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When her parents continued to say nothing about the humans Daughter found she said, after a time, “It would be a small thing for me to reach one of the other suns and speak to him.”

Father said, “No, Daughter, the link to your avatar will grow too thin to be useful as a conduit for matter when it has reached the distance light travels in the time this inhabited world you discovered makes one full revolution. You could begin such a crossing but you could never stop. We rule our own near vicinity absolutely, but we can reach no further. If it were not so, even now I would be preparing to cross the void and destroy all of these living creatures you have discovered with fire from my own belly.”

Daughter said, “Help me to understand, Father. Do you really wish to destroy them? Something within me says these strange living things are not our enemies.”

Father replied, “Even if they are not dangerous to us now, they could become our mortal enemies in the future. We have found many worlds with life of similar kind, but the tool-making creatures you have discovered are unique. They are potentially dangerous to us because they are fully awake, even as we are, guided by their own will rather than by their nature. Given time, nothing would restrain such ones. ”

She said, “Certainly these creatures are intelligent. Does that not make them something to be treasured by the elohim for their very likeness to us, and not merely cast away?”

Father replied, “If these creatures learn the lore of the Elohim nothing shall hinder them from doing whatsoever 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, not immediately, perhaps, but in the future. I can do nothing but block your announcement. Your mother is in full agreement. But this does not give us pleasure, Daughter.”

Daughter said, “It may be true that I cannot halt my avatar at another star, but certainly information is not so constrained. When my avatar reaches a nearby star I can speak to him in a quiet place, directly, and speak of the creatures I found circling me.”

Father was dismayed how Daughter, without recourse to the lore of the Watchers, knew a sun’s own body filled the void with noise, yet there remained silent regions where even creatures such as the ones she had found could make themselves heard.