It depicts the changes, after the events of The Shrouded Planet by the same authors, in the society of the fictional planet Nidor, a world perpetually covered in dense cloud, inhabited by humanoids resembling humans but differing in several respects, notably in being covered from head to foot in short downy fur.

Campbell was a complex man and a tough editor to please, but he was very much in tune with the times and believed fervently in the triumph of American society and values, specifically those of a white middle class.

Garrett and Silverberg set out to write the ultimate Campbell storyline – one featuring benevolent white men bringing civilization to the backward aliens, founding the Bel-rogas School of Divine Law.

Nidorians are culturally homogeneous, although there are some less typical characters from the outlying Bronze Islands, home to miners of copper and zinc.

People belong to one of sixteen clans with intra-clan marriage forbidden, although the taboo is beginning to broken as the novel opens.

Peych farming is highly ritualized, with set procedures for planting, dealing with pests, fertilizing with manure, and harvesting.

The main pest is an insect called the hugl, which is fought using Edris powder, a plant-derived insecticide similar to permethrin.

In doing so, he impoverished the manufacturers of Edris powder, causing a minor economic dislocation, not to mention a group of people with a grudge.

Kiv's grandson, Norvis peRahn Brajjyd, devised a new growth hormone for peych that doubled yields.

The luckless recipient of the Earthmen's largesse was lynched by a mob when the peych market collapsed, due to Norvis's giving the hormone to all the farmers secretly, causing a glut and an economic depression.

The plan is to use their cash reserves from other banks to buy up the worthless notes at a steep discount, then let the cobalt be re-discovered, multiplying their funds overnight.

His place is taken by Kris peKym who, as a Yorgen and direct descendant of the Lawgiver, is an ideal figurehead for the movement to restore the old ways.

Things progressively get worse until mass starvation, food riots and breakdown of the law result in the destruction of the main Temple.

Kris peKym is appointed executive officer by the remnants of the High Council, the first autocratic leader in the history of Nidor.

Smith explains that when the Earthmen first encountered Nidor, it was the first time they had found a species they had anything in common with, albeit one that had no inkling of other worlds, because they never saw the sun or stars.

Instead the humans adopted the role of the beneficent Earthmen, with a distinctive appearance, for instance wearing beards, and created institutions like the School of Divine Law, which, over the years, would result in the disruption of the static society.

The person really responsible for ruining Nidor, by killing Del peFenn, by starting heretical religious sects, by creating the Merchants Party itself in opposition to the priests, is Norvis himself.