In a parallel universe the Faithful believe that the Futama will deliver them from the despotic empress, Prua Landi. They send emissaries back in time, who persuade Joe Laing to exchange his life in the early twenty-first century for an era seven-hundred millennia into his future. In that distant time Prua Landi is attempting to exterminate every member of the Faithful sect. Joe is captured, and the empress tortures him with powerful mental probes...