The time-traveling John Banks' notes and chronology of 20th century events, all from the new universe he and Joy Phim created beginning in 1906 (see Book 1 of this series), fall into the hands of a young boy, Cyril Clement, in our universe. Temporarily. Soon he loses them, but remembers their chief concepts—the democratic peace and democide—and makes them the basis of his professional career.

Even more astounding, once his career is established, Cyril meets with Banks and encourages him to make these ideas the center of his Yale dissertation.

Meanwhile, a Vietnamese family escapes from North Vietnam to the South. There they face the awful meaning of war with defeat, family catastrophe, and death. One survives, and flees on the ocean with her grandchildren, only to meet an inescapable horror. But she leaves a child, Joy Phim, with whom John Banks traveled in time. Will the child travel with him again?

Banks is teaching about the Vietnam War and its aftermath, but is bedeviled by a series of nightmarish dreams about his and Joy's time travel, their adventures and deaths. Are these premonitions about their forthcoming time travel? Or something even more critical to this series?
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