Book 1, The Family, Chapter 2-3 Summary

At their new house, St. Peter and his wife have their two daughters, their husbands, and an English visitor, Sir Edgar Spilling, who is interested in St. Peter's work on the Spanish adventurers. The conversation turns to Tom Outland, however, when St. Peter's son-in-law Louie Marsellus mentions that he and his wife, Rosamond, are building a house on Lake Michigan and plan to name it Outland.

Marsellus explains to Spilling that Tom Outland was an inventor who had created a new type of plane engine, and that Outland had patented the engine and left the rights to Rosamond because she was his fiancée before he died. Because Marsellus was an electrical engineer, he was able to finish the engine design and market it for a large fortune. St. Peter's other son-in-law, Scott McGregor, is...