“It has happened.” Lantern’s voice was leaden. “There was another sentient race, far from your solar system. This was only six hundred years ago. Not long at all. These people… if you are like your monkeys, and we are like some of your sea creatures, they were more like your insects. But they were builders, and smart. When we found their species, they already had slow local space travel, and were exploring their system. Millions of years before that, though, when they were just barely sentient bugs and not a spacefaring civilization, the Axiom built a factory in the heart of one of their gas giants. These insect people, they sent probes, and found the factory, and they were very excited. As you would have been, if you’d found evidence of a vast alien building project deep in the clouds of Jupiter, say. We met the insects soon after they found the installation, and we tried to warn them away. We told them it was our factory, to leave it alone, but they were stubborn and single-minded and they mounted an expedition to the facility. They woke the Axiom.”

“What happened?” Callie’s voice was low and calm.

“The factory came back online. It built something new. Something that moved only partially in observable dimensions. It attacked the insects. Half of their home planet simply vanished, like something had taken a bite out of it and swallowed. The rest of the planet collapsed in complete geological turmoil, of course. Still, the aliens were hardy, and resourceful, and some survived. Then the Axiom machine… sprayed the planet? With a kind of poison, but a sort of resin, too: a preservative. Now, half of their home planet erratically orbits their star. The broken planet is covered in a transparent coating, and inside, you can see the people, frozen in place. We hope they are dead. We are not sure. Afterward, the machine descended back to the gas giant, and the factory went offline again.” Lantern sighed. “The Axiom did not leave many species likely to attain sentience alive, so the problem does not come up often. When we find a planet with life that seems pre-sentient – or is already sentient, but does not yet have space travel – my sect wipes it out. We cleanse it, quickly and humanely. We have to, you see. What if the aliens travel where they should not, and find things that should not be found? What if they wake the Axiom, for more than just a moment? If the universe becomes too crowded, if the Axiom find us troublesome, if they are roused from their slumber and take an active interest in the workings of the universe again… Then we would all die. At best. Or we might be enslaved again. We would no longer be the Free.”

Callie nodded. “You commit genocide, on a regular basis, to protect yourselves.”