* As a way of catching others up in time with Nessa and her idol:
Peter, Alice and Ah-To spent hours trying to find some place which Alice (as the only "native") would recognize. The sun marched on, and they were getting nowhere. At last Alice exclaimed, "Oh! Peter! I should have figured this out sooner! Now I realize why we're not getting anywhere! This is the borderland of the Chess Kingdoms--where it takes all the running you can do just to stay in the same place!"
It was Ah-To who hit on a solution: that if running didn't make positive progress, leaping might. As a kung-fu movie hero, he could make prodigious leaps--and unlike the Matrix characters, his ability did NOT depend on being inside a virtual reality program. So Ah-To began a laborious process, but one that made progress for them. He took hold of Alice...leaped as far forward as he could carrying her...leaped back to Peter...moved Peter forward to where Alice was...moved Alice forward again...and so on.
Around the time Nessa and Eric were sleeping, Ah-To had brought Peter and Alice to a point out of the motion-distorting zone, and within sight of "Hearts" territory. The Chinese man was MORE exhausted than the hockey player and his fan.