapons.  As they tried to open the door and discover Jarvis' family escaping, they were using small clubs to beat the door in.  Their enthusiasm was very obvious.   These were not soldiers performing their jobs.  These warriors were off-duty and merely there for their own entertainment.

As light began to leak in from the warriors' efforts, Jarvis forced himself into the drain, pulling the grate closed behind him.  In the last six months, he had found it becoming gradually more difficult to fit into the drains.  He knew that soon he would be too large to fit.  But he understood that this was a fear to be dealt with in the future.  At that moment his only concern was to escape with every one of the children in his care.  He passed instructions on where to go and the worm-like line of children began to move.

With great effort, he managed to crawl behind his family through hundreds of feet of drain to an even more remote part of the once powerful human military station.  He freed himself from the drain and sighed.  He counted heads and found that all six of "his" children were safe in the new hiding place.  He wondered once again why there had been such massive searches in the last few days.  Most of the human population was dead.  Most of the survivors were caught when they went in search of food (and that reminded him that their supplies would be gone in a few days).  Why a big search so suddenly?

For the first time since he heard the approaching warriors, Jarvis turned on his light.  Holding the tiny box in his hand, he scanned the room to look for likely places to sleep.  The new hiding place was dismal.  He had never taken his group into such a terrible place before.  Fetid water dripped from the ceiling in many places.  A strange mold was growing on one of the walls.  His beam showed him nothing to use for bedding.  As his beam flashed over the far end of the room, he froze.

There, hiding in the darkness, his light revealed a crouching Kaireese warrior in full body armor.  Jarvis didn't know what to do.  He had led his family straight into the arms of death.  All of his greatest fears and wishes rushed past him.  He knew that he and his children would all die now.  He only hoped that it would be faster than most human deaths were.  The scream of the Kaireese jolted him from his paralysis.

"Please, do not hurt me; I mean you no harm,"  the meter tall alien begged.

Jarvis did not understand what was happening, but having lived by his wits for most of his life, he felt compelled to act. 

"We won't hurt you if you stay where you are and keep your hands away from those weapons." 

The warrior wore the usual large assortment of weapons on his body, and Jarvis wanted to make sure that his courage was not renewed enough to use them.  The only logical explanation that Jarvis could come up with was that the warrior thought they were a party of armed adults.  But the armed resistors were all long dead.  Why was this giant afraid of him?

Jarvis cautioned all of his children to remain absolutely still.  This was a command that they obeyed to the letter.  They knew that to live, they had to do what Jarvis said.  They trusted him completely.  He then ordered the alien to strip off all of his weapons and armor, and to place them well out of reach. 

"Who are you and what were you doing down here?" Jarvis demanded (in his closest approximation to an adult voice).

"I am Noraal.  I am no threat.  I am far more akin to you than to those who hunt you.  Even now they are there, hunting me.  Thirsting for my blood..."

Jarvis stepped closer and examined the alien in detail.  He had only seen Kaireese without armor once, when he was stealing supplies.  They appeared fierce and menacing even without their equipment.  But this one was different.  His eyes held fear.  He moved nervously.  He was afraid.  This mighty giant was even more afraid than any of Jarvis's family.

"How is this?" Jarvis asked the alien.  "What do you have to fear from them?"

"I am not exactly one of them.  This may be difficult for you to understand, but I am from another place... another reality, if you will.  I came here for happiness, but now I am simply more prey for them."

Though unbelieving, Jarvis sat and listened to the terrified alien's story.  Noraal told him how he was from a place where Humans hunted Kaireese.  He tried to explain how these two realities, along with many others, coexisted with the universe that Jarvis knew, but Jarvis understood little of this.  Noraal went on to explain that he had been a research student when humans had first met his kind.  The humans attacked at that first meeting, and simply never ceased the effort.  They hunted Kaireese and killed them by the thousands.  In less than ten years, they had completely destroyed a once mighty empire.  Humans even began to hunt Kaireese for sport and held contests to see who could kill the most.

Noraal, much like Jarvis, had taken refuge in the forgotten tunnels and drains of his now lost world.  On one of his flights from death he found himself on familiar ground.  He had managed to find a connecting tunnel to the drains under the giant research lab that he had once trained in.  Hope raced through him at the thought that perhaps the “Sanctuary” program's labs were still intact. 

He found them undisturbed.  With the power of the machinery, he could break the barriers between the universes and escape to final safety.

From the condition of the machines and labs, the team who had been working on the secret project seemed to have slipped out in the planned fashion.  But why had they failed to share this information?  Millions of innocent lives would have been saved had they done that.  Instead, they had chosen, like himself, to just run and save themselves. 

Noraal studied the research carefully for many days.  He selected a universe where there were strong signs of his life-form, and few human signs.  He thought that he could escape to a place where Kaireese reigned over the galaxy and humans were no more.  With a final sigh of resignation, he entered the machine and gave it his final instructions.

