It takes place within the same universe as Cogswell's 1952 novel The Spectre General and features the character Major Kurt Dixon of the Imperial Space Marines.
Major Kurt Dixon is given command of a scout patrol that follows a Kieran ship to its home base, but he is "fogged" and left unconscious.
Dixon's ship is equipped with an experimental computer that generates a cybernetic personality to support him on long lonely space patrols.
The computer, known as Zelda, manages to land the ship on an uncharted planet, inhabited by huge organo-metallic creatures that prey on each other with awesome weaponry and computerised defences.
As part of a 'selection of the fittest' process, Dixon and his ship are modified, acquiring vastly improved mental and physical powers.