A normal man would have lain down and died. But to Hugh Valland the task before him seemed simple enough: 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 Mary O'Meara was waiting.