When he opened his eyes, he beheld a wide array of rigid Kaireese faces.  They did not welcome him, rather they dragged him to a small white room.  Inside, he found several members of the Sanctuary research team.  From them he learned that these Kaireese were very fond of killing humans.  At first, the researchers felt glorious and vindicated.  But then they began to notice the cruel nature of these other Kaireese. 

Soon, they began to demand work of the visitors from the other universe.  They wanted their own Sanctuary machine so that they could travel to more universes and kill even more humans.  When the team showed reluctance to do this, they were enslaved, beaten, and forced to work on the new machine.

Noraal was soon put to work on the testing of the new device.  He found his captors to be more cruel than he could have ever imagined.  A few days before, he escaped.  Once free, he had tried to speak with high ranking members of the warrior caste so that he could explain the huge mistakes being made.  He wanted them to understand the fear held by those in his former universe.  He wanted them to stop hunting men. 

He was nearly killed for his efforts and was never able to sway anyone.  The military officers that he spoke with were convinced that he was a genetic throwback and should be destroyed.  But only after a long and painful confession, of course.  He escaped his captors the second time only because of his many years of running from humans.  He waited for a lax guard and opened the grate on the nearest air shaft.  Pulling the cover back on from inside, he climbed down the giant tube for several hours.  But his fear and exhaustion took the best of him and he slipped.  When he awoke, he managed to find their common hiding place.  Now he was lost and as far from home as anyone could ever be.

Jarvis didn't know what to believe about all of this.  The story was fantastic, but Noraal himself seemed to be living proof of its reality.  The only thing that Jarvis was certain about was that only a miracle could save him, or his race for that matter.  Perhaps this alien held the key to his miracle. 

"Do you know where this new machine is being made?" he asked Noraal.

"Yes, but how can that help me?"

"Listen, if we could get to it, could we destroy it?"

"I think so..." The alien pondered for a moment and then added, "I'm sure we could, if we could get to it.  Even so, how will that help?"

Jarvis turned off his lamp and enjoyed a moment of dark peace, then said "I think you've forgotten about something very important.  Not only do we need to keep the warriors from having their own machine, there is still another one back in your universe.  What if the humans from there find it and come through with their own armies?  Your race could be wiped out from every universe there is!  You've got to get to your universe and destroy that one as well.  And you have to take the research team and all of their plans as well.  We have to get everything over to your side and then destroy the machines."

"We?" Noraal asked.  "Why would you help me?"

In the darkness, Jarvis smiled.  "Because I want to stop the killing too.  There has been enough killing."

During the next several weeks, the unlikely team laid their plans.  As both well knew, security among the Kaireese was casual (their arrogance convinced them that they could not be hurt; that was a logical deduction, but not correct).  That had been the only weakness that had allowed Jarvis to feed his family.  They would be able to get close to the machine through underground tunnels.  For the final one hundred feet, Jarvis would pose as a captive of Noraal's.  Noraal was opposed to this, but Jarvis could see that it was just fear, so he insisted on this plan.  The fourteen year old human was able to work on Noraal's fear and get his way on every point.  Once they were closer, Noraal should have no problem using his stolen weapons to subdue the unsuspecting guards without bloodshed.  Then Noraal and the research team would step into the machine (he had confided that it had been ready for use before he had even arrived, but that the researchers had been able to keep this a secret) and return, destroying the other machine afterwards.

During those weeks, Noraal taught Jarvis several things about stealing supplies.  They exchanged stories, and tales of terror, and gradually began to respect each other.  Noraal let the smaller children sleep in his huge arms and told them happy stories from Kaireese mythology.  The alien began to seem like one of them.  Once, Jarvis even slipped and called Noraal "Dad."  The slip was quite unintentional and untruthful.  Jarvis never saw Noraal as a father figure.  He was, though, growing to like him a great deal.

Jarvis would lay awake at night and imagine a world where the war had never happened.  Noraal and he could be friends and talk and play games.  There would be no fear.  Then the thought would occur to him that there must be another Noraal.  One that was born into Jarvis' universe.  That Noraal had probably killed hundreds of Humans.  That thought kept Jarvis sharp and ready to execute his plan without hesitation.

On the day before the raid, Jarvis could not sleep.  During the preceding week, he had made decisions that would not only radically change his life, but actually change the course of history forever.  That was if it worked.  Otherwise, his plan would bring death for him and maybe even for his family.  While Noraal slept, he called his band together.  Through his tears, he said good-bye to those that he loved.  He could only hope that they could survive without him.  Jarvis knew that he had to take this risk.

During the evening, the pair made their way to the lab.  The trip was difficult and they had to retrace their steps often.  Noraal was so large that many passages were impassable for him.  They were forced to scout out air vents rather than drains.  This gave Jarvis an emotional lift.  He saw that there was indeed a way for an adult Human to move in safety.  Perhaps there were still adults somewhere on the base.  But it was a pointless hope, and he knew it.  If he failed, the Kaireese would win in the end no matter who lived.

After several grueling hours, they arrived at their point of exit.  It took another thirty minutes to make Noraal appear to be an acceptable warrior.  The reluctant giant did not take to the role well and was extremely frightened.

