- The Chums are independent now; like many affiliates, they've disaffiliated with the National Office. Also, they've expanded the ship considerably; they've got money now. Their income is mostly from investments and advertising now, not so much from missions.
- Ksenjia is now flying with them.
- There's a massive updraft over northern Africa. They go there and almost crash into Counter-Earth. They're on Counter-Earth yet still on earth. ("[T[he boys could almost believe some days that they were safely back home on Earth--on others they found an American Republic whose welfare they believed they were sworn to advance passed so irrevocably into the control of the evil and moronic that it seemed they could not, after all, have escaped the gravity of the Counter-Earth.") They can look but they're not permitted to interfere.
- In autumn 1914, a Russian agent who calls himself Baklashchan (it's an alias) visits to tell them that Padzhnitoff has been missing for months; the Russians can't find him--given the world situation, maybe someone in his own line of work can. The Chums know nothing about the European war or the Russian revolution; Baklashchan doesn't explain.
- They look for Padzhnitoff. More and more of the sky is off-limits; they see explosions on earth' there are food shortages.
- Turns out everywhere Chums had been, Padzhnitoff had been, too. Where they hadn't been, he wasn't. Were they hunting themselves? A ghost of their own dead selves?
- They fly over Flanders; Miles sees the trenches and the war--"as if some blindness had abruptly healed itself".
- Then over France they see Padzhnitoff and the new Bolshai'a Igra.
- Padzhnitoff's crew has gone independent as well, no more connections with Okhrana. Instead of dropping bricks, they're dropping food, clothing, and medical supplies (for the influenza epidemic the Chums weren't aware of). They're fugitives from whoever's in power and based out of Switzerland now. The Chums agree not to turn in Padzhnitoff to whoever's looking for him.
- The Chums travel with the Bolshai'a Igra to Geneva; both sides' wounded prisoners of war are travelling home through neutral Switzerland. There's a big black market, but also kindness of the local people to the war injured. Padzhnitoff passes his crew's extra work to the Chums. They start distributing cargo and are promoted to moving politically sensitive internees (in/from the Balkans and Siberia). Their involvement in the war began when they landed on neutral ground.
- After the armistice, the Chums are receiving contract work again on their own (but they also continue doing relief and repatriation). They receive a job offer from California--lots of money do do unspecified tasks. Randolph apologizes to Padzhnitoff for leaving.
- They have trouble negotiating the Rockies and end up over Mexico, where they fly into the Soladality of Aetheronauts, a pool of girl fliers. The five girls match up with the five Chums. And they arrive, with the girls onboard, in Los Angeles.
- Crossing America they'd noticed how much more lit up it was now--"a triumph over night whose motive none could quite grasp." They talk about the early church teaching that Lucifer is the bearer of light.
- The Californian check bounces and the lawyer who'd sent it doesn't exist. But they're in LA anyway.
- Chick randomly runs into his father, Dick Counterfly.
- Dick's got some massive machine that does... something. He introduces the Chums to two "elderly eccentrics," Merle Rideout and Roswell Bounce. They're being bothered by someone; he gives them Lew Basnight's card.
- Merle and Roswell have invented a machine that reverses the fixed-in-time process of photographs--they can start with the still photo and "integrate" it and release it back into action, into life. It's based on integrating electricity, because electricity and light are similar, just different wavelengths. The machine uses Lorandite, from Macedonia--it's a crystal. Merle's on a mission to set free the images in photographs--his own photos and others'.
(p. 1040)
