Jorj X. McKie is a Saboteur Extraordinary, one of the principals of the Bureau of Sabotage, and the only human admitted to practice law before the Gowachin bar as a legum (lawyer).

Whilst meditating in a park on the grounds the Bureau's headquarters, McKie is mentally contacted by the Caleban Fannie Mae, a nominally female member of a multidimensional species of unparalleled power, who cryptically explains his mission.

The planet and its biosphere are massively poisonous except for a deep narrow valley containing the city-state "Chu", into which nearly 89 million humans and Gowachin are crowded under terrible conditions.

But McKie's success as a BuSab agent is really the result of a formidable intelligence and an exquisite sensitivity to the traditions of other races combined with the ability to adapt to any circumstances.

She introduced a subtle flaw in the computer system governing food distribution, which eliminated her own position as "Senior Liaitor" (or Liator) along with the jobs of 49 other human beings.

This small, dislodged pebble becomes the avalanche which leads to a full-scale race-war against the Gowachin, a crisis for which she had long prepared: Jedrik is the culmination of an eight-generation plan to break free of the God Wall enclosing Dosadi.

She captures McKie before he could fall into the hands of Dosadi's nominal ruler, Broey, whereupon the novel chronicles the character development of these two remarkable individuals in becoming utterly joined in body, mind, and purpose.

Elector Broey, the Gowachin ruler of Dosadi, is slow to recognize that the race riots are the beginning of a world war, much less one orchestrated by a mid-level functionary.

He is shocked into personally surrendering to Jedrik, however, after the God Wall Caleban turns the sky of Dosadi black in preparation for the total destruction of the planet.