Hindsight

"Esau."

Sometimes an earlier passage is significant later, e.g.:

van Rijn on Earth:

"'Trying to modernize [the Baburites] was mainly interested in robotics for some reason...'" (p. 105)

Nakamura on Suleiman:

"'I begin to see why [the Baburites'] planners concentrated on developing robotics at the beginning of modernization. No doubt they intend to use machines in quite a few larcenous little undertakings.'" (p. 120)

Retro-knowledge is a marvelous commodity. When a Baburite assures Dalmady that Babur has conferred with SSL's competitors, we, with the benefit of hindsight, see the Seven In Space and Benoni Strang lurking in the background but Poul Anderson did not know about them when writing "Esau." Later in the Technic History, in The Game Of Empire, Anderson does describe events that had occurred off-stage concurrently with events that he described earlier. See Erik Magnusson.