Hillalum and the Elamite miners arrive in Babylon and join the celebration before beginning their ascent of the tower.

A heavenly water reservoir breaches and floods the tunnel; Hillalum escapes through a fissure and emerges on Earth's surface.

Leon survives near-drowning after receiving the experimental drug Hormone K, which rapidly and radically increases his intelligence.

Reynolds plants a hidden memory trigger that destroys Leon's mind the moment Leon comprehends the embedded command.

Renee tells Carl she has produced a proof showing that arithmetic as a formal system is fundamentally inconsistent.

Renee attempts suicide, unable to find purpose in life after her mathematical beliefs have been destroyed by her own proof.

Alien artifacts appear at sites across the world and Colonel Weber recruits linguist Louise Banks to communicate with the heptapods.

Learning to write in the heptapod language transforms Louise's cognition until she begins perceiving her own future as memory.

The heptapods announce they are leaving, and all alien ships depart Earth simultaneously without explanation.

Lord Fieldhurst reveals to Robert Stratton that the human species faces extinction within several generations.

Robert begins composing a new nomenclature name designed to allow humanity to reproduce itself without any eugenic control.

Metahumans have entirely surpassed human researchers, who can no longer make original scientific contributions.

Angel Nathanael's visitation strikes a shopping district, killing Neil Fisk's beloved wife Sarah and sending her soul to Heaven.

Neil witnesses the Divine Light and dies filled with genuine love for God, yet God sends him to Hell.

The Pemberton calliagnosia vote is defeated, and the cosmetics industry's PR manipulation of the campaign is subsequently exposed.

This pool traces the most consequential moments in each story of the collection, from Hillalum's arrival at the Tower of Babylon to the defeat of the calliagnosia initiative at Pemberton College. It covers Leon's drug-induced rise to superintelligence and his fatal confrontation with Reynolds, as well as Renee's world-shattering mathematical proof and the suicide attempt that follows. The arrival of alien ships and Louise Banks's transformation through heptapod language form the emotional core of the collection's centerpiece story. Robert Stratton's discovery of humanity's extinction threat and his race to compose a world-saving name drive the steampunk narrative of Seventy-Two Letters. The pool closes through Neil Fisk's agonizing journey from grief to faith and his unjust consignment to Hell, before ending with the corporate manipulation that dooms compulsory callies at Pemberton.

The headline events across all eight stories.

Hillalum watches the sun set from high on the tower and understands that night is the shadow of the Earth itself.

The miners climb past the level of the sun and are unsettled to see its light shining upward beneath their feet.

Leon identifies a CIA operative among his doctors and withdraws from the intelligence study to avoid becoming a government asset.

Leon robs a pharmaceutical courier van to obtain an additional ampule of Hormone K before relocating to New York.

Fabrisi reviews Renee's new calculations and confirms the mechanical correctness of her self-contradicting formalism.

Renee is released from the psychiatric ward and wonders whether she will ever be able to function in the world again.

Louise and Gary encounter a heptapod face-to-face for the first time when the alien artifact mirror becomes transparent.

Gary explains Fermat's variational principle of least time at dinner, and Louise connects it to how heptapods perceive the world.

Robert creates an automaton with flexible fingers capable of casting another automaton, threatening to eliminate sculptors' livelihoods.

Kabbalist mystic Benjamin Roth visits Robert and asks him to share his nomenclature findings; Robert refuses.

The journal editorial urges human scientists to remember that the very technologies enabling metahumans were originally invented by ordinary humans.

Janice Reilly is born without lower limbs after angel Bardiel's visitation affects her mother during pregnancy.

Angel Rashiel's visitation grants Janice a miraculous restoration of her legs, leaving her profoundly confused about God's intent.

Tamera has her calli deactivated when she turns eighteen and discovers with relief that she is considered attractive.

Walter Lambert speaks at Pemberton, warning that beauty is being weaponized through technology as addictively and manipulatively as cocaine.

This pool assembles the important secondary events that fill in the texture of each story, from Hillalum's revelatory experience watching night fall across the earth to the legislative and social battles surrounding calliagnosia at Pemberton College. Leon's evasion of government surveillance and acquisition of more Hormone K precede his final confrontation, while Renee's colleague Fabrisi verifies her proof before she spirals toward breakdown. The heptapod language's physical properties are introduced through Louise and Gary's first direct encounter and their pivotal dinner conversation about Fermat's principle. Robert Stratton's creation of a self-replicating automaton triggers a labor conflict, and Benjamin Roth's visit draws him into a web of danger. The pool also traces Janice Reilly's transformation from limbless preacher to miracle recipient, and Tamera Lyons's first disorienting days with her calli switched off.

Significant moments that shaped each story's outcome.

Hillalum's group reaches the solid ceiling of Heaven's vault and Hillalum feels as though the world has flipped upside down.

Trapped by rising water, Hillalum realizes God never commanded the tower to be built and that men accepted this risk alone.

Leon discovers that another superintelligent man named Reynolds has been sending him covert signals through stock market manipulation.

Leon travels to Philadelphia and meets Reynolds, and the two exchange information using a compressed shorthand of superhuman language.

Renee asks colleague Fabrisi to review her calculations for the first time in her career, unable to trust herself alone.

Mathematician Callahan independently confirms that Renee's new formalism is both fundamental and deeply disturbing to the entire field.

Louise grasps that heptapods use language performatively, writing sentences in order to actualize reality rather than merely describe it.

Louise decides to conceive a child with Gary, accepting the full arc of her daughter's life and death that she already foresees.

Robert learns that Lord Fieldhurst intends to use their nomenclature research to practice eugenics based on class and racial purity.

Robert discovers Benjamin Roth murdered in his office and narrowly escapes an assassin hired by the sculptor Willoughby.

Parents rarely consent to the gene manipulation that creates metahuman children, fearing their offspring will become incomprehensible to them.

Neil learns that anyone who witnesses the Divine Light is guaranteed entry to Heaven and sees this as a loophole to reach Sarah.

Ethan Mead concludes by process of elimination that God's purpose for him was to have met Janice Reilly during the Rashiel visitation.

Tamera persuades Garrett to deactivate his calli and then realizes she did it for her own vanity rather than out of principle.

Garrett turns his calli back on because he dislikes his own appearance, and Tamera begins reconsidering whether she should do the same.

This pool captures the precise moments of revelation and choice that alter the course of each story. Hillalum confronts the physical reality of Heaven's vault and arrives at his shattering understanding of the world's true shape. Leon's discovery of Reynolds and their eventual meeting set up their fatal clash, while in a parallel register Renee's act of seeking help for the first time marks the beginning of her unraveling. Louise's grasp of heptapod language as performative rather than descriptive is the pivot of the title story, matched by her quiet decision to embrace a future she already knows will include profound loss. In Seventy-Two Letters, Robert's discovery of Fieldhurst's eugenics agenda and Roth's murder force a moral reckoning. The pool ends with Neil's calculated attempt to exploit a theological loophole and Tamera Lyons's uncomfortable recognition of her own vanity.