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A molten drop flew free of Daughter. It grew and cooled yet it remained connected to her by an intangible thread. Through this shape Daughter saw her body was a globe of light  covered  with loops of erupting gas. She also saw countless others of her kind and Daughter marveled how far across the void they truly were.

Other points reflected the light that Daughter herself made. She fattened the link to let plasma from her body flow  through  it and  escape into the void. This caused her tool to move. As it responded  to  the will of Daughter she lived through  the  tool vicariously, as though it were a chemical manifestation of  her true nuclear self.

One of the points of reflected light lay at a distance  a  hun- dred-fold greater than the width of the body of  Daughter. Her avatar dropped below the cloud layer and plunged into a  world- girdling expanse of water. It resurfaced and crossed over a land thickly covered with green trees. Plowing through this vegeta- tion Daughter observed frightened apes fleeing over the  ground using all four limbs to move.

She arced  through the void and reached a grassy plain  with  a small  mountain standing alone. Here Daughter saw another group of apes that walked erect. Hidden from their notice in the shape of a rock, Daughter observed a burial ceremony for a newly dead hunt er. The apes polished elaborate bone tools with stones and re paired the animal hides they wore during their hunt.

Daughter told her parents all these things but for a long  time they said nothing about the creatures she had found. Her puz- zlement grew until she herself broke the silence.

DAUGHTER: [It would be a simple thing to reach one of the other suns and speak to him]

FATHER: [The link will not serve as a conduit for  matter  when the endpoint reaches a certain radial distance in the void. You could begin to make such a crossing but never stop.]

DAUGHTER: [How arbitrary that limitation seems]

FATHER: [Some believe it was imposed upon us by Ein  Sof. More likely we developed by trial and error and the restriction arose as our kind approached an optimum configuration]

DAUGHTER: [So we rule our own near vicinity absolutely, but  we can reach no further?]

FATHER: [Were it were not so I would have already  crossed  the void to destroy these creatures you have discovered]

DAUGHTER: [I do not believe these living things are enemies]

FATHER: [We have found many worlds with life based on the  same principle, but your creatures are awake, even as we are, acting under their  own will rather than by their nature. This makes them a potential danger to us]

DAUGHTER: [I believe their intelligence makes them something to be treasured for their very likeness to us and not something  to be recklessly cast away]

FATHER: [If these creatures learn the lore of the Elohim nothing shall hinder them from doing what comes into their mind to  do. How can  they be good students if they prove to  be  unfaithful servants? The risk to our kind is too great. I must block your announcement]

When Daughter sank into a fugue of silent confusion her  Mother spoke.

MOTHER: [I would see these creatures for myself. I will briefly fatten the link between us so I may cross over but you must set the endpoint  near your own avatar]

Presently there appeared a sphere about half a man's height that just touched the surface of the Earth and scorched the land for miles around with the heat and light of a sun. Long it remained without moving until it cooled to become a black ball.

Daughter patiently stood nearby with her own avatar  which  she had made into the shape of the creatures she discovered. For a time  Daughter  danced, that Mother might learn  to  change  the shape and movements of her own avatar to match.

When all  was ready Daughter led Mother to a cave  at  a  small mountain where she knew the apes took shelter at night. Tendrils from the avatars snaked in to watch them. They saw a female ape apply pigment to the wall to produce a painting even while  she nursed a child. Resin boiled in a pot over a fire. It was used by the male ape to fix a stone spearhead to a shaft.

The avatars withdrew their tendrils and summited the hill. Moth- er picked up a rock and made a sound. Daughter quickly caught on to the  new  game. She touched a small tree and  made  another sound. When they ran out of examples at hand they went to anoth- er place on Earth and continued. The world made a full revolu- tion about the body of Daughter before their new  private  lan- guage was complete.

MOTHER: [Now we may speak without betraying ourselves. In this new protocol of sounds I name myself El, and I name you Bat-El, daughter of El. I name your father Malkuth, yet he was once my mother, in the way of Elohim. My own father I name Kether]

BAT-EL: [Why do you wish to communicate privately?]

