Some of the hatchlings turned in the wrong direction, crawling up the beach away from the water. The automonk intercepted them, kneeling in the sand in its saffron robes to turn the confused stragglers back toward the sea.

Ha and Evrim watched from a prescribed distance. Evrim was dressed in a set of brown coveralls, rolled up to the knee but still wet from wading in from the drone skiff. Evrim was barefoot, their long, delicate feet covered in sand. Ha could still feel the distance between them, but here in the bright sun, watching the turtles wobble into the water, it seemed less important. Less permanent.

“The automonks watch the beach all night long,” Evrim said. “As soon as a turtle has dug its nest in the sand, laid its eggs, and departed, they come down from the sanctuary and collect the eggs, transferring them to the nursery up on the hill. The beach here is narrow, and the greatest danger to the sea turtle eggs is other female sea turtles, who may beach themselves on the same spot and accidentally destroy other nests while digging their own. The work used to be done by human park rangers, but just before DIANIMA purchased the Con Dao Archipelago, the Tibetans purchased this island, Bay Canh, and turned the turtle preservation area into a religious sanctuary.”

Ha was only half listening. She watched the mad scramble of hatchlings to the water. Another automonk descended the hill carrying its wicker basket, its chanting just audible above the gentle sound of waves.

“They say the survival rate of these hatchlings is only one in a thousand,” Evrim said. “The ones that do survive will reach sexual maturity after decades of wandering, sheltering, and feeding in the sargassum macroalgae fields of the continental shelves. They will find one another and mate somewhere out there in the vastness of that sea, then navigate their way back to this same beach to spawn, as they have done in an unbroken line of succession since they became a species.”

The second automonk had now bent down and tipped its basket. A mass of hatchlings poured over its edge.

“It is not hard for me to understand how this place has come to have a religious significance for the Tibetans,” Evrim said. “I hear they have purchased and sanctified nearly all sea turtle spawning grounds, and many other conservation sites—especially those of migratory species. And here, that purchase makes particular sense. This place was always under threat. Park rangers were caught many times selling eggs.”

“Betraying the very animals they were assigned to protect,” Ha said.