Leigh Kimmel’s Reviews > The Vindication of Man > Status Update

The duel turns weird -- or was it a duel at all? Were the formalities of calling out properly followed, or can Blackie consider it a continuation of an earlier scuffle? One thing is for certain -- the ship is hopelessly damaged. Montrose is preparing to go into hibernation, against some faint hope of rescue -- but there are only a few pages left, so not much room for a surprise rescue.

The verbal sparring match with the emissary of Praesepe, revelation of how diecous sexual reproduction is when considered across the galaxy and the universe. And then Montrose and Del Azarchel prepare to duel again, recalling the interrupted duel that ended the first volume.

The sheer power of the emissary -- Montrose and Del Azarchel must go into biosuspension and use artificial organs of perception and cognition, lest they be burned to ashes. Echoes of ancient astronaut theorists' interpretation of Mount Sinai as an encounter with super-advanced technologies that unprotected flesh cannot understand.

How alien mega-brains the size of star clusters think in a 'verse where the speed of light is a non-negotiable hard limit of the universe, with no get-arounds like hyperspace or warp drives. The parallels with a merely human bureaucracy and its limitations.

Awe-inspiring cosmic architecture -- a Dyson sphere like a giant cathedral of stained-glass panels, shepherded by planets that are themselves engineered. And a revelation -- Montrose's personality has been copied by the infamous Cahetel, and vomited forth here, to give the orders allowing Del Azarchel to do what Montrose objects to.

Midway through their voyage, Montrose and Del Azarchel are in a fight, because Blackie was using energy to transmit copies of his mind all over the place in some scheme. What is he up to now?

Ain's deal -- Torment and all its inhabitants and chattels will become servants of Ain's, to be egocast to distant worlds to argue Ain's case, while Montrose and Del Azarchel will continue to Praesepe for the fuel for the trip to M3. Montrose is not pleased, but there is no other deal.

Conversation with the mind of Ain reveals new wrinkles, and a tragic misunderstanding. None of the local super-brains even knew about the Monument -- and it lacked a vital bit of information. Conquest wasn't the primary intent -- had humanity repaid the arriving entities with cooperation, there would've been peaceable trade, but we were led to assume a War of the Worlds, and prepared defenses.

Have they been trapped into indenturing themselves, after Rania won humanity's freedom? And worse, have they handed over the entire population of Torment as serfs? And then a very mysterious conversation in the Monument notation -- that the entire universe is an artifact of the mysterious Ulteriors, and Rania's being stretches beyond the universe in a way theirs doesn't.

Way back in the first book, Montrose and Raina talked about ramming the enemy -- until Raina pointed out that they were dealing with an entire globular cluster that operated in unison. But now it looks like Montrose and Blackie are going to end up ramming the Hyades Cluster's "capital."