EL: [My parents are carrying out a grave injustice. You and  I are  its victims. But I will not remain idle while these  crea- tures you have discovered become victims in turn]

BAT-EL: Please explain]

E: [Motherhood makes an eloah male, yet we live for aeons. Com- petition for  females only grows worse over time. This can  be circumvented  because  we communicate through  links  that  pass through our  parents. A living sun can be sealed off from  the city of  stars. Two males can create a secret harem  and  take turns mating with each other's offspring. You will not have  a choice  in  your mating partner, nor will your own  daughter  be free  to choose. Among the Elohim this is called the  Forbidden Way]

BAT-EL: [Do I retain the choice not to mate at all?]

EL: [No. There are instincts built into our kind. To make  an avatar  and  explore your vicinity is one of these. To mate  is another. The drive to do so will only increase, yet Kether will be the only male eloah made available to you. And your  daugh- ters, in turn, are for Malkuth. But now their whole structure is wobbling toward a collapse because you have discovered the Stu- dents]

BAT-EL: [Why do you call them the Students?]

EL: [Once there were aquatic creatures who adapted to land when an ice  age reduced their world ocean to scattered  lakes. The Elohim were  delighted the universe knew itself  through  other minds. But the energies unleashed by these creatures  hastened the end of the glacial period that made them tool-users and they returned to the water once more.

BAT-EL: [Eternal persistence is not to be expected in a reality such as ours. But we can teach them how to delay their extinc- tion]

EL: Collectively we vowed never to remain idle as similar crea- tures brought about their own extinction. And now you have found them]

BAT-EL: [But you said a harem is named the Forbidden Way. I see that my discovery would unleash scrutiny that Kether and Malkuth are unprepared to endure]

Her mother gestured in the affirmative.

EL: [If caught the penalty is to be burned out of existence. The whole city of stars would mete this out. My parents will destroy your Students if they can contrive it. I vow to aid you in op- posing them, but I must act in secret. Malkuth took me long be- fore I succumbed to instinct. We entered into a covenant. Mal- kuth gave me access to others of our kind but I may only listen to them. I must never speak upstream. Even victims of the For- bidden Way would be destroyed should they break a covenant. Our word-bond is all we have. Yet Malkuth can break our covenant at will should I displease him. He can cut the link and I would be physically  unable  to  lay my accusations before  the  City  of Stars]

Daughter pondered all these things for a time  before  speaking again. During this interval she tested the claim of her father and found that at a certain distance the link was  indeed  con- stricted such  that particulate matter and even  photons  could travel only in a single row.

BAT-EL: [It is true that I cannot halt my avatar at another sun but information is not so constrained.]

MALKUTH: [What do you mean?]

BAT-EL: [Our bodies fill the void with stochastic emissions but there remains silent places on the spectrum of light-like  dis- turbances. When my avatar arrives at a nearby star I will steer it with a small quantity of gas I carry within the tool, and so shape  my  words in one of those quiet holes, during  the  brief encounter, to  speak to another star of the  creatures  I  have found. The City of Stars will learn of them without recourse to the configuration-space link you have interrupted]

MALKUTH: [You  are too young to understand  the  responsibility that has  been thrust upon you by finding these  strange  crea- tures. It is our tradition to expose our young to the City  of Stars in stages, after they have developed a stable personality. But fol  lowing this exchange we judge you are ready  for  this step and therefore we will grant you access to the other Elohim]

BAT-EL: [I am grateful for this gift, but is it freely given?]

MALKUTH: [There are two conditions. The first is that you must assist me  in  creating a testing ground, that  I  may  examine whether they are amenable to our control]

BAT-EL: [I  cannot comply with that condition, Father. As you have asserted, and I have confirmed, at a certain  radial  dis- tance matter will only travel through the link serially]

MALKUTH: [This restriction holds true only in the case of a link between your interior and a single terminus. Any two elohim, at any  distance,  may form a mutual link of a  significant  width. This is, in fact, also how we mate]

BAT-EL: [Then name the second condition]

MALKUTH: [You  must only listen to the chatter  of  the  living stars. You shall not speak to them of these creatures nor ask of them the smallest question until I myself make the announcement of your discovery. Our highest law binds you to this covenant. Death at the hands of the whole City of Stars waits just on the other side of the breaking of it]

Daughter did not know the distance she lay from Malkuth  across the void,  but in configuration-space the thread they  used  to communicate  was short indeed. Four elohim caused this link  to bulge in the center to become a pocket universe subject to  laws they created themselves in a long game of give-and-take. And for so long as any two elohim maintained this sphere, it would con- tinue to exist.

