Children of Ruin

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  Two Portiids might just be able to move a Human, but not over rough ground in such a way as to maintain anyone’s suit integrity. Thankfully this problem solves itself as a tracked drone approaches them from the main body of the crashed ship, which now resembles little more than a gigantic half-deflated tent. The drone’s tracks are unkind to those starfish-things they grind over, leaving a dark, leaking ichor in its wake, but it has a flatbed that they can at least lever Zaine’s torso onto, and by unspoken agreement they fold her arms over her chest and each take a leg, the whole endeavour having the sense of some horrifying farce.

  Halfway to the main body of the Lightfoot—now not worthy of that name—Fabian discovers that, of course, the plateau ecosystem is not a monoculture, because something has come to investigate.

  It moves swiftly, certainly in contrast with the starfish. It comes into view from the cliff edge, having scaled the side, or perhaps arisen from its roost there. It is… Fabian has no ready comparison. It has a globular body and a number of limbs which appear pneumatic, so that it progresses in lurching fits, the limbs at its rear inflating and thrusting it forwards, then a pause as it works out where it has gone, then another sudden charge. The starfish things are reacting to it, their limbs curling up with painful slowness, hiding their photosynthetic vulnerables from what is apparently a predator.

  Fabian has frozen; now he is dragged on as the tracked drone continues its progress. The predator obviously registers their movement—Fabian is unsure if it sees, exactly—and flails over, its limbs plunging rigid-flaccid-rigid-flaccid to bounce and jar it towards them. It is a fair match for Fabian in size, which is to say its body is smaller than a human head, and the greatest span of its limbs, fully extended, would be about a metre and a half. Fabian does the only thing he can think of and gives the alien monster a full-on threat display, limbs raised high to make himself as big as he can be, palps quivering as he dances back and forth.

  The alien thing comes to a sudden slapping halt, and Fabian sees that there are whorls and pits studded about its body that presumably serve as sense organs. It waves some half-tumescent tentacles at him uncertainly—this space-suited arachnid visitor from another world. He pitches himself even higher, almost toppling over with his tiny ferocity, and miraculously the thing seems to get the message and shrugs off somewhat sullenly to go and molest one of the ruptured starfish.

  When they get to the airlock of the Lightfoot and Viola begins the complex logistics of preserving quarantine whilst getting everyone safe and inside, Fabian glances back and sees half a dozen of the rubbery things feeding on those starfish that have not curled in on themselves in time, and also an entirely different beast, as much like an ambulatory pineapple as anything. None of them pay any attention to their visitors from the sky.

  Zaine safely handed off, Fabian decides to take better stock of their surroundings, because the Lightfoot is plainly not going anywhere soon. He keeps loose tabs via comms on the situation inside. Zaine has been unsuited and placed in a sealed section with Artifabian, which is now coordinating with some of Kern’s attention to treat her injuries as best it can, whilst steadfastly refusing or unable to link to its mother computer.

  Kern’s own resources are diverted elsewhere. Presumably she does not have the energy or focus to try and hack the robot and bring it back into the fold, and so must let it continue to patter about, lost in its own cover identity as a male Portiid.

  Fabian scuttles around the crashed ship’s edge, stepping fastidiously over great spools of unstrung hull material. The ground rises sharply on the side away from the cliff edge. He is thinking about caves, and perhaps large things that might live in caves. The terrain that way is very rugged, thrown up into blocks and jags by some hopefully-distant volcanism. Or perhaps not volcanism… Fabian tries to adjust to what he is looking at, but then Kern has an announcement.

  I have a long-range comms contact.

  With the octopuses? Viola demands, because the locals have demonstrated a wide range of possible responses and coming over to finish the job is certainly in the running.

  I have drones still in orbit. I have configured one as a receiver and relay station. I will be able to send out a signal that can reach the Voyager, Kern states, with more animation than before, drawing back her scattered resources from their many errands. Also: I have established contact with the station.

