“I was a ranger out on Hon Bay Canh. At the turtle sanctuary there. We worked for the park, but the salary was almost nothing. And the job was not easy. All night, you watch the beach. The turtles come in, they lay eggs. You go down, you tag the turtles after they lay the eggs, then you dig up the eggs and you take them to the incubation area. It is a narrow beach, so if you don’t do that, another turtle will come along, maybe dig up the eggs looking for a place to lay her own, see? All night long you do this. And the pay is no good. So—we fish. Spearfish. For food for us and our families. And sometimes, too, we sell the eggs. That’s the truth. I’m not a bad person, but I had to live. I saved lots of sea turtle eggs, yeah? Hard work. But also I took some. Sold them. We all did it. If there is a park ranger who says he didn’t steal eggs, he’s lying.”

He paused. He could feel the blood in his face, telling it. The unfairness of it. If they had paid me a salary I could live on. If they had treated me better.

“I’m not here to judge you,” the swarm said.

Twenty. Maybe more. He’d stopped counting in his head. He drank. Almost warm now.

Not here to judge me. But he knew DIANIMA did judge him, and all of the other rangers at the park. That was why they had bought the island, right? That was why Da Minh didn’t have a home anymore. Sure, they had given him money. Sure. But he had already spent it—lost it, really, trying to open a business with that crook. Anyway, if they wanted to pay him for the story, that was fine. They owed that to him. But he wasn’t a thief, or a poacher. He was born on Con Dao. It was his island. He never asked for it to be turned into a preserve. All he’d wanted to do was live.

“It was late. The sun had gone down. But it was not dark yet. We were not supposed to use our lights at night. Scares the turtles away, right? But we would go down to the shore sometimes with a small flashlight and our equipment in the late evening, to hunt crabs and whatever we could catch near the shore. That was what we were doing then: Hien had a spear and a net and his jug. I had the same. He was forty meters or so from me when I saw him stab at something at the surf line with his spear.

“‘I saw an octopus!’ he said. ‘Good size. If I can get it, we’ll eat well tonight!’

“Then I saw the shape coming.”