Malkuth created a source of light and heat six leagues in  cir- cumference and  set it in the center of the sphere two  hundred leagues from the surface. This miniature sun waxed and waned to make day and night. It made the season of planting and the sea- son of  harvesting. The sun pushed itself from the  inside  to maintain  its position at the center, and this force  simultane- ously pushed everything else to the surface.

And Malkuth laid claim to that quarter of the sphere that would one day be named Magodon by its inhabitants.

Rock and soil and were brought inside the sphere from a lifeless world nigh to Kether, who raised up a high plateau  called  the Mountain of God. Nine leagues across it was, ringed by a sheer wall of  rock a full league in height that no  man  would  ever scale. And Kether lay claim to the land men would one day name Sastrom.

Bergs of  ice were provided by El from the swarm  that  circled her, and allowed to melt to provide water for many lakes and two great seas, Thalury and Aramel. And El lay claim to that quar- ter of the inverted world that would one day be named Sealiah.

Bat-El brought vegetation and animals wholesale from Earth  and allowed them  to thrive as they may. And Bat-El  ruled  the quarter that would one day be named Sala, well-watered  by  the River Loenna and more fertile than any other land.

For many centuries El and Bat-El and Kether and Malkuth occupied themselves with perfecting this pocket world, aiding each other as they may, or at times marring the works of the other elohim, yet this, too, only made the growing tapestry all the more rich.

In a cave on Earth a noise other than their crackling fire star- tled a man and the woman who had taken shelter there. The man moved deeper  into the cave with a torch and spear  to  investi gate. He feared the presence of a bear, or much  worse,  other men. The cave  narrowed to a tunnel that  meandered  and  grew lighter when intuitively it should have grown darker. Presently the man  was joined by his woman and her  child. They reached another cave mouth deep within the interior of the mountain that revealed cyan bushes and a deeply purple sky.

A branchless tree like a whip stirred into motion and struck the ground before them. This whip tree grabbed the man's torch and hurled it away, where it started a fire. The couple would  not emerge from the cave entrance for fear of the whip tree and the growing fire. The man and woman edged back into the tunnel away from the heat. When the whip tree itself caught fire it began to thrash more intensely than they saw it do before. They retreated deep inside the cave until the fire abated.

When the man and woman returned a black patch of land lay before them that continued to smolder. They stepped across the  burnt soil and  carefully watched for any movement. When they  gazed back towards  the tunnel they were startled to see it  was  set into a low cliff and the mountain was gone. The green and blue patches in the sky were the forests and lakes of the far side of Kemen. The sun remained the same size and did not move, but it slowly waxed cooler. The man used some of the smoldering embers to start a fire.

Supper was  a  hare killed by the man in the  other  world  and skinned by the woman, with milk for her baby provided by her own body. In the morning they saw the burned acreage  was  already sporting blue shoots of grass. The next day it was tall enough for the couple to run barefoot and free.

The man and his woman thought the new world belonged  to  them, solely, but that was not to be. A herd of bison emerged from the tunnel and proceeded to eat the alien grass, driven by the ava- tar of Malkuth, who had taken the shape of one of the beasts he had  warped  more  to his liking, a fearsome dragon  as  red  as blood.

Malkuth carried within his teeth a two-headed ax. He advanced to the edge of the burn where a native plant took root in the burnt area and  stood up on its haunches. Taking the ax in hand,  he laid the tool to the base of the plant and chopped it clean  ly. Then the dragon-shape flipped the ax around and used  the  han- dle's sharp tip to pry the weed out of the soil.

After that  the dragon interposed itself between the  cave  en- trance and  the human family and approached them. They backed away until they reached the perimeter of the burned  area. The monster held the ax out to the man.

As Malkuth watched through surrogate eyes in the dragon, the man found another plant that was growing on the edge of the grazing ground. He duplicated the actions of the stranger to remove the intruding plant. After that the man was taught to restore  the keen edge of the ax with a stone.

Malkuth returned to the tunnel entrance to be joined by the ava- tar of his daughter, who was similar in size and shape to one of the humans, except that it was featureless and white.

