Children of Ruin

Baltiel gathers the 13-person crew and reveals that their target planet, Tess 834h, is inhabited. He presents drone footage of a diverse and alien biosphere, including jellyfish-like creatures flying through the air and vast, strange flora. Citing the mission’s lack of protocol for this scenario, Baltiel declares his intention to abandon terraforming in favor of studying the new world. Senkovi proposes a compromise: Baltiel’s team can remain at Tess 834h to study its life, while Senkovi leads a second team to terraform the neighboring Tess 834g. Baltiel agrees, splitting the crew and resources. Senkovi’s team consists of himself and three others: Maylem, Poullister, and Lea Han.

Baltiel’s team remains in orbit around Tess 834h, which Senkovi nicknames “Nod.” Senkovi’s team takes the Aegean to Tess 834g, which he calls “Damascus.” They begin the terraforming process by inducing massive volcanic activity to melt the ice and create an atmosphere. Six months later, Senkovi reveals to Baltiel that he has begun a secret project using a forbidden viral catalyst to “uplift” octopuses. He claims they will serve as an intelligent, semi-autonomous workforce for the massive underwater construction projects Damascus will require. Disturbed but recognizing that his own mission on Nod is also a departure from their original orders, Baltiel reluctantly allows Senkovi to proceed.

Months later, with the crew cycling in and out of cold sleep, Senkovi has converted a payload bay into a large aquatic lab for his growing population of modified octopuses. His crewmate, the engineer Lea Han, discovers his unauthorized setup. Senkovi justifies the use of resources by showing her his superior reorganization of the ship’s storage. He is teaching the octopuses to interact with virtual environments and solve simple problems using a custom console. Though their progress is erratic, he notes that one octopus, Salome, shows particular aptitude for navigating the virtual space and has even begun playing games with him.

Years later, Baltiel and his ground team—Erma Lante, Gav Lortisse, and Kalveen Rani—are finally descending to Nod. As their shuttle enters the atmosphere, Baltiel receives a panicked, garbled message from Senkovi. Senkovi admits his uplifted octopuses have breached their virtual containment and are running rampant through the Aegean’s computer systems. To prevent them from causing catastrophic damage, he is forced to perform a total system reboot, a process that will take hours and leave him isolated. Committed to his landing, Baltiel can do nothing to help. As Baltiel’s team touches down on Nod, a signal from Earth—sent 30 years prior—hits their systems. It is a viral weapon that instantly disables the orbital module, the habitat, and their suits. Cut off from a now-powerless Aegean, the team believes they are marooned.

On Nod, stranded in a dead habitat with dwindling air, Baltiel and his crew have no other choice but to venture outside. They discover that the planet’s atmosphere is breathable, though difficult. On the Aegean, Senkovi waits in a spacesuit inside the cold, dark ship, using portable batteries to keep his octopuses alive until the system reboots. The process completes successfully, restoring full power to the ship. Senkovi reestablishes contact with the stunned crew on Nod, ending their isolation. 

A brief interlude from the perspective of a Nodan intelligence reveals that the planet’s native life is becoming aware of the “strange molecules” the human intruders have introduced.

The narrative jumps thousands of years into the future. The starship Voyager, crewed by the descendants of humanity and a civilization of intelligent, uplifted spiders known as Portiids, arrives in a new star system after detecting faint signals. Their shared history (as described in Children of Time) is recounted: Humanity arrived at the spiders’ world as refugees and, after a period of conflict, formed a symbiotic society. The ship’s operating system is Avrana Kern, the ancient, post-human scientist who uplifted the Portiids. Onboard, human linguist Helena Holsten Lain and her Portiid friend, Portia, work on improving interspecies communication. Meanwhile, human scientist Meshner Osten Oslam and his Portiid partner, Fabian, conduct dangerous experiments to directly implant Portiid genetic memories, called “Understandings,” into Meshner’s brain. Kern alerts the crew that they have detected a large artificial object.

The Voyager crew observes a massive, derelict artificial sphere, 27 kilometers in diameter. It is filled with ice and frozen fish, and one side has ruptured, spilling its contents into space. Deciding not to investigate further, they proceed toward the source of the signals. To make first contact safely, Kern dispatches a smaller scout ship, the Lightfoot, crewed by Helena, Portia, Meshner, Fabian, and a few others. The ship’s captain notes that energy signatures suggest the local civilization may be at war.

