The city of Tyros is attacked by a force from the Imidos planet; and the ruler, the Tyro, is old. Damar becomes Tyro during the war and struggles to find a way for the people of Tyros to survive. Some of his people escape into the desert, but he remains behind to be captured. Tyro and his aids are taken aboard an old space ship. When Tyros explodes, the Imido Commander has to protect himself with a creative story. He destroys those below on the planet and sends the captives off into unknown space locked in prison cells in their unmanned old extra freighter. Only a meteor shower's damage to the old ship allows them to escape from their cells, and from the old crippled ship caught in the planet's gravity. Only three manage to get down to the planet below, and only Tyro lives long enough to join a group of primitives. He becomes the first extraterrestrial.