I get the feeling that even if you give it back, you'll end up gaining it back anyway. It pretty much force Shadowheart to commit suicide so you pick it up from her corpse if you do no recruit her (you need to win DCs to not kill her).
IIRC, according to the dataminers -
The general wants to get to you because he's trying to escape from Shadowheart/the Sharrans' control and return to the githyanki. Which still leaves a lot of questions - why you (if your character isn't gith) and not Lae'zel? Why doesn't he start driving you mad if you don't head for the creche? How is he even aware of what's going on?
