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 "Nawh. Thinking about who wants that last apple fritter there."

* * * * * * * * * *

Just take it, Chick. Sheesh. Most everybody already thinks you're a Goddamned animal. Might as well act like one!

Maybe in the Victorian era, even the lowest of the low and the vulgarest of the vulgar knew better than to simply take the last piece of dessert. The only polite thing to do when only one apple fritter remains in a group of people is to let that apple fritter go to waste. Anything else is just fucking rude.

Having the willpower to forgo grabbing up that last apple fritter isn't going to change Chick's reputation overnight. Especially since Lindsay, Miles, and Randolph aren't here to witness it. But maybe it'll earn some good will with the Bindlestiffs! Besides, they brought the food so they probably expect the others to take the last bites even while the others, being the gracious hosts, are probably expecting the guests to take the final treat.

Pugnax should just come up and steal it out of the pic-a-nic basket.

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 "This making you nervous, Chick?" teased Darby.

* * * * * * * * * *

Darby thinks ghost stories are going to ruffle the nerves of a kid who was constantly chased by the Ku Klux Klan and racist Boss Hogg types while scamming Southerners with his dad. Darby was the one who was probably feeling nervous because he's just a little tyke. Maybe. Who knows how old all these "lads" are?! It's not like Pynchon has given us any solid numbers!

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 "Somebody out there," Zip said solemnly. "Empty space. But inhabited."

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"Empty space but inhabited" sounds like extra-dimensional beings to me. Also the tag line to a sci-fi thriller.

"Zip said solemnly."
I mostly associate with people who don't take anything sacred so mostly I never hear anybody say anything solemnly. That doesn't mean me or the people I hang out with never say anything earnest or poignant or meaningful. But nothing ever comes out solemnly. The only time I can honestly say I heard one of my friends say something solemnly was when we were in my mother's basement using a Ouija board. One of the three felt pads on the bottom of the planchette was fraying and somebody made a joke about taking the stupid toy back to Toys 'r' Us for a refund. And my friend Carl looked up, his face glowing in the candlelight, and said solemnly, "It's not a toy; it's a tool."
    Holy fuck did I find that funny.
    Um, the point is, Zip is taking this weird ass sky ghost business completely seriously. But then the Bindlestiffs are ascensionaries so he's probably hinting at the experience being proof of God.

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 "Nowadays," Penny said, "they'll fly wherever they're needed, far above fortress walls and national boundaries, running blockades, feeding the hungry, sheltering the sick and persecuted . . . so of course they make enemies everyplace they go, they get fired at from the ground, all the time. But this was different. We happened to be up with them that one day, and it was just the queerest thing. Nobody saw any projectiles, but there was . . . a kind of force . . . energy we could feel, directed personally at us. . . ."

* * * * * * * * * *

"they'll fly wherever they're needed"
The "they" here are the Garçons de '71. Remember them?! Penny mentioned them earlier when she began this story of the Bindlestiffs over Mount Etna last spring. Apparently the Aeronautic Clubs aren't direct descendants of the Garçons de '71 like I thought. The Garçons de '71 are still out there floating their balloons twenty years after the Siege of Paris, going where they need to go to help out all the besieged people of Earth.

"they make enemies everyplace they go"
Of course they do! Nothing like helping out the oppressed by interfering with a nation's subjugation of people they've "othered" through national campaigns of propaganda to invoke that nation's wrath!

"Nobody saw any projectiles, but there was . . . a kind of force . . .energy we could feel, directed personally at us. . . ."
Whoa! This is the kind of thing Leonard Nimoy's "Mr. Spock" would have stood at attention for! On tonight's episode of In Search Of . . . "Invisible Forces." This is the kind of stuff that would have gotten its own edition in the Time/Life series Mysteries of the Unknown. This is the stuff I would have read about and believed in like a good little Fox Mulder wannabe in elementary school (before Fox Mulder existed so, really, he's just a pale imitation of me).
    This invisible force didn't harm anybody though so why might it have been directed at them? Penny sets it up as if it were an attack, seeing as how the Garçons de '71 have made so many enemies. But nobody gets hurt so it must have been a . . . probe! The aliens were out there probing these kids!

Well, Penny, that's one hell of a sky-story! I think you win this round of frightening tales around the campfire!

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 When the Sieges ended, these balloonists chose to fly on, free now of the political delusions that reigned more than ever on the ground, pledged solemnly only to one another, proceeding as if under a world-wide, never-ending state of siege.

* * * * * * * * * *

There it is. The origin story of the Aeronautic Clubs. Everything down on Earth is terrible and they live in the muck and the grime and are full of sin and violence. But up in the heavens, up above it all, they are free to live a life of higher meaning. The "air" has become its own nation-state, having little to do with the ground aside from gathering information for the advancement of the cloud people.

"pledged solemnly only to one another"
I'm sure the Organizations and Clubs behind all these balloons are based on the ground. But where on Earth do such places exist? Islands, possibly. Mountain hideaways. Large floating platforms that never land! I suppose one must be in Eugene, Oregon, unless "Aeronautic Clubs" are different from "Organizations." You know, hobbies versus quite serious research, study, and probably wetwork.

"proceeding as if under a world-wide, never-ending state of siege"
In essence, the sky has become the final frontier (which makes sense seeing that Lindsay mentioned they follow the Prime Directive). In essence, a siege happens when the defender of an attack is unable to retreat. Up until fairly recently (in Against the Day's timeline), subjugated, oppressed, or people who felt under attack by the local religion or social mores or cultural traditions could flee, generally west. Westward expansion was the escape into freedom from a stifling status quo. But once the rest of the world was stolen by Western Civilization, these people had no place else to flee to for freedom. At that point, the entire world took on the never-ending state of siege. You would either have to fight or submit. But the balloonists found a loophole: the sky! They could escape the siege and begin a new territory with their own rules and regulations and religions! And that could be a paradise until their rules began oppressing other aeronauts and then they'd have to fight back or escape. But where would they escape to?! The moon?! Ha ha! Ridiculous!