The Valtay Corporation

Three item names in a History tab (ch. 47): a Trans Tunnel 7C Orator Relay (illegal), a Perso-Shield Platinum Edition, a Mag 3040 Pulse Pistol — all Valtay, all from Agatha's shopping cart. Odette (epilogue): a parasitic corporate government that prefers aquatic hosts, with a fleet parked outside the Borant system to collect a debt, hours from a collection action when the kua-tin started the season early; the next season will be theirs. Carl decides not to get involved and does not tell her about Agatha.

Everywhere and unnamed as a threat: an Intellect Hunter race Carl suspects is theirs (ch. 2); Manasa, a Valtay 'worm head' whose career outlived her body (ch. 19); the bankruptcy debate on Danger Zone; a dreadnaught in Earth orbit that destroys a Skull Empire royal yacht (ch. 19). 'Their entertainment assets' bring in more than their technology. Agatha, whose cart held their items in book 1, is named twice on this floor (ch. 8, ch. 14) but never with them.

Carl's sponsor, a corporation Borant hates (ch. 11, ch. 12); 'Keeping the Best of You Alive'; a pill that rewrites his interface so he can see through portals (ch. 13) — which finds the hat-key, the yard, the mimic and the way home (ch. 15, ch. 28). Tin's note: the aliens wear gods like the Valtay wear bodies (ch. 32). They wiped out the H'lene with the orcs (ch. 30).

A second pill: elevation and airspeed, which finds the way up in the Vahana and the way up from the ocean floor (ch. 8). Gondii, per Mordecai: brain worms that run a dead body for centuries (ch. 5). A worm in the face of the Syndicate's own liaison, and 'we do take over after the next floor' (ch. 19). A lawyer sent to help Borant beat the Skull Empire's injunction, because neither likes the orcs (ch. 34). 'The cruelest of them all', per a null in Seattle, remembering Crawler Hoon's children (epilogue).

A worm in the liaison's fishbowl (ch. 1); 'the naked ones are the worst' (ch. 3); fifty-one per cent of Borant by court order, and dropped as Carl's sponsor for conflict of interest (ch. 19); a new stepdad that will want its own top ten (ch. 20); a ship on the sea floor with its own security (ch. 30); a captain's regards and zero zones (ch. 32); a moon elf under contract with a worm in him (ch. 33). The seventh floor was built with their money (ch. 56).

Likely irritated with Borant's engineers, and likely ramping up the difficulty, by Mordecai's reckoning (ch. 2); Valtay rules require a liaison whenever a crawler is alone with a sponsor (ch. 12); dozens of staff lost in the changeover, and no micro AI assistants allowed (ch. 13); ships that fire on each other, manual routing, and stepping back for investor confidence (ch. 21); Drick, a worm head with a Valtay life extension, refused as adjutant (ch. 36, ch. 37); the Valtay solution: extinction by mercenary (epilogue).

The adjutant Drick is a Valtay worm, a gondii (ch. 9, ch. 56). Worms turn up in the Posse's own mages, Goldblum among them, and Tipid, his arm half gone, explains that the Valtay charter requires willing hosts but that outlaw gondii mercenaries exist (ch. 29, ch. 30). The AI apologises for allowing 'this Spelljammer/Warhammer bullshit' into its dungeon (ch. 31); Orren lays out what the Valtay know about the illegal non-Valtay implant in Carl's head (ch. 36); Cascadia's home system hired the Valtay against the Bloom, and a derelict warship goes into Borant's habitat ring (ch. 43); the showrunners refuse a self-destruct (ch. 81).

The Emperator's system-busting bomb is gone (ch. 23); Carl's neural implant reports incompatibility mode when he is a dachshund (ch. 85); Sydnee Iglacia's publisher is a Valtay subsidiary with worm contracts (epilogue).