Children of Time, #2
Children of Ruin
by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Contents
PRESENT 3: ROLLING BACK THE STONE — CHAPTER 4.
Overview
The Lightfoot reaches the damaged source of Erma Lante’s signal: an Old Empire module heavily modified by octopus technology and recently attacked. Viola reframes the mission from rescue or diplomacy to salvage, arguing that the station may contain transformative information about alien biology and inherited experience.
Fabian’s experiments show Meshner’s implant is evolving beyond their control, creating vivid experiences and denying Meshner access to his own systems. When the station’s signal stops after Kern’s contact and local ships begin closing in, Zaine prepares to enter the wreck, while Meshner is unwillingly pulled along by emotions that seem not to be his own.
Summary
With Helena and Portia still missing and the octopus locals making no direct contact, Fabian grows angry and anxious aboard the Lightfoot. He resents the danger to his work, the limits placed on his ambitions, and Meshner’s worsening condition, but still pushes forward with experiments meant to transfer Portiid Understandings through Meshner’s implant.
Fabian gives Meshner a series of maze memories. Meshner experiences them not as abstract puzzles but as vivid, ruined, underwater spaces, suggesting that Meshner’s implant is expanding and drawing on both ship resources and Meshner’s brain to create something far more complex than Fabian intended. Meshner completes the tests, but another dissociative episode follows, and the experiment is interrupted as the Lightfoot reaches the orbiting station broadcasting Erma Lante’s signal.
The crew finds that the station is an Old Empire terraforming module altered with octopus technology, badly damaged by recent weapons fire. Its continuing signal appears human in form but inconsistent, repetitive, and partly nonsensical. Viola argues that the station contains vital records about the alien world and its biota, including possible genetic structures that may encode experience in a way comparable to Portiid Understandings, so she insists they salvage the archives and leave the system.
Kern attempts to connect with the station, but after a moment of contact the signal abruptly stops. Drones enter the wreck and trace surviving power to a sealed inner area. As local octopus vessels begin moving closer, Artifabian crosses from the Lightfoot to the station, forces open an airlock, and finds a lit chamber with an environment suit, a powered console, and controls seemingly designed for human hands.
The discovery implies that someone or something human-like was recently meant to use the chamber, but the console is difficult for Artifabian to operate. Meshner realizes his implant has gone badly wrong: he cannot examine or control it, and overpowering emotions that do not feel like his own compel him toward the station. Zaine volunteers to go inside, and Kern, supporting Viola’s urgency, says Meshner should accompany Zaine because two humans will be better able to work the human-designed systems.
Who Appears
- MeshnerHuman crewmember whose implant produces vivid experiences, emotional bleed, and loss of self-control.
- FabianMale Portiid researcher resentfully tests Understanding transfer through Meshner despite worsening risks.
- ViolaPortiid scientist asserts command, argues for salvaging alien records, and orders entry preparations.
- KernShip intelligence analyzes the station, briefly contacts its systems, and supports sending humans inside.
- ZaineHuman crewmember monitors approaching locals and volunteers to enter the derelict station.
- ArtifabianSpider-shaped remote crosses to the station, opens airlocks, and discovers the powered chamber.
- Octopus localsAggressive native civilization whose vessels begin moving toward the Lightfoot’s orbit.