  We do not want contact with the station, Viola decides emphatically.

  We do, Kern says forcefully. I have made contact with Meshner.

  Fabian twitches at the thought, because he is not sure that there is a “Meshner” left to make contact with, but there might be something wearing his face up there, and the idea is almost as upsetting to him as it would be to a Human. He gathers himself to give everyone the benefit of his sure-to-be-disregarded opinion, then his limbs go still and he stares, finally processing what he is looking at.

  Portiids, like Humans, are very good at finding patterns, even when there are none to be found. As a scientist, Fabian has tried to train himself out of such behaviour, which is less the mother of inspiration than of false positives. It has taken him too long, therefore, to accept that what he is seeing is no freak of geology, after all.

  Moments later Fabian gets through the airlock and bursts into the crew chamber, unsuited, legs flying in a blur as he tries to get his news out.

  Outside, upslope, there! his feet stammer to Viola; and then, with more control, There is a city.

  4.

  Helena and Portia have been returned to their cell, but without any sense of a decision being arrived at amongst their captors. More anthropomorphism. She had looked for a comprehensible narrative in the patterns of their skins and motions; a sense that their parliament was moving, through that visible debate, to some manner of rational conclusion. But then she realized that even Humans, even Portiids, might not present such an ordered picture in their decision-making. Even a single individual might not. What is a decision, after all? Helena knows the research better than most: there are Portiid scientists who say that the mind is like an ant’s nest, individual neurons, like ant workers, weighing in on either side of any given issue until a tipping point is reached and the brain, or the colony, thinks, I have made a decision and here (post facto) are my rational reasons. Looked at in such a light, this civilization of the octopus is perhaps not so different to her own, save that instead of the self-deceit of Human/Portiid determinism, they are comfortable with their own malleability.

  Too neat, too pithy, for physically malleable beings? And again the anthropomorphism; in the end she cannot escape it, part of what makes her Human. She wonders if their hosts view their angular prisoners with, what, cephalopodomorphism? And pity them their lack of expression, maybe? And now Helena is honest enough to know that her mind is just spinning wheels to nowhere.

  The octopus prisoner apparently fared better than they, or worse, for its adjoining chamber is vacant. Or is it just hiding there, camouflaged beyond my ability to see?

  Almost comically soon, before either of them have done more than start to doff their suits, they are being invited to move again. The same bubble, the same pipes, but now they end up in a far smaller chamber, air-filled and equipped with a recognizable Old Empire terminal, save that it is plainly newly-minted and somewhat cobbled together, as though the octopuses have tried earnestly to replicate a thing known only from old records. There are things like chairs, too, in that they have the right general shape but are impossible to sit on without a constant fight for balance. There is…

  There is a picture emblazoned on one wall. It is desperately trying to be an illustration of a human, for a human. Possibly it is intended to be Disra Senkovi, a positive human role model acting as the bridge between two very different species. A long-gone art critic might describe the end result as Cubist, as though the creator was trying to show the man from multiple sides and at multiple times, all in one still image.

  There are a dozen octopuses, at least,
watching them from a neighbouring chamber, most of them hovering over the rubbery, organic interfaces they use. One is front and centre, its skin paler than the others, red tones flickering about the lower edge of its mantle: unease, fear.

  “That is the prisoner one,” comes Portia’s translated speech.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Mostly sure. Or it is one that has adopted that one’s… mental state, ideas? But I think it is that one. The others are all together in some thought-state or agreement. It is not. And they want it to talk to us.” This does indeed seem to be the case, from the front-and-centre placement of the mournful-looking creature. And why single one out for the honour, unless it has a smidgeon more experience of talking to aliens than the rest as their much-abused ambassador?

  It has a few tentacles on one of the consoles now, manipulating it desultorily as colours begin to build sullenly across its skin. The initial impression is of disinterest, but then Helena reinterprets the pose as one that will let the creature jet away in retreat if threatened: mentally reassuring for it, perhaps.

