Cayaldwin is not really reacting very much to anything. His tail is twitching. The Yeerks are nervous about it. 

<I think they probably won't hand him over> he says slowly, after a minute. <Not to Yeerks. I could kill Alloran, though - why'd you stop me ->

Leareth switches to private thoughtspeech with Cayaldwin alone.

<Because one death cannot be fixed by more deaths. Because it would only have made the situation messier and reduced our options. Trust me, if I decide I wish Alloran dead, I am fairly sure no one on the Andalite homeworld could stop me, so it was not the case that it could be done then or not at all. Because - Alloran is a person too, and my alt tortured and enslaved him for twenty years and I cannot blame him for acting as he did. I am the one who failed here. If you wish to assign fault to anyone, it might as well be me, for knowing Alloran would be as clever as he could in trying this, and - not being cleverer than him.>

His own tail lashes; he tries to stop it, to avoid alarming the humans any more. <...I am going to get him back. From his backup. It will - not undo this, or make it all right, it will not be the same, but - he is not erased from the world, not thoroughly enough to be irretrievable. I am going to need your help.> 

<Murdering people> he says, aiming for scornfully but mostly just sounding tired, <isn't a judgment on whether they are people, I don't know why everyone keeps saying that. It is a judgment on whether you are really mad at them.

You can't - you can run a backup, with an expensive computer, but you can't give it very good sensory input. It's not - better than death.>

<Cayaldwin, I have murdered tens of thousands of people in my lifetime and it was never because I was very angry with them. It was always because it accomplished my strategic goals, and every single time I wished there were a better, cheaper path there. I am not sure, yet, if it accomplishes any of my goals for Alloran to be dead.>

His tail is twitching again. <And, maybe some people would find that worse than death. I would not. As long as I had my mind and could communicate, even if I needed to do it in binary code, I would massively prefer that to nonexistence. I expect Mhalir is the same, since he is another me - not to mention, as a Yeerk he has spent significant periods with minimal sensory input. That might have been a sentence Matirin settled for, even, to have him confined to a Yeerk pool, Mhalir was willing to accept that...> 

<Well. We can try it. I don't know - what to say, here.>

<To the Yeerks? I think... If you wanted to tell them that that you will try your best to kill Alloran if the Andalites do not investigate thoroughly and punish him to your satisfaction - if that is in fact your intent - I would not stop you. I am not sure if it is the 'right' thing to say, but...I am starting to lose track of whether that is even meaningful, here.> His thoughtspeech is heavy and dark with grief, now, it's starting to distract him. 

:Separate from the question of punishing Mhalir's murderer: he adds to the assembled Yeerk leadership, :in my opinion, your people are owed massive reparations from the Andalite government, for their failure to contain Alloran and prevent his interference with the process of justice. I am going to make sure that is not forgotten: 

Cayaldwin looks - surprised, even shocked. Then he twitches his tail as if flinging something away from him. <If they don't kill him, I will, I swear> he says, and doesn't sound confused at all by the time he says it. 

Mhalir's lieutenant doesn't seem to find any of this particularly reassuring, and is staring at Cayaldwin with particular bewilderment, but she nods. 

:If you would like additional shielding here, I can do that: Leareth says. :And, is Amanda around? I - think she deserves to hear the news from us: 

"She's in her room."

Leareth heads that way, looking back with his stalks to see if Cayaldwin is following. 

He is! He seems significantly calmer and cheerfuller now, actually.

...Leareth is not at all sure this is a good sign, and is starting to suspect he should have given Cayaldwin literally any other advice, and that Cayaldwin's interpretation of it wasn't even the thing he meant. Mhalir probably understood Cayaldwin very very well. Leareth himself isn't at all sure that he does. 

He knocks on Amanda's door. 

She opens it a minute later; she's in pajamas. "You're back early," she says, and holds out her hand.

Leareth takes a half-step back, momentarily unable to form any words. 

:No: he manages. :We have - bad news...: 

He really hopes Cayaldwin can rescue him here, because his ability to stay far enough above the bottomless sea of grief that he can think is starting to falter, and trying to generate sentences anyway feels like trying to breathe while drowning. 

<Mhalir's dead. Alloran murdered him.>

" - I see," she says. "When did this happen."

<Yesterday evening when Leareth brought him over to give to me. Alloran had snuck across the interworld Gate and tampered with our shielding. He was able to Fetch Mhalir away and kill him.>

"Who was present at the time?"

<Us.>

"No one else?"

<...well, Alloran, a mile away. He has been returned to the homeworld. I will kill him, if they don't.>

Amanda raises her eyebrows. "Wow, okay. Uh, the human custom here is that we have a legal system, instead of personally murdering each other all the time." She looks surprisingly un-upset. "You're a friend of his, yeah?"

<Mhalir's? I - yes.>

She nods.