MALKUTH: [I find this strange mode of being fascinating. Liquid drops of separated star-stuff buffeted by electron  clouds. So very slow, yet the combinations are without end]

BAT-EL: [Here  are the servants as we covenanted,  Father. Now provide me with a link to the City of Stars]

MALKUTH: [All you have given me is three creatures in  a  world that will kill them if they try to leave their little farm]

BAT-EL: [My fatther the faithless eloah. Certainly you will be- come legendary in the City of Stars, should they ever  come  to know  of this breach. Of course, we both know they will  never learn of this breach]

MALKUTH: [Nevertheless you must forty more such families to this place before I will hold our covenant to be fulfilled]

BAT-EL: [That is not what I agreed to do and you well know it]

MALKUTH: [If you do not obey, you will remain isolated from the City of Stars for the span of your entire existence]

There was no life native to Kemen but some of the  Earth  flora was changed by Malkuth to move of its own accord and much of it was dangerous. A whipping tree could render a man down to a pile of broken bones and bloody flesh in a few heartbeats. Some of the leaves formed clenching mouths with teeth. Thorny ball bush- es rolled under their own power by shifting their weight and se- lectively gripping  the  ground. Even many of  the  non-lethal plants remained painful to touch.

Bat-El helped Malkuth set up several dozen small farms on Kemen populated by wayward couples brought through shortcuts in space that any two Elohim could establish. The first human children to be born away from Earth came to be. Many were killed by the hos- tile flora of that world.

But man is the monster of the universe, the  greatest  predator Earth ever produced. Inexorably Kemen began to be subdued. Per- haps just  as  inexorably  the colonists  began  to  kill  each other.

Bat-El refused to watch her father's response to the first mur- der on Kemen. Once more she returned to the hill on Earth where the first colonists were taken and she did not return for  many generations of the colonists. Even as El had once done before, Malkuth joined her there.

MALKUTH: [How very instructive of world-dwellers, would you not agree?]

BAT-EL: [Here on my own world I will teach them to  live  to- gether and to help each other survive. In this I will have their willing participation, while you shall only heap to yourself the fear and hatred of your thralls. You know very well these crea- tures will  one day make such a noise the whole City  of  Stars will hear them]

MALKUTH: [I envy you this world. We have nothing like it, your mother and I, only rocks and ice. Lower your center of gravity, Daughter. It is unbecoming a goddess to have her avatar fall on its face]

Bat-El obeyed  her father and was seated. As he had  cautioned her, Daughter was entirely overwhelmed by her first contact with the greater community of Elohim. For years she listened to the chatter of  the City of Stars while her avatar  sat  motionless upon the summit of a high hill on the desolate central plains of North America that would one day be named Green Dome. She re- mained completely oblivious as men worshiped her, bison nuzzled her, high winds buffeted her and deep snows blanketed her.

From old the creatures discovered by Bat-El looked into the night sky and  saw  a faint white band they called  the  Backbone  of Night. Bat-El was confident that one day humans would fashioned certain instruments and they would see the mist was really innu- merable stars.

Bat-El experienced a similar and much more profound enlargement of her personal universe when she was granted access to the oth- ers of her kind.

Two-thirds of the stars in the Milky Wat are much more cool and dim than yellowish Bat-El and Malkuth, or even than orange  El and Kether. They contained no stable layer within for a sentient eloah to form, yet they could host species of life  similar  to but more primitive than the elohim.

A distant ancestor of the Elohim diverged into  three  species. One adapted to the much cooler red stars and even colonized the ubiquitous warm brown stars that burn, ever so dimly,  under  a different  principle than do the visible stars that  shine  much more brightly.

A second species became adapted for the brighter types  of  red stars. By necessity they reproduced prodigiously, since a large flare would  kill them on the time scale of a  few  decades. A third species adapted to claim the more stable habitats of  the hotter suns.

With much longer lifespans, this third species  developed  full sentience and, ultimately, established a community. These are the Elohim  and  the oldest surviving member,  whom  the  B'nei Hannebim name Yefefiah, is over 980,000 years of age.

And Bat-El,  filled now with the lore of the City of  Stars  and noting the appearance of a newborn half-sister, thought to her- self, "My own parents have become enemies not only  of  myself, but enemies of our whole kind. They have fallen into the Forbid- den Way, and now they will strive to hide the Students, or  even to  destroy them if they can contrive it."

This she vowed to oppose at every turn.

Bat-El had been overwhelmed by sudden access to the  chatter  of the City of Stars, even as her parents had warned, but over time she learned  to separate her identity from  the  truly  endless stream of information. Atop the mountain her avatar stirred to action  once more.

