In the story Biggle explores the old aphorism about the road to Hell being paved with good intentions and he garnered for himself a nomination for a Locus Best Novel Award.

Cedd Farrari and twenty-nine other members of his class at the Cultural Survey Academy are transferred, two years before their graduation, to the Interplanetary Relations Bureau.

Farrari joins the IPR team on Branoff IV, where he uses his training to organize the data that the explorers and observers bring in pertaining to the native Branovians.

Through a comedy of errors Farrari ends up presenting the cake himself and committing an act that makes him a legend in Scorv, an omen from the Gods, who have apparently granted the kru a long reign and eternal glory.

At loose ends and not wanting to return to base, Farrari manipulates the slaves into forming something resembling an army on the march.

This is the first time that IPR has encountered a sub-human species on the verge of achieving sentience, so the scientists at the base and in the field intend to study the slaves intensely.

Farrari and Liano go back into the field themselves, intending to try, ever so gently, to get the slaves to develop a simple culture.