Overlapping Stories II

In the "overlapping stories" section of The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume II, we see not two but three sets of events occurring simultaneously. We have already been given a sense of important events happening on an interstellar scale in settings as diverse as the planets, Ythri, Lucifer, Esperance, Gray (not yet colonized or renamed Avalon), Hermes, Woden, Cynthia, Aeneas, Ivanhoe, Diomedes and Suleiman and in San Francisco Integrate on Earth.

Now we learn that:

Nicholas van Rijn's first trade pioneer crew of David Falkayn, Adzel and Chee Lan has been active on the planets, Ikananka and Merseia;

other employees of van Rijn's Solar Spice & Liquors Company have been active on the planet, Cain;

van Rijn continues to run SSL while remaining on Earth.

"The Master Key" is the culmination of this whole period. After that, the decline begins in Satan's World and "A Little Knowledge," then accelerates in "Lodestar" and Mirkheim.

I want to post more about "The Master Key" but have started to watch Montalbano.