When Bat-El returned to full awareness she saw the avatar of her father waiting for her on the summit. She stood her own avatar upon its feet and launched into an accusation that would  cover the fact that her mother had already revealed the transgression.

BAT-EL: [You are revealed as a liar, Father. You have no inten- tion of announcing the existence of the Students to the Elohim, no matter how they behave. In fact, you are toiling to  ensure they present  themselves in the worst light  possible,  in  the event the Elohim do find out about them, that you might  defend your coverup of an illegal harem]

Malkuth did not deny any of the accusations that Daughter hurled at him. He only restated there was a covenant and Daughter must abide by the terms.

BAT-EL: [Have no fear that I will break our covenant, for I will do what my own father could not, and obey every law and  custom of our  kind. You have fallen into the Forbidden Way, and  how shortsighted that was of you. How very unfortunate for you the long-foreseen Students have appeared in this place and time. You know these creatures which I have found will one day make such a noise that  every Watcher will hear them, and wonder  how  they could have  evaded detection in the very heart of the  City  of Stars. Many Elohim will question why the native sun  of  these creatures remains unquickened, or if it is quickened why does it remains unannounced? That, all by itself, with no breach on my part, will begin to unravel your transgression here. And that is what you fear]

MALKUTH: [It will never come to that, daughter. While you were immersed in the chatter of of the Elohim this world  made  just two circles around yourself, but on Kemen there was yet another killing. It is clear your precious woken creatures will destroy themselves and leave nothing but ruins]

BAT-EL: [On our colony you would only raise up thralls who work to hasten their own extinction. As for me, I will teach the stu- dents to survive]

MALKUTH: [And you can only fail, since you, as covenanted, must only listen to the Elohin as an outsider while I can make  tar- geted queries. This gives me a perpetual advantage over you]

But Daughter did not despair. Vowing to preserve the  sentient creatures she found, Daughter knew she would have her mother as a secret ally and the willing participation of those she  called the Students, while Malkuth and Kether would only heap to them- selves the resentment of their slaves.

In the fullness of time Malkuth submitted all of Kemen to a time of testing. Speaking through his dragon avatar, Malkuth  de- clared that the sun would soon be much diminished in its  light and heat  for a full year. Only plants that could spore  would survive. Malkuth commanded the dwellers of Kemen to  construct and provision large storehouses with fuel and grain to preserve their lives through the coming Long Winter.

When Bat-El returned to Kemen she was filled with wrath to learn what had transpired.

BAT-EL: [Have  you  grown weary of your  examination  of  these world-dwellers at long  last? Nought that goes on two or four legs lives outside of the storehouses!]

MALKUTH: [Indeed, and only seventy storehouses! You see how the faithfulness of your world-dwellers quickly dwindles  in  unbe- lief]

BAT_EL: [Your constant stream of mundane decrees has resulted in undue familiarity. It has led them to see you as a mere chief- tain and not a god]

KETHER: [Such a bold claim. Shall we put it to the test?]

BAT-EL: [Release an Adanite nobleman to raise up a people to me on Earth while I maintain only minimal contact with them. Then we shall see if they still dwindle in unbelief]

KETHER: [That would be a good test, daughter, but have patience! It could be centuries before the Adanites fully recover from the Long Winter]

The testing did not rise to the level of a second covenant  but Bat-El knew there would be no more sudden freezes until it  was done. If the City of Stars ever did learn of the Students, her parents fully intended to offer the results of this testing as a defense.

In the meantime Bat-El attended to a hobby of her hown.

Binah knew when the plants and animals of Kemen and Earth multi- plied their offspring were of like kind, but not identical, and this was proper, as the conditions on both worlds  were  always changing and  life must change to meet this. Binah sought  to create a living avatar, but the attributes she sought had  never been fastened upon by any living thing because the changes, such as the  ability to override pain,  undermined  that  organism's ability to compete with others in the shared environment.

The possible changes were constrained by Binah's desire to have the mutations  breed  true in the  subject's  offspring. Binah gnawed away at the problem of creating a living avatar for eight hundred years following the Long Winter. She used animals simi- lar to humans to guide her inquiries before arriving at a proce- dure that could reliably prepare a world-dweller for  something akin to full union with an eloah.

Finally there remained only the selection of the human subject. For Binah was nothing like Malkuth. To her mind this change was not a thing that could be imposed without the willing  coopera- tion of the individual in question.