Jameson Daniel McCoy (Jinty) is the latest of evolution's attempts to produce a new and viable variant of the human race. Early in life he discovers that his paranormal abilities are bounded only by his imagination, and he gradually learns to control his environment with the power of his mind. Jinty produces several inventions which help to relieve poverty (and thus loosen the grip of certain regimes on their subjects). This provokes a number of assassination attempts and the novel opens with one such attempt upon Jinty's life. Whilst exploring the solar system with his mind, Jinty encounters aliens on Pluto who are awaiting the arrival of their main fleet, intent on invasion of Earth. Jinty is faced with a dilemma: should he send the invaders back to their home planet without the people of Earth ever knowing they have been threatened, or should he give 'normal' human beings an opportunity to prove that they are not wedded irrevocably to bloody war as a solution to all territorial disputes? Jinty enlists the help of Henry Tenn, the soon-to-be British Prime Minister as he works towards the formation of a single World government. In order to force the major governments to unite, Jinty teleports four world leaders to the spaceship of True Prince, Hra Neh, leader of the alien scouting party. In a demonstration of his emerging abilities, Jinty vaporises an asteroid, warning Hra Neh that his home planet of Vahan could suffer the same fate if the intended invasion of Earth were to take place. Back on Earth, Jinty drops a bombshell: he tells the world Leaders that the whole incident with the asteroid was no more than a hoax. He then outlines a plan to oppose the alien invasion, which can only work if all the Earth is united under one government. His ploy is successful and the United Earth Government is born, under the presidency of Richard Jensen, lately president of the USA. Jinty provides devices to move a small fleet of retro-fitted nuclear submarines both into and across space, and leaves the Military to design tactics to make best use of their special capabilities, hoping that humans will not destroy the enemy without mercy. By means of Jinty's devices, following the opening exchanges of the battle, the invasion fleet is transported in an instant to their home planet of Vahan. However, the flagship, a heavily armed battleship more than a kilometre long, somehow manages to avoid the fate of the rest of the fleet, and the expedition commander, the True Prince, Hra Dinh, son of the Emperor of Vahan, proceeds to Earth intent on destruction of all of humanity. Jinty prevents the catastrophe and, in a fit of rage, Hra Dinh attacks him with a plasma weapon, resulting in the prince's death. Jinty removes the battleship, along with Hra Neh's scout force, to an orbit around their home world of Vahan and then decides to assist Hra Neh in a coup, realising that only in Hra Neh can there ever be hope of a peaceful solution. The emperor remotely detonates a nuclear weapon in his palace, with the intention of killing Hra Neh and Jinty; and in panic, Jinty teleports Hra Neh and his soldiers away from the blast, finding himself lost in the region of a neighbouring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. With little notion of the direction of home, and with air becoming stale, Jinty finally manages to replenish his oxygen from comets in the outer regions of an unknown star system and continues to search for home. Eventually Jinty brings everyone safely to Hra Neh's battleship, and to a final reckoning with the emperor, Hra the Fifteenth of Vahan and all Worlds.