Huh. That was mildly weird, but whatever. 

Melody goes to splash water on her face, takes five minutes to hide in a conference room, and then immediately looks for Matirin. 

Scanning the news, again, waiting for a reply from the Yeerks.

:Hey. Got a minute?:

<Yes.> He heads over.

:This time isn't about you. I–: Melody hesitates a little. :Listen, I normally don't look at anyone's mind without their permission and certainly don't talk about them to a third party without asking, but I think these circumstances are exceptional and it's strategically relevant for you to know if you don't already: He's perceptive, she hopes he's noticed something if not the extent of it. :I'm, er, really very concerned about Cayaldwin:  

<Oh. He's very unhappy but I do not expect he'd want you to poke his brain about it.>

:No, I also don't expect he would: She makes an impatient sound. :Just, look–: And she flashes him the image of the tapestry with the enormous hole, edges unraveling into nothing. :For reference, this is significantly worse than you looked earlier. I, just - when I've seen people look like that, it usually at some point starts unexpectedly causing, er, worse problems than you were having, and since he's under your command that seems relevant for you to know: 

(She feels pretty bad about it though. Cayaldwin is probably going to be very miffed with her, and be justified in that.) 

<I am aware of it. It's been like that since our father died. He doesn't want it to get better because our father is going to continue being dead. It does cause problems, but I know how to work around them.>

Aaauuughhh she wants to rip out her haaair. :I guess I feel more comfortable if you are taking the extent of problem into account and working around it already. Can I talk to him about it once. If he tells me to go away I'll go away: 

<You can try.>

:I will do that. Thank you: 

She sighs, and goes to find Vanyel. If someone had told her a month ago that she would be looking for Vanyel to make herself feel better and more hopeful about the state of the world and problems being fixable, she would have given them such a look, but here she is. 

Leareth considers talking to her, when he sees her walk by, but it's been such a long day already and surely it can wait for tomorrow. He goes to bed. 

Mhalir considers his reply to the Andalite commander. 

He agrees that getting on the same page about the announcement to be made is a priority, and needs higher-bandwidth. He is, predictably, unwilling to go up to the Dome ship. He'd be willing to meet face to face again with Leareth, though, down on Earth, if Matirin could brief him on everything and send him as an envoy.

(Enstat and the various other Yeerks in favour of voluntary-only Controllers may end up quite pleased with this outcome, he thinks. If, and it feels like a big if, the Andalites are willing to be anything like reasonable about interpreting which hosts are voluntary ones, instead of assuming anyone who wants their Yeerk back must only be saying so because they're traumatized.)

...Given that, though, it could make sense to send some of the voluntary human hosts up to the ship to present their side of things to Matirin and be human advisors on how to present this to the human governments. Just hosts, of course, without Yeerks. He adds this suggestion to the message, and passes on to his staff to spread the word about this and ask if anyone on the voluntary Controllers side is willing to temporarily part ways with their Yeerk. 

Shortly after the message is sent and reaches Matirin on the Dome ship, Emril goes looking for him. :Hey, are you busy?: 

<We're juggling a lot of things but they all seem to be staying in the air. How are you doing?> She is the Healer who was captured.

:I'm fine: Worried about Leareth, worried about Enstat, scared, simultaneously homesick for Velgarth and missing their neighbourhood in D.C., which no longer exists, and it hurts every time she thinks of poor Lasvat... 

She takes a deep breath and braces herself. :The Yeerk they put in me, Enstat, has a previous host who has cancer. Aileen. The Yeerks brought her to a secret hospital for treatment, told her family she was dead, but - she misses Enstat, wants her back. Or said so on the phone, anyway, obviously I'm going to ask her myself, but - I promised Enstat I'd try to cure her with Healing. Sometimes we can. I want to do that now: 

<Huh. She's not allowed to talk to anybody she has ever known except Enstat?>

:Dunno the details. Seems probable: Emril makes a face. :We should tell her family, obviously, they can come be with her. Anyway I'd originally been thinking I'd go down to Earth, but - if we can do it, logistically, might make more sense to bring her here. For the better Andalite medical tech, right:

<And so we could - learn more about the situation, yes. If you want to get her and her family here we can see what we can do.>

Nod. :I was thinking that, yes. I'll - see what I can do. Um, can I get you to send a message and then Gate down with a mage to talk to them, or should we ask them to bring her somewhere to collect? I don't, er, know how paranoid we're being right now: 

<You can take a mage, assuming the Yeerks agree to this. One of the ones who still has their precautionary Gift shutdown set-command.>

Emril nods agreement. As far as she knows that's everyone on the ship. :- Um, should I get mine put back. Or at least the killing myself compulsion, we don't have Nayoki back and I don't think Melody can do the really complicated set-commands. I really, really would prefer not to, just...:

<I don't think so. I would not be surprised if they changed course and betrayed us if they got a mage whose abilities they could access, but it would be much harder for them to do so with a Healer/Mindspeaker and if you prefer to take that chance then we can make that work.>

:I prefer to take that chance: 

She asks one of the Andalite comms people to send a message to the surface, to find out where she and her colleague should Gate down to in order to efficiently collect Aileen.