"Uh, I think 'showing up and plaguing the entire continent of Africa with bugs, having destroyed a planet, with an eclipse incoming' is more than enough."

"I acknowledge that that is a reasonable perspective," he says. "I will bring him here."

He and his canoe go to Mars. Where can I find you...?

Right where you left me.

Here he is, right where he left Cam.

"Can you canoe me there without having to go yourself so you can - calm down or whatever you would be best served to do - or can I operate the canoe -"

"No, and no you can't. Thank you for your concern. It does you credit. Please get in the boat."

...Cam gets in the boat.

Now they are back where he left Terry. He waits for Cam to get out of the boat.

Out he gets.

And Korovai returns to Mars.

He means to find something to do, but in fact he just - sits. In his boat.

It's about six hours later when Cam says Okay, I think that went as well as could be expected.

How did it in fact go?

They've acknowledged they don't have standing to charge me with war crimes and have let me explain all the interventions so far and approved most of the rest of the list. I can run around doing it myself if you need a break, since they're not going to rearrest me.

Would it be more efficient to have both of us working at once?

Yes, and there's some things I can't get done inside of time remaining to likely dismissal-and-resummoning, but you seem very freaked out by their extra gender thing. I have explained that we are aliens who do not have the thing.

It has been the case since I was stranded out of reach of my world that I am not going to be okay until I am able to return and fix everything. I have chosen to handle this by not allowing my emotional state to affect my work, because that way more work gets done and on balance in the long run the benefit to everyone else is far, far greater than the cost to me. What interventions are left and how can I help?

...if you say so.

And here's a list.

Korovai is entirely capable of doing the things on the list.

You are planning to snap out of it when you get back? I feel like it might be awkward for your subjects if they caught an inkling and thought they were making your life harder by having ever been born. And don't say 'they will never find out'.

When I am back in my world and doing the best I can for my empire and there is no longer an ongoing crisis, I will begin to be able to be happy. If being happy turns out to be more difficult than expected... I don't know.

I'm doing a not being happy thing but it's - I'm not sure how to articulate why I think it's different from your thing but I think it is.

In what way...?

Don't know how to articulate it, but, like -

- I think you're dispositionally sad in a way underlying the ostensible reason and I just think it's appropriate to my situation to be sad?

...Do you somehow contend that it is not appropriate to my situation to be sad...?

I do not contend that, I just suspect you are also, situation aside, a sad sort of person?