"What if they don't believe?  What if they attack us?"

"Stop worrying," Jarvis snapped.  "I have one of your pistols and it'll be in my hand the whole time.  If they shoot, we'll return fire.  But they won't!  Just act as bold as you can and this will work."

Jarvis did not mention his own fears.  Could he actually make the pistol fire?  Would the researchers cooperate?  Could he really take the long walk to the machine without giving the plan away?  He had no answers, but he knew he had to go.  He tried to calm his shaking body with thoughts of his family, but that only saddened him more.  He decided, instead, to just think about being Noraal's prisoner.  They both drew a long breath and opened the last grate.

The hallway was empty, as expected, and both stepped out quickly.  Jarvis gripped the pistol tightly behind his back and they began to walk.  They rounded the final corner and found the expected guard.  He nodded slightly as they approached. 

Without hesitating, Jarvis raised the pistol and fired.  Almost silently, the guard's torso exploded and he sloshed to the ground.  Noraal screamed and would have run if Jarvis had not turned the weapon on him.  "Shut up or you'll bring more guards down on us," he told the horrified alien.

"Why did you do this?  He did nothing to us!"

"I couldn't take that risk.  Now go get what we need and show me the machine." 

Noraal pointed to the door splattered with blood and told him that the machine was kept there and the guard held the electronic pass that would open it.  He then opened the opposite door and stepped in.  Jarvis found the small box on the dead guard's belt.  He had to wipe the sticky black remains from the box with his hand.  It had several red studs on it, so Jarvis pushed each one until the door opened.

The small gray machine was not as impressive as Jarvis had imagined.  It was a series of metal boxes with cables connecting them.  A few displays glowed dimly and a large tube connected the whole thing with a large shiny plate that occupied about twenty square feet in the center of the room.  He placed several human manufactured explosives around the machine and set their timers.  Jarvis had hoarded those since he retrieved them from the room where his parents had been murdered years before.  He had often been tempted to use them, but had always held them back.  He knew that his restraint had paid off in the biggest way.

Finally, the small team of haggard and terrified researchers stumbled into the room.  They bore their notes and models with them in large bundles.  None of them spoke to Jarvis.  He kept his pistol out but not aimed directly at them as they placed their valuable cargo on the pad.  When Noraal closed the door, he ordered the head researcher to set the controls.  "We'll have about a ten minute wait," he told Jarvis. 

Jarvis waited next to the door.  When the final countdown reached ten seconds, he dashed over and stood next to Noraal on the pad.  Before the aliens could react, the transport began.  Flashing searing light penetrated Jarvis.  Even his hand over his eyes did not reduce the pure light.  Jarvis felt himself float and drift.  Then came cold darkness and falling.  When it ended, Noraal turned to Jarvis and saw the pistol aimed at his head.  During the whole transport Jarvis' aim had not wavered. 

"Why did you come?" Noraal asked Jarvis.

"Don't worry about it.  Pickup that stuff and move off the pad."

All of the aliens complied.  They had been slaves and prey for so long that none of them even considered disobeying the small human child. 

"You stupid sheep," he told them, "I want you to head out that door.  The first one who runs will die." 

They marched into the corridor and up the first flight of stairs that they encountered.  Within seconds they heard the sound of an approaching patrol.  At that point Noraal pushed Jarvis down and began to run.  The boy fired and Noraal's head vanished in a black mist.  Before any of the researchers could react the human patrol had arrived.

"Don’t fire!  I'm human!" Jarvis shouted.  The surprised men moved in and subdued the party quickly.

 The tale that Jarvis told of the machine, the trip, and the other universes was soon heard at the highest level of the Human military command.  Machines were built in large quantities and humans were storming Jarvis' universe within six months.

During his later life as Governor, Jarvis often reflected on his long dead alien friend.

"Poor Noraal," he would say during his speech at the dedication of the gentle alien's monument on Earth.  "He just didn't understand that the humans from my universe were just as ruthless as the Kaireese found there.  If I would have had the means to hunt them as boy, I would have done it.  I want to kill every single one of them in every single universe and will never rest until every possible incarnation of the Kaireese has been destroyed.  I would have killed Noraal as soon as I first saw him, but I had no weapons.  Still, I loved him very much.  I'm glad that we, as a society, have chosen to honor him with this memorial.  I owe him everything that I am and have.  He was gentle and merciful.  I miss him.  Bless you Noraal."

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    Dan Neumann (Editor): There are just a few minor revisions here. I feel there are too many "very"s and permutations of "said." That, and coma insertion, is about the only things I have changed. I love the story. You are right, though, it needs to be a novel. It is like my Expletus; it is a good short story, but deserves to be a book. I will be looking forward to that. In the mean time, are you keeping the title the same? May I suggest a name with the words Parallel, Mercy, and/or - perhaps - Vengeance? I suppose the current title just doesn't do it for me. It seems like the Humans are evil no matter what realm, while only some worlds do the Kairesses act menacing. Submit again, if you have anything else.