Elfavy says that her planet, Gwydion, is:
"'...too big for us to know everything.'" (p. 608)
- and adds:
"'And it is right that the world be so.'" (ibid.)
She asks whether Raven would like to live without mystery. He says not and adds:
"'I suppose that's why men went to the stars in the first place.'" (p. 609)
Elfavy becomes scornful when she says that men must keep looking further, sucking the planets dry, whereas the Gwydiona maintain their existing frontiers. Raven, maybe trying to placate Elfavy, says that he likes the Gwydiona attitude but sees no sense:
"'...in letting an active menace run loose.'" (ibid.)
- which is what the Gwydiona seem to be doing.
Raven is right but there is more to it than that. Maintaining existing frontiers is obscurantism. We need not preserve the area of the unknown because it is infinite whereas the growing area of the unknown is always only finite. Learning more does not suck everything dry. But the Gwydiona adopt the attitude that they do because they are avoiding a realization about their own nature.
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