Chapter Summaries

Jody and Amelia offered Zhou Kun their Plan B embryo-storage apparatus, but Zhang Tianyuan rejected it and said humanity’s mission was on track. Zhou Kun remained sidelined and waited for an explanation until Yuan Heguang arrived and asked to see him.

• Jody and Amelia privately asked Zhou Kun about humanity’s future and presented five thousand fertilized eggs and the technology for their Plan B.
• Zhou Kun brought them to meet Zhang Tianyuan and the other planners, hoping the apparatus could be added to the mission.
• Zhang Tianyuan declined the gift, assured them that the mission would succeed, and sent Zhou Kun and the visitors away.
• Zhang Tianyuan and the experts agreed to launch the second rocket a week later and discussed Zhou Kun’s exclusion from the work.
• Zhou Kun attended conferences over the next three days and waited for Zhang Tianyuan to explain the situation.
• Yuan Heguang arrived at the base and requested to see Zhou Kun.

Zhou Kun learned that the Mutual Aid Society came from a parallel spacetime and that higher-dimensional humans had arranged the blight and Saturn wormhole to guide humanity toward a future they would create. Zhang Tianyuan explained that the causal loop had been disrupted, and the group decided to proceed with migration while considering cooperation with Amelia’s team.

• Yuan Heguang and Zhang Tianyuan told Zhou Kun about the Mutual Aid Society and its parallel-spacetime origins.
• Zhang Tianyuan revealed that higher-dimensional humans had placed the wormhole near Saturn and likely engineered events to create a causal loop leading to their own existence.
• Yuan Heguang angrily condemned those future humans, while Zhang Tianyuan explained that the Mutual Aid Society’s arrival had changed the future and ended the loop.
• Zhou Kun asked whether humanity should still migrate through the wormhole, and Zhang Tianyuan reassured him that the planet beyond it was likely an excellent destination.
• Zhou Kun proposed cooperating with Amelia’s group to use NASA’s accumulated wormhole data, and the aerospace experts reacted uneasily.

Zhou Kun learned that the people on the other side had deliberately caused mass deaths, and the Mutual Aid Society concluded it could complete its plans without their cooperation. Meanwhile, Amelia toured a city near the space base and saw signs that it was becoming cleaner and more habitable.

• Yuan Heguang explained how the Mutual Aid Society Divine Church had united people in No. 5 Spacetime and why Father Jack’s rise suited local conditions.
• Experts told Zhou Kun that more than a hundred million people had died in the other spacetime, and Zhang Tianyuan said Professor Brand was not the one they feared.
• Zhang Tianyuan and the experts discussed how the other side had deliberately spent soldiers and population, while an expert reassured Zhou Kun that the Mutual Aid Society could proceed without NASA’s data.
• Amelia skipped the academic meeting and drove with a female colleague and two security personnel to visit a nearby city.
• Amelia saw that water had washed the roads and dust from the city, and she listened to the female colleague’s account while taking notes.

Amelia discovered that the enticing emergency food distributed in the city was made from dried earthworms, and learned that her homeland had abandoned or imprisoned starving people. After reflecting on the famine, she visited a free clinic and grew suspicious of its young staff, advanced medical vehicles, and foreign doctors.

• Amelia tasted the dried earthworms her colleague had been issued and praised their flavor before learning what they were.
• Amelia's colleague explained that the emergency food would keep the city's residents from starving for at least a month.
• Amelia described how starving people in her country were driven away, abandoned, or locked up as reserves, and said only a little over thirty million people there had food.
• Amelia said she wanted to save the starving people, then pulled herself together and continued exploring the city with her colleague.
• Amelia examined the free clinic's specialized screening vehicles and noticed its unusually young medical staff and several foreign doctors.

Amelia toured the recovering city and recorded her concerns about its food shortages and her own country's failing Plan A. Back at the base, she and Jody learned that Zhou Kun was preparing to launch a second, unfamiliar rocket, and Amelia recognized an emblem on it from an office door.

• Amelia learned that the origins of the strange doctors were unclear and saw workers repairing infrastructure and restoring buildings as she toured the city.
• Amelia wrote about the city's reconstruction, its reopened schools, and residents earning food through their work, then crossed out her fears about Plan A and Plan B.
• Jody told Amelia that Zhou Kun planned to launch another rocket in two days, and they waited to see it rolled out.
• Jody and Amelia called Professor Brand and reported the upcoming launch and the rocket's unfamiliar design.
• Amelia spotted a distinctive emblem on the rocket that she recognized from an office door.

