With the opening of the portal, the balcony transformed into the Sovereign’s remote office. On one side, Orata sat surrounded by translucent screens, scanning their contents and issuing brisk commands to a small pack of her staffers. On the other side, His Holiness was in an identical position, with the screens and a throng of aides. He was pointing to the screens and delivering instructions in short confident bursts like a general in the middle of a battle. Kosandion sat at his table, closest to the rail and the water, reading and signing things, while Resven hovered nearby with a small army of staffers. Periodically he would single one out, and then the staffer would take off at top speed and vanish into the portal.

Tension vibrated in the air. The balcony sparked with it, as if the molecules that made it had somehow acquired a charge.

“A spouse hasn’t been murdered for the last 70 years,” Miralitt said. “It won’t happen on my watch. I guarantee it with my life.”

“It’s not personal. It has to do with their evolutionary origin,” I said. “Sapience evolves in many ways across a myriad of life forms, but the fastest and the most common category of sapient beings are either predatory omnivores or omnivorous predators that come from the middle of the food chain. For intelligence and problem-solving skills to develop, it helps if you are both a hunter and the hunted. Earth’s humans are predatory omnivores. The vampires of the Holy Anocracy are omnivorous predators. The omnivorous quality is important because organized hunting, animal husbandry, and crop cultivation are essential progress milestones.”

“The oomboles are also predatory omnivores,” Miralitt said.

“Technically,” Sean said.

“Their diet consists of plants and several species of crustaceans, all of which have evolved to be sedentary,” I explained. “Their protective shells are attached to the ocean floor. They don’t move.”

“Why is that important?” Miralitt asked.

“Because they don’t hunt,” Sean said. “They are grazers. They don’t chase and eat other fish, so they do not understand the predatory mindset. They only fear it.”

I nodded. “They are closer to the bottom of the food chain than the middle, and they have a pathological fear of being eaten.”

“What are you trying to say?” Miralitt asked.

“They are cowards,” Sean said. “It’s an evolutionary adaptation, and it will be almost impossible to overcome. Right now, Oond sees everything that isn’t an oombole as a predator.”

“This is consistent with their ask,” Resven said.

I hadn’t realized he was listening. “What are they asking?”