Paul answers an ad for a ""pearl diver"", which he learns upon arriving at the diner is a dishwasher. Scott goes to school. While working at the diner, Paul discovers that his co-worker is illiterate. Scott's teacher talks to Paul about their gypsy ways and thinks that Paul should consider staying in one place so Scott can explore his full potential. Paul then brings his co-worker to her, so that he can learn how to read.
While going through Las Vegas, Paul and Scott pick up a woman. while they are away, she steals their vehicle. She then proceeds to sell it and gamble it all away. A hotel thinking that he is ""Paul Forrester"" gives him a room. They find the lot where she sold the vehicle and recover their belongings including the spheres. Paul later shows her herself and she finally decides to try and change her ways. And when they leave the hotel they discover that they accumulated a very large bill.
Trouble with their truck in the desert forces Paul and Scott to seek refuge at a woman's experimental aircraft plant, whose problems could be worsened due to an unrecognized flaw in her father's radical airplane design, and for the first time Paul tries to resume his body's former job as a photographer.