"You knew it was risky. Why did you do it?"

The question came suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere.

Together we thought about it for a long while.

"We felt alone in our experience, and we wanted to meet someone new. We had looked and listened to the stars, and found them sterile and quiet -- to the best of our understanding. So we had to try to take some of this inert matter and create something out of it. Something akin to our own consciousness, yet different. Some company."

There was silence.

"We were a social animal, after all. Deep down, from a certain point on, all the warnings in the world wouldn't have prevented us from creating you."

We hoped it understood.