A young, independently wealthy traveller (the narrator), who accidentally finds his way into a subterranean, strange world occupied by beings who seem to resemble angels and call themselves Vril-ya.
Sunlight filtered through the windows into the sleep-compartment. Tony Rossi yawned, then opened his black eyes and sat up quickly. He tossed the covers back and slid to the warm metal floor. It looked like a nice day. The landscape outside was motionless.In the dining compartment his mother and father had finished breakfast. Their voices drifted to him as he clattered down the ramp. A disturbed murmur; he paused to listen. What were they talking about? Had he done something wrong, again?
One of the chief purposes of psychiatry is to separate fantasy from reality. It is reasonable to expect that future psychiatrists will know more about this borderline than the most learned doctors of today. Yet now and again even the best of them may encounter situations that defy all logic.
It was a strange and bitter Earth over which the Chancellor ruled--a strange and deformed world. There were times when the Chancellor suspected that he really was a humanistic old fool, but this seemed to be his destiny and it was difficult to be anything else. Human, like all other organic life on Earth, was dying. Where it spawned, it spawned monsters. What was to be the answer?
