The question sat in the stabilized junction's careful quiet for longer than any pause the conversation had yet produced, and Rama understood, watching Solthai's frank, expectant expression, that she had no idea what she'd actually asked.
Sekar answered first, choosing her words with the specific deliberateness she brought to genuinely consequential ethical navigation. "That question sits precisely at the boundary of what we agreed to discuss," she said. "I want to be honest rather than evasive: yes, our own civilization's history includes exactly the category of investigation you're describing. I also want to be honest that answering more specifically, right now, would violate the framework we established together."
