Jason is kidnapped by the self-righteous Mikah, who is determined to bring him back to the planet Cassylia, ostensibly to be tried for his various crimes but really (Cassylia does not want Jason returned, since his huge winnings have been spent and the planet has used the incident to promote the "honesty" of its casino) to help Mikah's movement to overthrow the government, which they consider corrupt. Jason forces a crash-landing on a planet where the human population has regressed. The technology is extremely primitive, and knowledge is split up among many small clans, each one jealously monopolizing what it knows. Jason uses his ingenuity to survive, trading his knowledge for protection and power in one of these clans. He eventually allies with a clan which has the knowledge of electricity. He creates innovations and machinery for the clan, in the process devising a crude device that signals his location to a spaceship piloted by his Pyrran girlfriend, Meta.
