[You don't actually have to worry about keeping us happy]

[We're not going to murder you]

[Or leave you alone]

Mhalir isn't sure what to say in response to that. Either it's sincere and so was everything else beforehand, in which case it does fit with the picture he's forming of Cayaldwin - and in that world, with that Cayaldwin, Mhalir actually wants to help - or they're carefully manipulating him and Cayaldwin is following a script to get a cooperative Mhalir. (For some reason; it's hard to imagine why.) There, his incentives are to be friendly and useful anyway.

[I am not scared] he tells Cayaldwin. [Not of that, anyway. Not of you. I am occasionally finding it hard, having such narrow access to the world, but knowing you are there helps and right now I am fine and happy.]

It's true, that he isn't afraid of them anymore. Mostly because there's no scenario where fear would help, and so it seems most adaptive to hook his emotional responses up to the world where what they're telling him is true. It's not hard; he wants it to be true. It seems very implausible, but it was also implausible that anyone would invest the resources to find and run his backup, and that's demonstrably happening and asks for an implausible explanation. He doesn't have enough evidence to confirm it, yet, and so he's still holding onto the quiet uncertainty in the back of his mind, but the rest of him can live in this miraculous, wonderful dream where the war is over and he was sharing a brain with an Andalite researcher and they're going to fix morph and solve death for everyone.

At the appropriate time, Leareth stops pacing and heads for Cayaldwin's work area. <Matirin, I think you should come this time, since it was clearly a mistake not to bring you the last time.> 

<Yes, that seems like a good idea.>

<Cayaldwin, I am going to Gate them over now. Can you warn Mhalir it is time? - Oh, also it did not occur to me, is the computer set up so that humans untrained with Andalite tech can easily use it to talk to him?> He never works in human form anymore and so he's been using Cayaldwin's tail commands for it, since it's a lot faster that way. 

<No it's not but I can - find a keyboard somewhere and hook it up and then it would be?>

<I think that would help.> He waits. Sidles over to lean a bit against Matirin, because somehow even though this is good news, it feels like he needs reassurance about it. 

He goes looking for spare hardware and finds an Earth keyboard and hooks it up. [We are Gating some of your staff over.]

Mhalir has been checking the clock and so he's unsurprised that it's time.

[Thank you]

And Leareth raises a Gate to Mhalir's base, the exact same spot where two months ago he went over with Cayaldwin. It still aches, remembering that, and he isn't sure why. 

And Mhalir's lieutenant and four of his staff members walk through. They're so nervous. They discussed it for a while and they don't have the slightest idea what the Andalites want now but it - probably isn't good news. It usually isn't good news. They are not armed; there wouldn't be much point, and they don't want it to be ambiguous whether they did anything wrong.

Leareth ended up quickly demorphing for this, to be less alarming and more familiar in his usual human form. He nods to them, trying for a reassuring smile, which isn't an expression he's very good at, especially now that he's actually kind of unused to human body language. 

"We have - good but complicated news," he says. "First off, we need to ask you to not share this with anyone aside from the others who were invited but couldn't make it today. I think you'll understand why once we explain." 

And he glances to Cayaldwin. :I think you can explain it better: Cayaldwin did most of the work, here, but that isn't really why; Mhalir's people don't need the detailed technical explanation. But Leareth feels that the same reasoning as before applies. It means more, coming from an Andalite.

And, of course, Cayaldwin is the one who may or may not be reconsidering a commitment he made. 

<Mhalir had a backup. We figured out how to run it. You can talk to him if you want.>

"The backup was made several years ago," he adds. "We have been updating him on the current situation, but he is still catching up, his sensory interface is limited to text which makes this slower. I suspect he is still - suspicious of what we are telling him - but he asked to speak with you." 

Mhalir's lieutenant is also suspicious! "Uh, with all due respect, it seems pretty pointless to have a backup that your staff doesn't know about."

"I understand that. It - makes sense to me, though. I am immortal," this isn't common knowledge on Earth but he thinks Mhalir's staff know although he's not sure, "and I never told anyone about my setup at the start. He might have had some encrypted messages about it, to be sent to you in case of his death, but the circumstances were - sufficiently different from when he set up this system, that it may not have happened. In any case, I knew about it. He discussed it with me when he was in my head and we had complete privacy; he made sure I would be able to find it in the event that the Andalites did end up executing him." 

"Oh. 

We can talk with him by typing on the computer?"

"Yes." 

[Are they here yet] is the most recent thing Mhalir said, up on the screen. 

She reaches for the keyboard. 

[This is Essam-610, Sub-Visser Forty-Three under the command structure recently dismantled. When was this backup made?]

He gives her the date. By the Yeerk calendar, not the Earth one.

[That is approximate. I do not have access to my own notes yet, they are encrypted and I had apparently not given Leareth any instructions about them.]

[You ought remember it. It was when you travelled with me to the secret research base, we brought an engineer from Earth] he can provide the Yeerk's name, [I would have had two days of 'secret meetings' while the brain scan was being done.]

[Obviously I do not remember what happened afterward, but I ought have urgently needed to leave the system for an 'emergency' and returned after several weeks.] 

[I do remember that.]

[There were instructions for in the event of your death but you changed them after the war since the situation had changed.]

[That makes sense.]

[Is that fact something you remember I spoke to you about, or something Leareth said to you just now?]

[You gave me instructions years ago on how to access instructions for in the event of your death. You updated them periodically. After the war when we were awaiting your trial you updated them again since - it would be a pretty different situation than we were initially envisioning. I was not told you had a backup until Cayaldwin made that claim a few minutes ago.]

[I suspect my plan was to have Leareth bring me back secretly if the Andalites' trial resulted in my execution, in which case it would have been better for fewer people to be aware of this.]

[I think it is best to minimize how many people know of it now, since it is convenient that the Andalite government believes I am dead, but I thought that you, and the rest of my staff present for Leareth and Cayaldwin's announcement, had a right to know.]

[I hope my death did not cause too much upheaval for the Yeerk situation on Earth? I am still trying to orient to what our situation here is.]