Back in Washington, Augur has apparently mugged Ronald McDonald for his gym clothes and runs a few celebratory sprints at the track. Volunteer agents arrive to take him into custody for on unspecified charges.

Augur pulls a convenient gizmo from his gym bag -- after all, who doesn't carry a portable fun house mirror generator right next to their Gatorade, Ben Gay and gym towel? -- and escapes in the confusion.

Meanwhile, aboard the mothership, Zo'or confronts Sandoval about the Lili Marquette-Jaridian situation. He threatens to use a nasty-sounding technique called "involuntary mental intervention" on Sandoval to discover what his flunky is hiding.

Sandoval begs for five days to clean up the situation. The Synod leader agrees.

Augur remains on the run from the Volunteers, pausing only to change into something more suitable to an urban refugee lifestyle. He hides in an alley as a Taelon ship drifts overhead.

Lili's baby develops a high fever. When Liam asks why she risked having a hybrid baby, she explains that a blended child may be the key to correcting the genetic flaw that threatens the Jaridians' survival.

Liam wants to know why she gave the Jaridians her interdimensional shuttle. She explains that if their daughter can revitalize the species, the Jaridians will give up the war with the Taelons.

Thus mollified, Liam arranges to retrieve a shuttle and bring Ariel to a hospital for treatment, but Vorjak refuses to risk alerting the authorities to their presence. Instead, the proud alien father uses an ID dart to open a temporary portal and steps through with his wife and child in tow.

The portal explodes behind them.

Sandoval meets his henchman Tate at a brothel. Dutiful as always, Tate reports that he found a trace of Lili's DNA in the portal system. Bizarrely, the system records that she was traveling with an unregistered human and a non-human life form, but this did not raise any electronic eyebrows or warning systems.

They went to Seneca Falls, New York. Sandoval orders Tate to wipe the records and reassign Lili's DNA code to a dummy ID. He also asks Tate to have the navy arrange an ultra-longwave burst message for some reason as-yet-inscrutable purpose.

Liam and Renee visit Augur's. The place is abandoned, and the resident super genius left no forwarding address. Liam suggests Augur might have gone to ground with his friends on the fringes. Until he turns up, they decide to focus on locating Sandoval and Tate.

Augur is indeed visiting his friends on the fringes, if by "fringes" you mean the place where people have dropped out of society by chance or by choice, yet till have the wherewithal to throw together a kicky ensemble and party the night away.

In other words it looks a lot like a big ol' rave for spoiled middle class kids and aging computer geniuses. You make the call.

He meets up with J Street, a "saucy" street moppet -- sort of a low-rent Laura Flynn Boyle -- who agrees to help the once-vaunted computer mastermind set up a new identity. He also asks her to help Liam and Renee on his behalf.

Ariel will die unless they get her off Earth, and they're going to need Taelon energy in the meantime to cool her fever. Vorjak breaks into the hospital dispensary, taking out a guard and terrifying a nurse in the process. He steals several IV packs of Taelon energy, apparently a common prescription item in the near now.

Sandoval is still in the brothel when Tate reports back with a report of "improbable extraterrestrial sightings" at the Seneca Falls hospital.

This rouses Sandoval to investigate personally. Luckily, the nurse conveniently remembers that the guard attacked by Vorjak was wearing a video ID badge that, when played back, shows the whole gory scene.

Ever courteous, Sandoval thanks the nurse for her help and, on his way out, covers his tracks by planting a bomb that blows up a good chunk of the hospital.

Renee tails Tate to the brothel. She globals Liam and tells him to meet her there, then disguises herself in an off-the-rack Queen Amidala knockoff and sneaks in through the employees' entrance.

When Liam arrives, she directs him to Sandoval's cubicle. Our hero bursts in, points his pistol at Sandoval and tells him, "You've been selling the Taelons a lie. I want to hear it."

Despite the bizarre surroundings, Liam lays out the case against Sandoval. Not surprisingly, the agent concocts a version of the facts that places him in an unimpeachable light while casting doubts about Liam's own loyalty to the Companions.

The talented J Street provides Augur with diplomatic credentials and tickets to Singapore. He asks her to take good care of Liam and Renee while he's gone.

Liam returns to Augur's place. J Street is there, but whether she's squatting, moved in permanently or simply hanging around remains to be seen. She shows him a message from Augur that explains that she is there to help. She sets to work using Augur's system to locate Lili.

Lili, Vorjak and Ariel are in hiding near a heavily guarded facility. The Taelon plasma is helping Ariel's fever, but Vorjak warns that overexposure will overwhelm the infant's system.

The possibility of salvation arrives in the form of a Taelon shuttle. In an moment of compassionate foreshadowing, Vorjak tells Lili to get Ariel off-planet even if he dies before they leave.

J Street locates Lili's DNA trace in the portal system under an assumed name. The Seneca Falls location conforms to the location of a Taelon construction site that features a shuttle landing pad.

Vorjak receives a message from Sandoval via the ultra-longwave burst Tate arranged. Apparently the low frequency vibrations "propagate through the rocks and water" allowing Vorjak to pick them up using some kind of mystic Jaridian hoodoo.

Sandoval promises that the guards will be reassigned for 15 minutes, clearing the way for them to reach their shuttle. Vorjak tells Lili to leave him behind. Having been primed by his earlier moment of gloom, she reluctantly complies.

Liam and Renee arrive on the scene. Liam tries to warn Lili that Sandoval probably booby-trapped the shuttle. Now driven insane by maternal urges, Lili fires on him and powers up the shuttle.

Luckily, Vorjak stumbles up and tells his human bride to wait until Liam has checked the service hatch. Sure enough, Sandoval planted one of his crafty bombs on the shuttle -- Liam throws the device clear, then uses his pistol to detonate it.

Liam gives Vorjak the power capsule from the pistol, which should provide him with enough Taelon energy to get safely off Earth.

Lili apologizes for firing on Liam, but it's all forgiven as a manifestation of maternal protectiveness. Liam tells her to get her family clear. The shuttle lifts off.

Back at the embassy, Liam says goodbye to Da'an, who is still an inert crystal statue. Just as he's telling his boss that he was "the best friend [he] could be," the Taelon decides to return to life and give a lecture about how he was in a state of crystalline hibernation. How embarrassing!

In a talky mood, the Taelon explains that the Taelon eugenics project already tried to crossbreed Jaridians with humans, and the resulting hybrid will not correct the Jaridians' genetic flaw.

Liam is horrified to learn that the Taelons have already used humans as experimental breeding subjects. Outraged, he rails, "That phony human skin of yours keeps fooling me. Forget what I said. You've done more harm than good."

Sandoval tells Zo'or that the explosion at the Seneca Falls landing pad came from a defective shuttle. As the agent leaves, Zo'or tells him that they picked up a signal from ID space near the Jaridian sector. Sandoval suggests it must be a "spurious emission" as there are no shuttles that far out. Zo'or, apparently less perceptive than usual this episode, seems to buy it.

Liam receives a coded message from Lili. She says goodbye and thanks him for his help in saving her family. The message breaks up as the shuttle moves out of range.