  And then the translation comes in, such as it is, and she watches with fascination as the other octopuses prompt and chatter and fight each other, or the ambassador, and then the ambassador’s skin and arms speak to her, with messages that seem entirely different to what it is being “told” to say, save that none of the others raise any apparent objections, seeming satisfied. And she replies.

  Her slate links easily enough to the console. She has mastered the two channel comms now, her words translated into colours and data, stripped of half the meanings she tries to put into them but still getting something comprehensible over. Portia watches her carefully and adds physical motion, not trying to mimic the boneless fluidity of their hosts but adopting stylized poses, legs twisted into painful-looking positions as she emphasizes and reinforces Helena’s message.

  It would all, she knows, look utterly hilarious to Disra Senkovi, who had been a man fond of his jokes when his mood was on the manic end.

  Then the humour is gone because the octopus ambassador is telling her they know about the Voyager. Its visual display is merely one of somewhat arch demonstration—We know things—but the data channel has exacting telemetry on where the ship lurks in the outer solar system, up to and including potential targeting solutions.

  “It’s a threat,” Portia says flatly.

  But Helena strives to strip all anthropocentric thinking away and decides, “Not yet it’s not. But they want us to know they know. Or perhaps they’d have to make a special effort not to tell us. They seem to communicate so much, all the time. But they know.”

  She manages to phrase her reply to the ambassador carefully: she is proud of the Voyager, which was an admirable creation. She wonders what they want. She is calm, so very calm. She is agitated about the fate of her friends. She is curious. She is friendly. All in a sentence, all in a sentiment. She watches the audience—not the fearful ambassador but the rest of them, seeing shades of her words ghost across their skins, passed from one to another; seeing a full half-dozen of them erupt into furious grappling, then break apart and retreat from one another, trying to pretend it never happened, ignoring their fellows for their consoles. Their thoughts flicker about the edge of her notice as the ambassador dances again.

  They are speaking about the Lightfoot and its destruction, but she only knows that from the data. The emotional overtones are complex, interweaving. They are sad. They are angry. They are eager. Eager to destroy more alien visitors? No, this is an old eagerness, one they have held for a long time, nurtured with fondness, defended. She feels as though she is being given whole reams of history, the pages loose and shuffled. Suddenly they are all of a mind, colours synced, save for the ambassador whose careful messaging is a step behind and simplified, dumbed down for the stupid aliens. This is their obsession, and it is inextricably linked to the other planet—no, to the station orbiting the other planet, the one where something happened to Meshner. The one that proved fatal for the Lightfoot. Except…

  “They have a signal,” Portia confirms, quicker than Helena to decode the data channel. “From the Lightfoot. It is… on the planet. But Kern is signalling. I suspect she’s hoping the Voyager will intercept and mount a rescue mission. She’s trying to keep the Voyager’s location secret, though, and just broadcasting wide. I don’t know if the signal will have enough integrity to be picked up that far out.”

  “On the planet,” Helena echoes.

  Portia’s palps clench confirmation, a gesture like a pained grimace: It is what it is. And then the ambassador is talking again, and she feels its colours and motions are more deliberate, an active attempt to speak slowly and patiently to the idiot aliens to get over some piece of information, some proposal.

  A journey, it telegraphs painstakingly, because the idea of travel is an emotion to them. Weighing of risk, fear (some specific interpretation of “reward” that has no exact Human cognate), the satisfaction of accomplishment, triumph! And the chromatic flourish that the creature gives the sentiment justifies the exclamation mark. Simultaneously Portia has dissected the data.

  “They want to go there, to that planet. They want us to go with them there because… they think we can help? Is that it?”

  A Human, to go to a human place, where a human-shaped threat is lurking. Bait, distraction, sacrifice, good luck charm? All possibilities.

