Children of Time, #2
Children of Ruin
by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Contents
PRESENT 3: ROLLING BACK THE STONE — CHAPTER 3.
Overview
Helena uses captivity to study Disra Senkovi’s archive and discovers that the octopuses were engineered by a lonely Old Empire human who spent decades failing to converse with them. By comparing Senkovi’s records with the modern octopuses’ behaviour, Helena realizes their communication is deeply emotional and empathic, not merely informational.
The chapter shifts the crisis from imprisonment toward possible diplomacy, as Helena sacrifices her own Portiid translation setup to attempt direct contact with the octopus locals. It also deepens the theme of alien understanding by showing both the limits and the fragile successes of communication across species.
Summary
Still trapped with Portia in the octopus facility, Helena explores the vast, unsecured archive she has found. The records, called the Senkoviad by their creator, reveal Disra Senkovi: an Old Earth human, contemporary of Avrana Kern, who apparently spent his later life alone in orbit above the octopuses’ watery world.
Helena learns that Senkovi engineered the octopuses but never controlled them and could not reliably communicate with them. His recordings show decades of attempts to build a language bridge, ranging from obsessive research to bleak loneliness. Because Senkovi preserved many failed exchanges, Helena gains valuable material for understanding the octopuses’ visual, non-discrete communication.
Helena tells Portia that she must cannibalize her own translation software to process octopus colour, texture, and gesture. This means Helena can no longer translate for Portia, and Helena discovers Portia has been relying on Helena’s system rather than running an equivalent human-language translator. The moment exposes lingering inequality and distance between Humans and Portiids, even within their close friendship.
As time passes, Helena and Portia eat the fishy paste provided to them, sleep in shifts, and watch the octopuses watch them. Helena observes group displays, sudden violent contact, and the segregated pale octopus she believes is the former ambassador tainted by alien contact. These observations suggest that octopus communication blends information and emotion through multiple channels, rather than functioning like human or Portiid language.
Helena then finds a recording in which Senkovi tells terrible jokes to an octopus. Senkovi believes the octopus is reacting to the humor, but Helena realizes the creature is responding to Senkovi’s happiness. This reveals that the octopuses could empathize with a radically different mind, a profound emotional connection Senkovi himself never recognized.
Moved by Senkovi’s loneliness, Helena grieves while Portia quietly comforts her. Eventually Helena reaches the limits of Senkovi’s material, configures her slate to encode and decode what little she has learned, and faces the gathered octopuses. She presents the slate and attempts to say hello.
Who Appears
- HelenaCaptive linguist studying Senkovi’s archive and building a first crude octopus translator.
- PortiaHelena’s Portiid companion, guarding her, assisting her, and quietly comforting her grief.
- Disra SenkoviLong-dead Old Earth scientist who engineered the octopuses and obsessively tried to communicate with them.
- Octopus localsAquatic captors whose colour displays, touch, and violence become Helena’s subject of study.
- Pale octopusSegregated former ambassador, apparently excluded after contact with alien contamination.