The Lightfoot approaches the system’s gas giant and discovers its moons are being actively mined by colossal, bioengineered tardigrade-like creatures that consume rock and ice and launch it toward the inner system. Kern establishes communication with an intelligence in the asteroid belt, but the signal is bizarre: 95% is a stream of abstract, colorful visual patterns, with only a small channel of comprehensible technical data. As the Lightfoot nears the rendezvous point, the visual signal becomes more aggressive, shifting to harsh reds and blacks. At Portia’s suggestion, they transmit an image of a human in response. The alien ships immediately cease their aggressive signaling, then launch dozens of smaller vessels and open fire.

The narrative returns to the past. 

The Voyager crew finds the crashed shuttle containing the bodies of Han and his other teammates deep in Damascus’s new ocean. Senkovi, blaming himself for their deaths, falls into a severe depression. Baltiel manages to break him out of it only by threatening to jettison his beloved octopuses. The five survivors grapple with the realization that the viral attack from Earth has silenced all human worlds, making them the last of their kind. Baltiel resolves to return to Nod to continue his research on Nod, while Senkovi commits to completing the terraforming of Damascus.

Years pass, with the crew spending most of their time in cold sleep. Believing no rescue or colonists will ever arrive from Earth, Lante, Rani, and Lortisse secretly begin a project to clone new humans from the ship’s genetic stores. Senkovi, aware of their plan, wakes Baltiel from an 11-year sleep with a practical joke, disguising himself as an old man. Lante presents her cloning project to Baltiel, arguing it is their duty to ensure humanity’s survival. Though he is reluctant to populate Nod, Baltiel agrees to her plan, stipulating that the new humans will be raised to live on the ocean world of Damascus.

Two of Senkovi’s uplifted octopuses, Paul and Salome, are sent down to Damascus in a space elevator. Confused and agitated by the descent, Salome attempts to break out of the capsule. Paul’s central brain registers fear, but it is his “Reach”—the distributed intelligence in his semi-autonomous arms—that comprehends the physical danger of a high-altitude breach. His arms attack Salome’s. After their struggle, Salome abruptly develops a new aversion to breaking out: Her own distributed intelligence now flags the action as dangerous, and she ceases her efforts.

On Nod, Baltiel and his team struggle with a sense of futility, their research now for an audience that no longer exists. They focus their studies on the two most complex native species: aggressive, bird-like fliers and large, shelled, tortoise-like animals. Meanwhile, Senkovi contacts Baltiel with stunning news. The octopuses deployed to Damascus are successfully repairing deep-sea equipment. They are demonstrating a grasp of complex, abstract tasks they had failed to perform in simulations. Senkovi also admits he sent them down in male-female breeding pairs, effectively beginning the colonization of Damascus with a non-human intelligence.

The perspective shifts to a native Nodan intelligence, a hive-mind of microorganisms that perceives the world through chemistry. It refers to itself as “We” and has become aware of the human presence. This newness is both toxic and fascinating. After some of its individual cells are killed investigating the humans, the collective consciousness decides that it must act.

Aboard the Voyager, Senkovi struggles to get his new generation of octopuses to replicate the success of their counterparts on Damascus. During a failed test, one subject, Paul 58, hacks the virtual environment to send Senkovi a repeated error code: “[RestateIntent].” Senkovi is stunned to realize the octopus is not asking for clarification on the task, but is posing a deep, existential question: What is the purpose of this? Why? The revelation shatters Senkovi’s perception of his creations; he understands they are not merely pets or tools, but a new sentient species demanding answers he does not have.

On Nod, Lortisse records a private audio journal while collecting tortoise specimens for Lante’s research. He reflects on the crew’s quiet despair, noting how each member has retreated into a form of denial to cope with being the last humans: Rani designs impossible cities, Lante endlessly plans but never begins her cloning project, and Baltiel continues his research as if nothing has changed. One day, one of the seemingly placid tortoises unexpectedly stabs Lortisse in the leg with a sharp appendage. His suit’s medical systems blare alarms as he collapses, his leg swelling in agony.