Before "Hiding Place"

"Hiding Place" is neither the first story in Poul Anderson's Technic History nor even the first Nicholas van Rijn story but it was the first in the original reading order, beginning with the van Rijn collection, Trader To The Stars. This meant starting in the middle of the history when a lot had already happened. "Hiding Place" is the eleventh and last story in The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume I, The Van Rijn Method, where it is preceded by:

the previously uncollected "The Saturn Game";

seven works previously collected in The Earth Book Of Stormgate;

two works previously collected in The Trouble Twisters.

Before "Hiding Place": 

the Ythrians, van Rijn, Falkayn and Adzel have all been introduced to the readers although not yet to each other;

the planet, Cynthia, has been mentioned twice although the Cynthian, Chee Lan, has not yet arrived;

Falkayn and other traders have worked on Ivanhoe, one of the planets that will later join Falkayn's Supermetals Company.

But much else has still to happen.