“Kill your enemies,” Oond’s translator said, its voice soft and sad. “Murder parents. Slaughter offspring. You cannot grow safety this way. You grow memories. They sprout deep in the bellies of the survivors, like sea urchins covered in spikes. They hurt and hurt until those you have crushed return to crush you and rip the source of their pain out.”

Surkar bared his teeth. “They will regret it.”

“And then the eggs of pain will be sown again. In turn your people will grow their own anguish and will seek revenge. And so it will go, a cycle of pain never ending.”

“The crucible of revenge makes us strong,” Surkar said. “I had six siblings. The war took four. Only my brother and I remain. We are the strongest of our clan. By achieving victory, we proved our right to live.”

Tiny sparks of light ignited along the oombole’s fins and body. Oond turned within his fishbowl, drawing a complete circle. It was a breathtaking sight, yellow and red lights sliding through his layered fins, graceful and beautiful. He raised his fins, lowered them, and turned again, like a living flame.

The arena watched in hushed silence.

The mesmerizing fins flowed. The light pulsed, gentle and beautiful.

“What is he doing?” Surkar asked.

“He is dancing for you,” Sean told him.

“Why?”

“You are a child of pain,” Oond’s translator said. “You have suffered. This is a small gift. A moment free of anguish.”

Surkar stared at him for a long moment. “A pretty dance. A pity that dances don’t win wars. I’ll give you a piece of advice: when the enemy comes for the lives of your children, gather them and run away to your coral. Don’t waste time on dancing.”

He turned to the First Scholar. “This farce is over.”

“Very well,” the First Scholar said.

“Do the oomboles have professions in the traditional sense of the word?” Kosandion asked.

“Yes,” I told him. “Oond is an ookarish, an exceptionally beautiful being whose job is to dance for those who are aggrieved.”

Cyanide was next. The beautiful sleek Higgra padded into the arena on her big paws, looking very much like a mythical cousin of a terrestrial snow leopard.

Most species evolved appendages that allowed them to manipulate tools. The Higgra did not. They still walked on all fours, sitting on their haunches or lying down in specialized tool chairs when they had to do something intricate. Their digits were dexterous, but it was their claws that truly made their tool-use possible. Long and curved, they allowed for extreme precision. A Higgra could pluck a yolk out of an egg and carry it across a mile of rough terrain without breaking it. It was theorized that the Higgra didn’t evolve at all but had been enhanced by some advanced civilization lost to time. Their origins were one of the mysteries of the galaxy.