A normal man would have lain down and died, but to Hugh Valland the task before him seemed simple enough. It was necessary to organize a revolution by a group of primitives against their telepathic overlords; build with the help of those same primitives a spaceship virtually from scratch; contact, via that spaceship, a third group of aliens, and enlist their aid in returning home across the galactic abyss. At worst it would take a lifetime...and Valland's one true love, Mary O'Meara was waiting.