<All right. I am ready to go back.> Leareth doesn't move just yet, though, stays cuddled up with Matirin, looking vaguely at the frost-patterns.

<Someone will have to tell the Yeerks. Probably it is best if it is you, though I could get some mileage out of sending Cayaldwin.>

With even greater reluctance, Leareth disentangles himself and starts working on a Gate. <Perhaps both of us could go?>

<If you think it's a good idea.>

<I think the Yeerks would find it meaningful if Cayaldwin came, but I am not sure he ought to do it alone.> 

And the Gate is up back to the base. Leareth crosses. 

He goes through too. Looks around for Cayaldwin. 

<I want to go fight Alloran> he says to Melody.

:I think that's a bad idea for a number of reasons: Melody says, tiredly. :For one it's probably illegal. I don't know what your homeworld's laws about duelling people are: 

<My homeworld has stupid laws.>

:Maybe so. It's honestly very reasonable that you want to fight Alloran but I'm not going to help you do it, due to the part where he's my patient and conflict of interest: Melody sounds so tired about it. 

<You should have told us he was planning this.>

:I had no idea he was planning this! If I'd known I would have told Matirin! That's probably why he didn't tell me!: 

<If it comes as a complete surprise to you when your patients murder people then I don't think you're a very good mind doctor.>

:- I mean, clearly I missed something, but I doubt I could have caught it without reading his mind, and it wouldn't have been good for his recovery if I were doing that without his consent, it's invasive and rude: Melody does not want to be having this conversation at ALL. 

<Wouldn't want to be rude!! Mhalir's just a slug, not worth being rude to anybody about!>

:Mhalir was a person just as deserving of existence as anyone, and one who did more for the world than most people, and I desperately wish I had somehow caught this and it hadn't happened, but - ultimately, he wasn't my patient, and Alloran was, and my duty is to my patients, not to everything that happens in the entire world: 

<That's incredibly stupid. The rest of the world isn't going to go away because you declared that it's not your problem. And all of your stupid worthless patients are going to die because no one's going to fix morph so it makes them immortal, is that your problem?>

Melody wants to shout back and she wants to cry and she wants to storm out on him, all at the same time, but - none of this is about her, not right now. Later she can go talk to her Earth therapist about how absurdly unfair this is, but right now four of her past-and-present patients are tangled in a knot around one dead body, and this one is tearing himself apart right in front of her, and it's not about her. 

:It should be: she says, quietly. :I failed. I wasn't good enough. I'm sorry none of us were: 

He does not come up with anything else to say after that.

<Firi?>

<Don't call me that>

<I want you to go tell the Yeerks what happened.>

<I want to go kill Alloran.>

<Yes, that's exactly what this situation needs, more revenge murder, I woke up this morning and I thought, you know, everyone I care about would be alive if only people were a little more inclined to revenge murder.>

<Playing nice with people who aren't playing nice with you doesn't work either.>