Children of Time, #3
Children of Memory
by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Contents
10.6 Miranda
Overview
Miranda is pursued through Landfall by a mob of familiar faces and nonhuman forms, forcing Miranda to confront the guilt and self-loathing at the center of Miranda’s identity. Kern stops Miranda and pushes Miranda to remember being a composite Nodan organism whose many selves have blurred into Landfall’s impossible history.
The chapter reframes Miranda’s guilt: Miranda did create contradictions through her presence, but Kern insists Miranda did not doom Landfall itself. Instead, Landfall’s failure came from its own ecological impossibility, while Miranda’s defining trait has been compassion rather than monstrosity.
Summary
Miranda flees through Landfall while a growing crowd pours after her from Fabian’s Fix-it and the side streets. Miranda feels that justice requires the crowd to catch her, because Miranda believes the world’s suffering is somehow her fault, even though Miranda cannot yet fully name why.
Doctor Avrana Kern appears ahead of Miranda with ravens nearby, telling Miranda that Miranda cannot run forever. The pursuit becomes stranger as familiar figures join it: Portia abandons human shape and chases Miranda as a spider, Fabian keeps pace nearby, human colonists follow, and Paul floats overhead in an impossible display. Miranda accuses Kern of causing the disaster, but Kern calmly rejects the blame.
Miranda reaches the center of town, where the Council building, Ricehouse, Urshanabi, scaffold, and tree confront Miranda with Landfall’s history of guilt and desperation. Kern catches Miranda and insists Miranda must remember who Miranda is, while Miranda breaks down and apologizes for ruining everything.
Miranda’s memories return: Miranda remembers being part of a Nodan organism, a replicating, host-seeking life that experienced the universe through others and accumulated many identities. Miranda interprets this as proof that Miranda is a monster whose fragments contaminated Landfall and caused its impossible contradictions.
Kern dismisses Miranda’s self-condemnation. Kern explains that Landfall was doomed from the start because the colonists were not true terraformers and could not make the planet sustain them; Miranda did not cause the crop failures or the dying soil. The impossible overlapping events are connected to Miranda, but not because Miranda maliciously destroyed the world.
The accusatory crowd vanishes back into Miranda as the separate identities Miranda had been trying to hold apart return to their source. Miranda remains disgusted by the devouring nature of Miranda’s being, but Kern argues that Miranda’s compassion and repeated efforts to help Landfall make Miranda more humane than Kern herself ever was as a biological human.
Who Appears
- MirandaFlees Landfall’s accusing crowd and confronts guilt over her composite Nodan identity.
- Avrana KernStops Miranda, rejects Miranda’s self-blame, and urges her to remember herself.
- PortiaAppears as a spiderlike pursuer, one of the selves returning to Miranda.
- FabianJoins the pursuit as another identity linked to Miranda’s accumulated selves.
- PaulFloats above the chase in octopus form, part of Miranda’s impossible crowd.
- Erma LanteAppears among the accusing Landfall crowd, dragging her ancient encounter suit helmet.