He had unfortunately been close to Lepescu when he was a younger officer, and fears every day that the investigation into the Lepescu-inspired mutineers will damn him as well; he is further compromised by the fact that his closest friend Jules had been a Benignity deep agent, who had solely manipulated him into breaking rules and then through blackmail into becoming a Benignity agent.
42.
It dedicates Chapter 25 of Book 1 to compassion, further dedicating separate chapters each for the resulting values of compassion, chiefly, vegetarianism or veganism ( Chapter 26 ), doing no harm ( Chapter 32 ), non-killing ( Chapter 33 ), possession of kindness ( Chapter 8 ), dreading evil deeds ( Chapter 21 ), benignity ( Chapter 58 ), the right scepter ( Chapter 55 ), and absence of terrorism ( Chapter 57 ), to name a few.
43.
Through a lot of luck ( such as mechanical problems for the foe ) and some excellent micro-jumping tactics by the defenders and the unexpected assistance of the " Despite ", whose crew had mutinied, and now captained by a jig named Esmay Suiza ( who figures more prominently in the next three books ), the invading fleet is destroyed and the system held until it is relieved by a Familias battle group under Admiral Serrano, who reveals to Heris that she had been deliberately maneuvering and aiding Heris to use her as a lightning rod to flush out traitors and blunt Benignity incursions.
44.
: I cannot here omit to speak a word or two, as well of the worthiness; and loyalty of those honourable gentlemen of her majesties court, who upon the approach of the Spanish fleet, presented, not only their persons and lives for the defence of her majesty, but also a great portion and yearly revenue of their lands; as also of her majesties great benignity and gracious answer, telling them, that she accounted herself rich enough in that she possessed such subjects, assuring them, that for her part, she would spend the last penny of her treasures for their defence, rather than she would be burthenous unto them.
45.
For since the devil was glorying in the fact that man, deceived by his craft, was bereft of divine gifts and, being stripped of his endowment of immortality, had come under the grievous sentence of death, and that he himself, amid his miseries, had found a sort of consolation in having a transgressor as his companion, and that God, according to the requirements of the principle of justice, had changed his own resolution in regard to man, whom he had created in so high a position of honour; there was need of a dispensation of secret counsel, in order that the unchangeable God, whose will could not be deprived of its own benignity, should fulfil by a more secret mystery his original plan of loving kindness toward us, and that man, who had been led into fault by the wicked subtlety of the devil, should not perish contrary to God s purpose.