  Or a rescue mission? Perhaps this is the peace faction, momentarily united in their wish to be benevolent to alien invaders from the stars. And how long might that resolution last before some other obsession takes hold over them? Enough to get to the inner planet and back again? Will they keep reinforcing each others’ intentions, or will Helena and Portia wake one morning to find the whole load of them turned into genocidal monsters?

  On the other hand, it is the only game in town.

  5.

  Viola gets the drones working. Fabian is frankly surprised. He had her categorized as one of those females who didn’t get her legs dirty with the practical side of things, but it was she, not Kern, who got the tracked machine out to carry Zaine, and she steered it manually because she couldn’t reactivate its onboard processor.

  Zaine’s suit is stowed in quarantine. Zaine herself, through a complex personal docking procedure, is now in the main crew compartment with the two Portiids, after Artifabian confirmed that she never shared an atmosphere with the potential infection. This is not an exacting scientific standard of proof but they are short on space in that portion of the Lightfoot that survived the crash.

  Viola’s focus is very much the ship and its deteriorating status, as well as Zaine’s injuries, but she repairs an aerial drone for Fabian to go look at this “city” he has alleged. Kern is little help, responding to them in bare monosyllables or sentences shorn of personality. Her attention is on the comms. She is trying to send to the Voyager in such a way as will not give away the mothership’s position, or that is what she says she is doing. She is also devoting some of her attention to contacting Meshner, if there is a Meshner to be contacted. She swears there is, although Fabian has seen some data and thinks she has just linked to the Human’s implant, which is unlikely to be chatty on its own. Saying this to Kern meets with stony silence.

  Fabian drags the operational drone into the airlock, seals the aperture and then scuttles over to the control console, which is operating on minimal power. Kern is converting the upper sections of hull to be photosynthetic, using her slowly replenishing micro-crew of ants because direct hull control is one of the many luxuries that failed to survive atmospheric insertion. Still, Portiid biotechnology is endlessly moddable in a pinch, up to and including Kern’s own organic hardware. She is restoring herself, recovering or reinventing her personality. From the occasional sharp retorts to stop questioning her, this is proceeding apace.

  He has the outer airlock door open and sets the drone into wobbling flight, imagining the unsteady keening of its rotors as it lists to one side.
Then it is out from the lock, rising up over the star-strewn plain, turning cumbrously to see what Viola insists is a natural phenomenon.

  It is not a natural phenomenon.

  Fascinated, a little afraid, Fabian guides the shuddering drone forwards, looking down on a boxy grid of streets, of ranks of blocky structures all collapsed onto each other. A city, but a ruin. A city, moreover, built to an alien but not unfamiliar aesthetic. Portiids tend towards a spiral, three-dimensional urban layout (which, moreover, they tend to snarl up and turn into a tangled chaos as various peer houses jockey for prominence). Humans, though… Humans like their boxes. They like their ranks and columns and their counting from one side to the other, from top to bottom. Such thinking! How do they ever create anything?

  And yet they created this, surely. It is a city for humans. Where entryways have survived, they are scaled for a human’s huge frame, and all at ground level. And ruined, yes, and yet… Fabian’s pattern-recognition centres are firing, telling him what he’s seeing is wrong. He guides the drone lower, repurposing old skills because he is a behavioural scientist, not a pilot, and he got rid of any relevant Understandings long ago to free up mental space for more germane knowledge. If he had only known…

  The buildings are…

  Fabian does not jump to conclusions, especially not outlandish ones. No quicker way to kill off a male’s scientific career, after all.

  The buildings are not built.

  The ground would naturally rise in this direction. He can see higher ground beyond, perhaps speckled with some other species of sessile autotrophs, and he can see a cliff, and the higher ground is natural but the cliff is not. It has been cut away, the sendimentary stone of it worn down, quarried, mined, removed like a sculptor with a statue until all that is left is the city. These buildings were never built from the ground up, no worked stone, no bricks. They were left behind when the rest of the ground was removed. Humans do not build this way.