After the plague, Bianca survives with debilitating seizures, while many—including the brilliant Viola—are lost. Great Nest and other cities stabilize only narrowly, recognizing their fragility and the steep cost in lost expertise despite a lifesaving serum.

Scientists realize Portia’s treatment did more than grant immunity: it enabled adult minds to accept new Understandings. With knowledge now rare, they pursue isolating and transferring specific skills. A few years later, a male test subject receives a basic, imperfect astronomy Understanding, proving adults can be taught directly.

This discovery rapidly reshapes society. Any spider can acquire curated Understandings, and an economy of modular, tradable knowledge emerges. Portia’s generation stands on chosen intellectual “giants,” accelerating science and culture beyond generational teaching.

Amid a post-plague loosening of orthodoxy, Portia presents Bianca to the Temple, and the community resolves to answer the orbital Messenger. Years later, the elder Portia and Bianca help transmit prepared mathematical solutions and the message, “We are here.” The Messenger immediately ceases its own transmissions, throwing the city into days of alarm, before finally speaking again.