Chitin armour: Body armour cut from the shells of Paussid beetles and fitted to Portia and her warriors. The shell carries the beetles' scent of absence, so the ants read its wearer as nothing at all.
Environment suit: Sealed suits for work where there is no air. Humans aboard the Gilgamesh wear heavy armoured versions, and the spiders of Kern's World build their own to reach the top of the atmosphere and orbit.
Mind upload: Mind upload copies a human mind into a computer. Avrana Kern's upload keeps her satellite working for millennia, and Vrie Guyen's attempt leaves broken copies of him loose in the Gilgamesh.
Nanovirus: An engineered virus delivered to Kern’s World to accelerate development in its hosts. It alters inherited traits, encourages social bonds among affected species and can pass learned knowledge to offspring.
Radio: Radio is the spiders' long range signalling technology, and the only channel between their world and the Messenger in orbit. Their sets are grown rather than built, so a damaged part simply regrows.
Silk: Silk is the thread the spiders spin, and the material of their lines, dwellings, tools and weapons. In orbit it becomes the great equatorial web, the largest structure their species builds.
Sky Nest: A hydrogen airship built by the spiders of Seven Trees, and the vessel that lifts Portia and her crew towards the top of their atmosphere. It serves as the mothership for the smaller Star Nest.
Suspension chamber: Suspension chambers are the sealed cold sleep tanks that keep humans alive across the Gilgamesh's voyage of millennia. The crew call them coffins, and their slow failure shapes the lives of everyone aboard.
The crystal: A pale crystal that the ants mount on a spire above their colony mound, where it carries the Messenger's signal to whatever metal touches it. A spider stole one from the ants, and it became the centre of the temple at Great Nest, where priestesses dance out its message.