Status Updates From The Judge of Ages (Count to...

Into exile aboard the ship Blackie stole from Montrose. They have no choice but to cooperate if they are to survive.

The Swans reveal themselves, and condemn both Montrose and Blackie. And the invasion from the Hyades is only two centuries away. Who will lead the fight against it?

An exchange of questions and answers. Both men discover that the other does not know a key piece of information.

Our hero and his antagonist communicate their ideas in the Monument symbols. A nightmare society of Paramounts and will-less Helots whose minds can be programmed like robots to want what they ought.

Blackie just has to gloat about how clever he was, creating societies specifically to get Montrose to reveal key formulae in the process of fixing them. How everything he did was part of a careful long-term plan to get his rival to do his work for him, and become complicit in his plans to create a tyrannical system that could be handed over to the lords of the Hyades.

Sorting out some important things. Then the nature of the Bell is revealed, and a long awaited confrontation is arranged.

The battle is over, help is called for the wounded. Now our hero lays out his deductions as to the villain's motivations and long-term plans, based upon the Monument inscriptions and the villain's known character flaws. The problem that a superintelligent person can be super-stupid in certain areas as a result.

Loyalties are revealed, and one ally's disgusting habits are addressed. Now to figure out exactly what Blackie Del Azarchel is up to.

The firefight continues, and we get the scene of the Giant's death from a different POV, making it almost worse, as if he died twice.

The battle to capture the fire control station. Our hero's identity is revealed, and several characters pay the ultimate price to allow him to get where he needs.

For the first time we actually see one of the Giants who were the Menace of the beginning of the second book, who had forced the rest of humanity to take refuge in the air. Then a firefight.

The truth is out about the "Judge of Ages," and it's not what I thought. Still, we've got some serious old feuds going here -- and the Bell may not be alien tech, but something more like human efforts to build something described on the Monument. Blackie's doing, or someone else's?

The Tomb of the Judge of Ages is breached. The elaborate architecture and decoration is so over the top that it feels like a stage set. The Judge on his throne is clearly an impostor -- but how is he, and who does he serve? It feels like Blackie's doing, but I have a feeling that the obvious answer is wrong.

Our hero reveals himself to possible allies -- and discovers there is a piece of alien technology already on Earth well in advance of the Hyades fleet. Something that shouldn't even be possible.

Our hero wonders how long he can continue to conceal his identity. Not to mention the conundrum that the Blue Men are simultaneously his enemies and his clients, creating contradictory mandates.