Edward York, a Starfleet scout evacuated from the satellite of the planet Troyan due to the civil war that broke out there, ends up on the planet Celestia. Here he meets the famous admiral Festina Ramos, who is trying to find out who is sending agents to the planet recruiting overseers from the local population to work in factories producing illegal weapons. The trail again leads them to the planet Troyan, where the war had already ended by that time. This is where it turns out that York, without knowing it, is part of a grandiose secret plan to introduce an alien civilization into human space.