After two days of failed negotiations, Zhou Kun and Zhang Tianyuan agreed to meet with Amelia and Jody as the delegation’s attitude changed following the second rocket launch. Amelia and Jody entered a Mutual Aid Society office building and discovered its advanced staff and holographic Solar System model.

• Professor Brand failed to persuade an official to support cooperation with Zhou Kun, and the official ended the call.
• Amelia and Jody spent two days trying to secure Zhou Kun’s agreement, while Zhou Kun criticized the Population Bomb’s weight, power use, and size.
• The second rocket launched toward the wormhole, following a trajectory that appeared to Jody to repeat the first launch’s failure.
• Zhou Kun told Zhang Tianyuan that the delegation had become eager to cooperate, and Zhang agreed to make contact with them.
• Amelia and Jody followed Zhang Tianyuan and Zhou Kun into the Mutual Aid Society office building, where Amelia saw space experts gathered around a holographic Solar System model.
• Zhou Kun handed Amelia and Jody headsets and welcomed them.

Zhang Tianyuan told Amelia that the higher-dimensional beings who had enabled humanity’s gravity solution were gone, so Plan A could not succeed. Amelia, disappointed but still hopeful, asked whether another way to save humanity existed.

• Zhou Kun brought Amelia and Jody to the work area, where they joined Zhang Tianyuan and the aerospace experts around a hologram of the Solar System.
• Zhang Tianyuan questioned Amelia and Jody about their plans to solve the gravity equation and their shortage of experienced astronauts, then checked whether anyone had recently broken into the NASA base.
• Amelia told Zhang Tianyuan that NASA’s Plan A was to solve the gravity equation and that Plan B was ready if it failed.
• Zhang Tianyuan told Amelia that the beings who had placed the wormhole near Saturn no longer existed and that Plan A could not succeed without them.
• Amelia asked whether Plan B was their only chance and urged Zhang Tianyuan to reveal another way to save humanity.

Zhang Tianyuan explained the Mutual Aid Society’s aid to the country and challenged Amelia and Jody over their government’s treatment of starving people. He then showed them the Society’s rocket assembly building, where a black portal opened and a rocket transport truck emerged.

• Amelia grabbed Zhang Tianyuan, then let go as Jody urged her to calm down.
• Zhang Tianyuan revealed that the Mutual Aid Society was from another country and described its food, medical, and industrial aid.
• Jody asked for help for his people, but Zhang Tianyuan confronted him about the executions of starving people in the desert.
• Amelia argued that the Society’s help could save those suffering, and Zhang Tianyuan said they needed to consider how to cooperate with the Society.
• Instructor Yin reported that the final assembly building was ready, and Zhang Tianyuan led Amelia and Jody there.
• Amelia watched a rocket transport truck emerge through a black wall and asked whether it was a secret door.

Amelia and Jody discovered that the vehicles were passing through a two-dimensional Spacetime Tunnel and learned that the Mutual Aid Society came from parallel spacetimes. Zhou Kun explained that a global migration was being planned, but those responsible for the unrest might obstruct it or face accountability.

• Amelia and Jody watched transport vehicles emerge from a black void at the factory, and Zhou Kun confirmed that it was a Spacetime Tunnel.
• Zhou Kun explained that the Mutual Aid Society was a cross-spacetime rescue organization whose members came from parallel spacetimes.
• Zhou Kun said their spacetime planned to join the society and migrate nationwide with its help, while a global migration plan was also being developed.
• Zhou Kun warned that powerful sinners might obstruct the migration to avoid accountability, and Amelia argued that they had supported Professor Brand's plan.
• Jody asked what they would need to do to join the operation, and Zhou Kun said the society was satisfied with their recent attitude, which Amelia and Jody realized came from Professor Brand's instructions.

Amelia and Jody learned why the Mutual Aid Society distrusted North America and decided to return home to inform Professor Brand. Before leaving, Amelia joined the Society and established a direct communication channel, then the delegation departed for North America.

