In the second volume of this epic six part series telling the story of Vietnam, the alien surveillance continues. The Marragh/Riken sanction the third mind-melt with Vu Phan Quang, the corrupt politician first encountered by Phat Sang in a Hanoi refugee camp. Quang escapes from the horrors of the communist victory in the north to reach the dubious safety of Saigon and immediately becomes embroiled in the battles of the three rival groups who fought for political control before the USA threw its support behind the South Vietnamese government headed by Ngo Dinh Diem. The bloodshed and suffering resume as the warlords tear apart the new Vietnam, while the Time-watchers struggle to understand the motivation behind the madness. Rene Chauvel, the first mind-melt, returns to Saigon as a war correspondent for a Paris Newspaper, and Quang becomes captivated by Chauvel's new wife. The second mind-melt, the orphan girl Phat Sang, survives the Great Terror of the North Vietnamese Land Reform campaigns to become a refugee again in South Vietnam.