Traveling through the Maze, the group finds their ship under attack by a maze dragon, which starts bumping the hull. It's even larger than the Mojave rattlers were. After Cady discovers that the captain is planning to throw their horses over, they "volunteer" one, and even strap dynamite to it. Then, considering that the fuses won't stay lit, they add their Greek fire as well, since it will burn even underwater once its container is broken. They scare the horse over the side, and the serpent swallows it whole.

There is no explosion.

Things are about to get really dicey when a yellow-garbed figure with shining metal gauntlets jumps from a cliff onto the head of the serpent as it rears up getting ready to do some serious damage. He yells something in Mandarin, which Elder Tanner later translates as "Taste the Fist of the New Science!" and pounds the serpent repeatedly on the head. Stunned, it sinks below the waves, and the figure amazingly bounds back up the cliff and away. The ship continues on, but has to put in for a bit of hull patching at the little community of New Cambridge.

New Cambridge turns out to be a little town of maybe fifty people - twenty mad scientists, ten guards, and twenty assistants. The posse first runs into "Professor Rip Daring" and gets a demonstration of his rocket pack. He recognizes James as The Undertaker and tells him that the town has been having trouble with some Chinese men who seem to be against ghost rock. Maybe he can come to a meeting, they meant to have a meeting about it soon... He also helps the posse use the resonant wire-free telegraph (connected, somehow, to a duplicate at Helstromme Industries in Salt Lake City) to wire a message to their evil master. "In New Cambridge, in the Maze. Got Three."

They turn in for the night, which is interrupted by an explosion towards dawn. In the ensuing small amount of chaos, they learn that the explosion was some sort of etheric pancake cooker, and that Dr. Chase the alchemist is pretty crazy when woken during the night. Bart keeps trying to calm her with the horse story, but it doesn't quite work. They go see her the next day and see the miracle cremation fluid which dissolves dead flesh being tested on some live rabbits (it does nothing to them, as predicted, but makes Tobey and Bart nervous) and try to buy the super-charged acid sprayer but discover they don't have enough money. There's a brief bitter recriminations phase afterwards because Robert told her Cady trucked with evil spirits (not that Dr. Chase believed a word of it).

They spend part of the day figuring out the commissary system, which involves punch-cards, and purchasing cards for it, and part of the day hunting, turning up some rabbits but little else. The time in the commissary is at least useful in gathering some more information about the town, who funds it (largely Helstromme Industries) and the trouble with the Chinese (who seem to be monks, and not like ghost rock). That night they are visited in their tent by Professor Doctor Vlassic, who's etheric systems are apparently being thrown off by local lambda wave emissions. After learning that these are the same type of waves associated with hauntings (which the doctor calls "the phenomena that are often called hauntings by the ignorant") they shoo him out.

The next day they find three crows waiting outside the tent, and load them up with the coins. In exchange they receive $600 in Lucky Dragon Bank notes (a Shan Fan bank). Tobey tries to determine whether they should get back on the now-repaired boat, and gets the following message from Above:

Fear Death by Water. Grimme seeks you on the waves.

They decide to wait a bit before setting out again. To while away the time, or just out of curiosity, they go see Prof. Dr. Vlassic, and James agrees to submit to an etheric scan (which turns out to involve charging him with electricity, and a painful shock). The doctor is able to point to a high concentration of lambda waves coming from the tattoo. He claims that for a few hundred dollars he could make a clockwork arm band which would suppress the lambda waves coming from the tattoo. This is considered Interesting. He does thank them for the scan and says that he will be able to correct his instruments for their presence now.

They try to explain magic to him, but he doesn't believe in it. Cady demonstrates by seeing through a crate, which leaves him having to think about this new data. Apparently late in the afternoon the long looked forward to meeting about the Chinese will finally take place...