• Zhang Tianyuan explained the past crises in other spacetimes that had made the Mutual Aid Society wary of North America, and Amelia and Jody privately agreed to keep the revelations confidential.
• Amelia and Jody contacted Professor Brand to say they were returning with an important matter, then Amelia went to tell Zhou Kun that the delegation was ending its visit early.
• Amelia asked Zhang Tianyuan to let her join the Mutual Aid Society, signed a membership agreement, and received a satellite phone to contact Zhou Kun and an operations team captain surnamed Yin.
• Amelia told the delegation the visit was over, and its members boarded a plane that night and set out for home.

Amelia and Jody returned to the NASA base and told Professor Brand about the Parallel Spacetime Mutual Aid Society and its offer to help humanity migrate from Earth. After learning why the Society distrusted their country, Professor Brand decided that he and Amelia should leave the base.

• Amelia and Jody brought the Mutual Aid Society agreements to Professor Brand's office after returning to the NASA base.
• Amelia explained that the Society came from a parallel spacetime and used Spacetime Tunnel technology to help humanity leave Earth.
• Professor Brand questioned Amelia and Jody about the Spacetime Tunnel and concluded that its migration plan was better than Plan A.
• Amelia and Jody told Professor Brand that the Society distrusted their country because of events in other spacetimes and would cooperate only if it approved their proposed terms.
• Professor Brand said the innocent people deserved help but that he could not persuade the Society to cooperate with them.
• Professor Brand told Amelia that it was time for them to leave the NASA base.

Professor Brand decided to abandon the base and join the Mutual Aid Society’s effort to relocate humanity, bringing the Lazarus mission’s people and data with him. With the Society’s approval secured, he began preparing to leave and singled out retired astronaut Joseph Cooper as someone to recruit.

• Professor Brand told Amelia and Jody that they had to leave the base and submit their wormhole data before the Mutual Aid Society’s spacecraft completed its exploration.
• Professor Brand ordered Jody to track the spacecraft and asked Amelia to negotiate support from the Mutual Aid Society for bringing the Lazarus team over.
• Amelia contacted Zhou Kun, who reported Professor Brand’s plan to Zhang Tianyuan.
• Zhang Tianyuan approved opening a Spacetime Tunnel for Professor Brand’s group, and Zhou Kun relayed the decision to Amelia.
• Professor Brand began reviewing the base’s project records and pointed out retired astronaut Joseph Cooper as someone they should bring with them.

Professor Brand began gathering talented people, including the former test pilot Joseph Cooper, as potential assets for the Mutual Aid Society’s plans. At a meeting with his closest colleagues, he questioned whether humanity still had hope, leaving them unsettled.

• Professor Brand and Amelia reviewed old files and identified nearly a hundred potential recruits, with Cooper among the priority targets.
• Amelia secretly gave the recruitment list to Jody, who promised to arrange discreet outreach under the cover of a new project.
• Professor Brand summoned the trusted members of plans A and B and heard their routine progress reports.
• Professor Brand told the group that fifty thousand starving people had been driven into the Nevada desert, then asked whether they still believed humanity had hope.
• Williams replied that hope remained because only a little work was left on the gravitational equation.

Professor Brand revealed that Plan A could not solve the gravity equation without data from inside a black hole, then offered his colleagues a faster, more successful confidential alternative. A few days later, Jody arrived at Cooper’s farm to recruit him for the new plan.

• Professor Brand told the conference that the gravity equation’s derivation had failed because its solution required quantum data from inside a black hole.
• Professor Brand admitted he had known the problem for ten years and had kept Plan B as the only viable option.
• Amelia announced that a new approach had been found, and Professor Brand said it could save more people and proceed faster than Plan A.
• Professor Brand warned that the confidential plan would bring pressure and difficult choices, then asked everyone to decide whether to participate.
• Amelia and several colleagues raised their hands, while others hesitated or declined; Professor Brand recorded their choices and ordered them to keep the meeting secret.
• A few days later, Jody reached Cooper’s farm with a guide and set out to persuade Cooper to join the new plan.

Jody and a NASA team arrived at Cooper’s farm to recruit him for a new project, but the wary family greeted them with shotguns. Jody revealed that NASA had found a way to save all of humanity, leaving Cooper to decide whether to hear the plan.

• Murphy spotted unfamiliar visitors, and Donald armed himself before opening the door and frightening Jody into falling backward.
• The sheriff helped Jody up, and Donald apologized and explained why farmers treated strangers as potential threats.
• Cooper returned with his son Tom, and the two entered with shotguns before their family calmed them down.
• Jody introduced himself as NASA’s leader and asked Cooper to become an astronaut again, but Cooper refused because his family depended on him.
• Jody told Cooper that NASA had found a way to save everyone on Earth and asked whether he wanted to hear the plan.

