Jack Commer leads a peace mission in his flagship Typhoon II to end the war
with Alpha Centauri, but the crew is beset with
Star Drive anxiety and an engine explosion strands the ship 393 billion miles
from its destination.
Ship’s engineer and physician Phil Sperry debates whether to confess his secret love for Jack’s wife Amav to the gentle and understanding Dar, emperor of the Martians.
The Typhoon rescues human refugees from the war, but they fill the crew with unease. Navigation Officer Will Connors abruptly Converts to worship of the Alpha Centaurian emperor.
Jack’s diary records the previous month and a half of crew Conversions. Three remaining Nonconverted are confined to the Typhoon proper, while the blissfully Converted refugees, USSF crew, and Martians have full run of the luxurious attached Pod. Jacks knows his mission has failed and that humanity itself is at risk of being absorbed into the Alpha Centaurian Grid.
Amav’s diary describes her mistaken marriage to the petulant child Jack. Phil’s diary describes his Conversion and his reluctant acquiescence in a plot to kill the captain.
Twelve year-old Bobby, an emotionally damaged refugee, writes a story about a boy and girl stranded on an alien planet. Disgusted at the story’s sexuality, Jack barricades himself in the Control Room. But after flooding the ship with death rays to kill two Converted attackers, he realizes the damage he’s done to his marriage with Amav.
Centaurian stormtroopers take the Typhoon II, killing several captives before hauling the rest off to face the dismembered Centaurian Crab Emperor, who sentences Jack and Amav to the Maximum Centaurian Torture.
