Children of Time

Another generation of Portia’s people prepares for massive battle with the evolved ant colony. This Portia is from The Great Nest, which is located near the Western Ocean, and she has come to the city of Seven Trees to defend against the advancing ant colony from which her ancestor stole the crystal. By now, the spiders have created an intricate society that is built in part around their growing understanding of mathematics, as conveyed by the crystal’s transmission of the radio signals coming from Kern’s satellite. The ants are threatening the spider’s territory, and the war is ongoing. Suddenly, a massive battle erupts, and although Portia and her companions do their best to protect Seven Trees, the advanced ant technology of metal, glass, and fire burns Seven Trees to the ground, and Portia only narrowly escapes.

Holsten and Lain are left alone with a woman named Nessel while the other armed colonists engage in firefights in the corridors. Nessel tells Holsten that the concept of trying to colonize a frozen moon while the rest of the ship pursues loftier goals is abhorrent. Nessel argues that the people designated as “Key Crew” (engineers, etc.) could colonize the moon rather than dooming generations to struggle against their will. When Scoles, one of the mutineers, returns, he tells Holsten that they’ll take Holsten and Lain in a shuttle back to Kern’s World if the mutiny fails. He explains that they need Holsten’s knowledge of the ancient Empire in order to land on the surface.

Portia arrives at Great Nest with a few survivors from Seven Trees. The spiders have no maternal instincts, so families are comprised of creche mates, who are referred to as “peers.” When Portia returns to her peer house, she watches one of her peers go into a cocoon to undergo molting. She tells another peer that she plans to go to the temple, where many of her kind conduct a ritual of worship that matches the pulse of signals sent out by the “Messenger” (Kern’s satellite). Portia, and her fellow Great Nest spiders are worried about the loss at Seven Trees and are concerned about the potential future that may result if the ants win the war. Even the communication with the “Messenger” is tainted with worry.

Karst intensifies his assault on the mutineers, and Scoles forces Lain and Holsten into the shuttle. Holsten tries to convince Scoles that he won’t be able to convince Kern (or rather, the AI with Kern’s personality) that they should be allowed to land on the planet. The mutineers plan to take their chances with whatever might await them in Kern’s World.

Lain convinces Scoles to let her dig into the shuttle’s systems to protect them. The Gilgamesh sends a shuttle after them, ordering them to surrender and release the prisoners, but Scoles pushes on. When they come into contact with Kern, Holsten attempts to convince her to allow them to observe the outcome of the experiment. When that overture fails, he shows Kern the footage from the drone, which displays the figure of the spider. Kern goes silent.

Portia visits Bianca in Bianca’s lab. Bianca has discovered a species of beetle that can pass undetected through ant colonies and can even eat the ants’ young. She has used this information to create a chemical that may allow the spiders to infiltrate deep into ant colonies. She tells Portia to gather a group of followers to test the chemical and a related weapon that may save the Great Nest. Portia spends what may be her last night in the Great Nest considering the oddities surrounding the message and the Messenger. She notes that there is more than one message coming from the sky now, and the second one doesn’t seem to be coming from the Messenger.

Holsten tries to rest while Scoles argues over the comms with Karst, who is in the pursuing shuttle. Kern suddenly reopens communication, loudly asserting that she doesn’t care about them or their footage. She then orders them to immediately leave the planet’s vicinity. Kern takes over Karst’s shuttle and the drone he’d deployed and draws them both off-course. She makes it clear that she’ll destroy them if she can’t re-route them. While Lain tries to adjust the systems to avoid destruction, Holsten attempts to create so much conflict between Eliza and Kern that the Kern’s pod cannot act before the shuttle lands on the planet. They almost succeed. Kern fires a laser, but it only takes off the back of the shuttle, and the cabin where Lain and Holsten are secured remains intact as the shuttle hurtles towards the planet’s surface.

Portia and her band of warriors prepare to advance into the invading ant column. Bianca and her workers fashion armor for the spider warriors. Each warrior has a package filled with a modified version of the scent that the beetles create to walk unseen among the ants. These packages are designed to dissolve simultaneously in various areas in the column. As the spiders struggle with between their fear of death and their desire to preserve their species, there is a sudden explosion of fire as the mutineers’ shuttle crashes to the planet’s surface. Bianca tells them that the Messenger has come to join them, and this declaration improves morale sufficiently for the advance to begin. Portia and her warriors infiltrate the column successfully, though a few spiders are discovered and killed. When the packages dissolve, the mass of invading ants becomes docile and confused.

After the shuttle crashes, the cabin crew sustains minor injuries. The crew debates the safety of the outside atmosphere, and one of the mutineers ventures out in a suit to test for pathogens. After a few minutes, they determine that the air is safe to breathe, and there don’t seem to be any viruses or bacteria that are dangerous to humans. However, the woman outside begins to scream and slaps at herself, begging to be let in. When the crew open the doors, they are assaulted by the ants. One of the ants starts a fire inside the shuttle, and the humans escape through the back hatch. Suddenly, the ants become docile and disappear. When a spider emerges from the woods, Scoles shoots it, though Holsten feels an odd sense of connection with it. Suddenly, Karst’s shuttle arrives, and he collects Holsten and Lain and kills Scoles and the other mutineers. Nessel escapes into the woods, and the remaining humans leave Kern’s World at Kern’s orders.

Portia examines Nessel’s sleeping form, thinking of all that has happened. Clearly the giants who fell from the sky weren’t the Messenger, but they are a mystery worth investigating rather than a threat to be neutralized.

The mutineers are all either dead or lost to the spiders, so Guyen wakes another 50 settlers to be dispatched to the lunar colony. He chooses a more malleable leader for this outpost of humanity and promises to return with old Empire technology to make survival easier. Holsten returns to cold storage while Lain stays awake to assist in the next leg of the journey, during which the crew of the Gilgamesh will search for a place for humanity to settle.

Nessel lives the remainder of her life as a prisoner and an object of study for the spiders. The spiders successfully convert most of the ant colonies, leaving the original colony that discovered fire, metal, and glass because those advances are useful and they hope for more. They strategically make it necessary for those ants to become their allies, and there is general peace on the planet. As their technology grows, the spiders discover a second message transmitted from the sky, but this one is chaotic and impossible to understand, unlike the math of the Messenger’s original message. The message becomes consistent and appears to be a distress signal that is coming from a moon far off in the sky. Then, the signal suddenly stops, and no one understands why.