Unaware of Vice General Rybolt’s political plans for his exoneration, Kort Villikon roams the treacherous deserts of Itasca with Exuma, a dinosauric Dirt Whale, avoiding warmongering clans, pirates, and a vampirical race known as the Porphyrian Hive. Existing in a villainous society with no hope for escape, Villikon searches for a place to call home. His pending rescue unbeknownst, Villikon discovers a hidden oasis through the cleft of a dormant volcano in the desert wastelands. He encounters a peaceful society of second-generation villagers who believe he is the prophesized leader of their escape. Villikon marries an Itascan native and learns of a legendary starship crashed in the northern hemisphere. Villikon realizes Mystere, an old acquaintance, was marooned on Itasca aboard the same legendary ship, and sets out on a quest with his wife Zandora, their child, and the villagers to seek her out, and find the lost craft. The crusade favors some, but disillusions many, as faiths are tested under extreme conditions.
Elsewhere on the planet, Imperium Forces arrive from the home world to begin searching for Villikon. But a corrupt intelligence officer intends to protect the horrible secret he abandoned and hid from the military for over a half-century - a genetic weapon, which spawned a vampirical race of foes, dwelling under the dreadful surface of the planet.
