Children of Time

Holsten sits at a terminal, slowly cataloguing the information coming in from the abandoned partial terraforming station. He has now acquired more knowledge of the Old Empire than he has ever collected before. He has created algorithms to translate Imperial languages, and his primary responsibility is to translate anything that the engineering crews pass along to him. As Holsten muses about the project, the past, and the inferiority of his peoples’ technology when contrasted with that of the Old Empire, Guyen taps him on the shoulder and gives him a list of documents he’d like to have translated.

Great Nest is slowly dying as many flee the city ahead of a massive plague that is now sweeping through the spider species. The new Portia, a scientist and priestess, seeks to solve the riddle of this plague in order to save her civilization. Spiders, unlike humans, lack an immune system that responds to vaccinations, so the spiders are more likely to die out than to recover. Because of the plague, many spiders are also losing faith in the Messenger and the order that she represents. Portia thinks for a moment that if she could only send a message back to the Messenger, then The Messenger might destroy the plague, but Portia knows that finding a solution is up to her.