Cooper agreed to join Plan C after learning that Earth’s oxygen supply was collapsing and that the plan might save his family and humanity. He left home for NASA’s secret base, where the team prepared to launch Plan C by replacing original documents with copies.

• Jody explained Plan A and revealed that the team had abandoned it in favor of the more promising but secret Plan C.
• Cooper learned that Earth’s plants and ocean algae were disappearing, then agreed to join Plan C despite not knowing when he could return home.
• Cooper told his family about his mission, but Murphy refused to say goodbye while Tom and Donald accepted his departure.
• Jody returned with Cooper to the base, where Amelia reported that nineteen recruits had agreed to join Plan C, making Cooper the twentieth.
• Professor Brand prepared to launch Plan C by replacing original documents with copies and had Jody sign a Mutual Aid Society membership agreement.
• Professor Brand gathered the Plan C participants in a conference room filled with original documents the following morning.

Professor Brand revealed that Plan C lacked official support and could be considered treason, giving the gathered recruits a chance to withdraw. He then introduced the Mutual Aid Society in East Asia as the basis for Plan C, leaving Cooper on the sidelines as the others questioned Amelia and Jody about it.

• Professor Brand warned the group that Plan C could be considered treason and allowed anyone to withdraw, provided they stayed in the conference room for two hours.
• Cooper decided not to join Plan C because he still had two children to raise, and he moved away from Professor Brand's group.
• Amelia distributed documents describing the Mutual Aid Society, its reconstruction work in East Asia, and its exploration beyond the wormhole.
• Amelia and Jody answered the gathered recruits' questions and described what they had personally seen of the Mutual Aid Society.
• Amelia suggested the organization might avoid cooperating with them because of their practice of executing starving people, while Cooper watched from the wall and wondered what was happening in East Asia.

Cooper watched Professor Brand and his team prepare to leave through a Spacetime Tunnel to another parallel spacetime, torn between his family and humanity’s future. With only minutes to decide, he signed the agreement and followed them into the tunnel.

• Cooper reflected on his lost astronaut ambitions and hesitated to join Plan C because he had a family.
• Professor Brand told Cooper and the others that Plan C was about to begin and offered them agreements to sign before leaving.
• A Spacetime Tunnel opened in the conference room, and Professor Brand, Amelia, Jody, and the other members pushed carts of materials through it.
• Jody warned the remaining people that the tunnel would stay open for three minutes and that they had to sign the agreements to pass safely.
• Cooper signed the agreement as Joseph Cooper and charged into the Spacetime Tunnel.

After Cooper and the others entered the Spacetime Tunnel, they arrived in No. 4 Spacetime and encountered the giant mech Crimson Typhoon. Mako Mori welcomed them and arranged to receive their materials and introduce them to researchers, leaving them on the way to meet someone in a conference room.

• Cooper and the others rushed through the Spacetime Tunnel, while three holdouts remained behind and realized Brand's group had vanished.
• Amelia and the others arrived in a vast hall and stared at the enormous humanoid robot being repaired.
• Mako Mori introduced herself as head of the base's technical research and development department and explained that the mech was Crimson Typhoon, an outdated combat robot.
• Mako Mori arranged for specialists to back up the visitors' materials and said physicists would travel with them to exchange ideas.
• Professor Brand left students familiar with the project to assist with the backup, and Mako Mori led the group to a conference room to meet someone and the wormhole research team.

Taylor questioned Professor Brand about the starving people after they joined the Mutual Aid Society, seeking information that could support a proposal for intervention in other spacetimes. Meanwhile, NASA sealed its base after learning that Professor Brand and many others had vanished.

• Taylor praised Professor Brand for joining the Mutual Aid Society and asked for firsthand information about the starving people.
• Professor Brand described how the starving people had been driven away, confined, enslaved, and slaughtered.
• Mako Mori explained to Amelia that Taylor was gathering evidence to support a new provision allowing the Mutual Aid Society to intervene in other spacetimes.
• Zhang Tianyuan dismissed Taylor's proposal as futile and said it would not pass the fourth branch.
• At the NASA base, the three people who had missed Plan C reported Professor Brand's disappearance, prompting officials to seal the base and review the conference-room footage.