"I don't think I care about whatever else there is to it."

It's even true.  This duty isn't the part of the geas he most enjoys carrying out but he does like Thell.  Thell's the sort of person he once enjoyed trying to shape into deadly weapons, even if the geas isn't letting him do that now; and if he weren't here helping Thell, whatever else he'd be doing instead wouldn't be determined by how much he enjoys it anyway.

"I am not losing anything I value about my freedom by trying to help you in particular that I would still have if you refused my help."

"Would you say that if you weren't mind-controlled," he says.

"I would not be doing any of this if I weren't mind controlled," he says.  "But the geas does not touch how I feel about what I do.  It decides what my goals are; I may hate that they are my goals, or resent them, or feel indifferent them, or even find small pieces of them enjoyable."

"All right."

The truth is that he simply doesn't think he can do this alone.

"Uh.  Can I ask how you do feel about - this part of it?  Needing to help me?"

"I like you," he says levelly.  "That would not be good for you were I not geased, but you are safe from me."

"I keep thinking that a good person would be - "

"They'd want me to hurt but they wouldn't want me to - go to pieces, or to need help with being hurt.  They'd just want me to feel the guilt and be crushed under it but - fix everything anyway, or accept whatever happened to me as what I deserved, or maybe just kill myself.  Like accepting comfort, or - or just acting in a way that might inspire somebody to comfort me if they didn't know what I was - is an insult to the people I've hurt."

"This was my own impression of goodness for a long time," he says.  "But recently it has not felt borne out, by X or by the personality that the geas's priorities seems to imply."

"I just imagine saying any of this stuff to a droid I sold into slavery," Thell says.  "And they don't want to hear a word of it, and I can't say that they're wrong not to want to hear a word of it because I sold them into slavery."

"All I can say is that it is not what the geas wants for you."

"Part of what I was trying to say before is - I'm scared of taking that to mean anything, because - whoever geased you is also a slaver, aren't they, if they mind-controlled you?"

"Maybe.  She certainly would not have seen what was happening on this sandcrawler as acceptable, or her geas would not have obliged me to undo it."

"I don't think it's what X would want for you either."

"Maybe I need to talk to her," he says, in a small voice.  "Later.  Maybe with you also there."

"I think we can arrange that," he says neutrally.

"I might not really get anywhere with - all this - until then.  I don't really want to be alone with my thoughts right now, though.  But I'm not sure keeping talking will help at all either."

"I'll see if you can be given some books."

"Um.  The white protocol droid who brought me to see Lylat - do you know what I'm talking about, who I'm talking about - ?"

"Yes."

"Will you apologize to - him or her - for - "

He stares intently at his hands.

" - I was trying to get Lylat to reassure me that going haywire was real and that we weren't bad people," he says.  "And since going haywire isn't real and we are bad people it was kind of - awful and - grotesque - to have a conversation like that in front of a droid.  Can you apologize to him for me if that seems appropriate - or I can try to do it in person but I might just have a breakdown and start crying again."

"I will ask X if that's something TN-17 would appreciate hearing, and she or I can convey it to him if so," he says.

"Thank you.  I think that's all."

"You're welcome."