Children of Time

The next Portia, a brave explorer, impatiently waits to escape into the night air. She has a quick tryst with her preferred partner, Fabian. Their relationship is monogamous, which is uncommon among the spiders but satisfying to both of them. The next day, Portia and her 12-spider crew board the Sky Nest. This flying machine is an amalgamation of spider craft, ant industriousness, and Kern’s own design for flight. It uses the ants to control the various elements, is lightly built because of its webbing. It is kept aloft by hydrogen and propelled by light metal. The Sky Nest’s creator, Bianca, studies her invention and sends a signal to the Messenger, saying, “We are coming” (432).

Holsten is ripped from stasis and a cloud of burning and acrid smoke. He falls out of the cold storage box and finds himself surrounded by three people in ship suits, who tell him that his chamber is malfunctioning and that he is being moved to another one while it is repaired fixed. After having awakened to a new horror each time he is summoned forth from cold storage, Holsten explodes emotionally, throwing open the door of the chamber and running through the corridors of the ship.