It's not fair. Choosing to make them face their end, just because you see more value in their living until a tortuous end than helping them experience a good death... how can you look at yourself and think you're doing what is right?

[ It's horrifying, to hear the arguments from Meridian. To hear that "because they are alive they must remain alive", to hear that living must mean they suffer at the end. ]

Were I able to fight in each world, to be at their sides and face the same agony they will face... I would choose the same as you. I value their lives, sir. I value their beauty and the wonder of their unique worlds. But, we are there for twelve hours. And then we have to watch them die, one way or another. It's not Zenith guiding me. It's just compassion, and Meridian seems to have none. Just a desire to watch something sick ail and die horribly, solely so they can claim that the ignorant were given "a choice".

[ He thought they were both Advocates; gentle, humane, capable of thinking about people as more than just what value they have while alive. But, noncombative as he is, he continues to ask questions — because he needs to understand Dimitri. ]

— do the dead have no value to you?