The plot involves, among other things, an extension of the Peckham Experiment, mathematicians John Conway and Michael Paterson's game of sprouts, astrology, the poetry of Sidney Lanier, the history of Phoenicia, and commentary on the value of a dedicated teacher of a subject contrasted with a practicing engineer of that subject attempting to teach it, all in a kaleidoscopic combination.

The central plot device is the "macroscope", a large crystal that can be used to focus a newly discovered type of particle, the "macron".

Using the macroscope, observers were able to look into one race's historical records, finding numerous parallels with human life on Earth.

The macroscope's clear view across space also makes it an ideal communications system for intelligent races, who broadcast signals by generating macrons, a technique not yet understood on Earth.

While inadvertently viewing the destroyer signal with Brad and a Senator visiting the project, only Ivo survives the experience.

The Senator's death sparks a series of events that lead to Ivo, Afra and two other station members, Harold and Beatryx, stealing the macroscope.

Harold, a talented engineer, uses the information from one of the signals to build a device reducing their bodies to a liquid state, allowing them to accelerate at 10 g and escape the pursuing ships.

Over time, Ivo sees parallels between the characters in the drama and the group in the ship, and eventually escapes the illusion and re-asserts control.

Exploring the inner portions of the station, which is a large museum, they are individually drawn into a series of visions that reveal different aspects of the nature of the destroyer and its history.

The destroyer station, one of six in the galaxy, was set up to prevent this until the races reached the required level of cultural sophistication, if they ever did.

After murdering her during a game played to the death with rules only the two of them could comprehend, Schön created the new Ivo to escape the retribution of his peers.

Playing the game by the rules and losing, Afra instead tricks Schön into the room broadcasting the destroyer signal.

At the end of the story the reader is left to decide whether or not the people of Earth are mature enough and ready for interstellar travel.

[1] Next to last, Brad and Ivo/Schön both come from a special project in Philadelphia clearly modelled in some ways on Britain's Peckham Experiment, initiated during the Great Depression.

Early in the book Brad complains that the population of 5 billion is unsustainable unless mankind reaches the stars, but he doubts their ability and maturity to do so.