"You did not specify. You said some of them might have deserved it, that you weren't thinking about it."

"No, I was thinking about why I needed them to be dead and how I could get them that way without getting in worse trouble," he says. "Usually because they were about to hurt me somehow."

"Perhaps you can lead with that information if you ever have cause to admit to it again to someone who places immense value on sapient life."

"I don't know you well enough to know exactly which things you get worried about," he sighs. "You might think they're obvious, but they're not obvious to me."

"I am worried about - people," says Isabella. "Living. In conditions that are suited to thriving. Being lied to is a relatively minor harm, but I don't like it, and I don't like it happening to others, when there's not some overwhelming reason."

"Well, I'm worried about me living," he says. "And if I have to lie or kill or steal to keep doing that, I will."

"I have a self-preservation instinct of my own. It is very healthy. I avoid situations where successfully obeying it would mean silencing someone else's."

"I - not very much," murmurs Isabella.

"Imagine you're completely alone," he says softly. "If anyone you meet finds out anything true about who you are or where you came from, and gets to the authorities with it, you'll probably be killed. But you have to get money from somewhere, because nothing's free, and you're not sure if you can starve to death but you don't want to find out by trying it. You speak a dozen languages and you're familiar with thousands of years of cultural and political and military history from all over the planet, but nobody ever taught you how to get a job, cook, wash the dishes, do laundry, buy something from a store... you have to figure all that out by yourself, and hope nobody gets suspicious if you do it wrong. That's the world I grew up in. With crime rates hundreds of times what you're used to. 'I avoid situations where I might have to kill somebody' is the kind of thing you only say when you've never had to choose between the street where you'll probably get mugged and the street where you'll probably get arrested."

"I am sorry. I spoke without thinking."

"It's okay," he says wryly. "You didn't know."

"I should have. I turned over my entire life to providing more people the civilization I'm accustomed to, but don't often think about the details of what it means to lack it."

"Sometimes I forget that other people don't remember history as personally as I do," he murmurs.

She nods once. "I'm sorry," she repeats.

Isabella smiles weakly.

Lalita hugs her.

Hugs! Hugs are a good end to misunderstandings.

They are, it's true!