However, he faces serious opposition from the fortunetellers, whose most senior seer has a vision of Momus's culture being destroyed by the troops sent by the Ninth Quadrant's government to preserve Momus from the predations of the Nuumian Empire, an ambitious Klingon-style world with designs on the planet, in which the infant show plays a major role.

"The Quest" is the story of an elderly newsteller who finds himself caught up in an underground attempt by the Nuumians to stage a coup which would leave them in control of Momus.

As a side effect, the newsteller creates a new class of performers, the storytellers; and himself reinvents the field of science fiction for the planet.

The profession was established by "Warts" Tho, the alien from Pendia who had signed on with O'Hara in the first book of the trilogy to keep the show's route book — a daily logbook similar to the captain's log of a sailing ship — the way O'Hara wanted it done, so the show would not lose the language and customs that make a circus different from other traveling entertainments.)

The problem is the show, now operated by Ashley Allenby, the Great Statesman of Momus, is facing off against a unit of the Arnheim & Boon Circus on a heavy gravity planet.