Hawk's first mission among the humans is to join Buck, Wilma, and Dr. Goodfellow in escorting Ambassador Duvoe to a peace conference that could avert a terrible galactic war. Crisis strikes as their shuttle passes through an electric storm and crashes in the desert. With contact with Searcher impossible, the party must travel by foot to Oasis, encountering savage mutants and a mischievous gnome named ODX.

Hawk's first mission among the humans is to join Buck, Wilma, and Dr. Goodfellow in escorting Ambassador Duvoe to a peace conference that could avert a terrible galactic war. Crisis strikes as their shuttle passes through an electric storm and crashes in the desert. With contact with Searcher impossible, the party must travel by foot to Oasis, encountering savage mutants and a mischievous gnome named ODX.

The Searcher rescues a gold-skinned boy from an escape capsule in an asteroid field. When the ship collides with one of the asteroids, the boy displays his powers of molecular alteration by rescuing Admiral Asimov from beneath a fallen girder. The boy assures the crew of the Searcher that, with the help of his companion, who is on a nearby planet, he can dislodge the ship from the asteroid. But when Buck and Hawk go to the planet to get the companion, they find that he is being held captive by a man who wants to use the boy's powers for his own greedy purposes.

Buck, Wilma, and Hawk explore a strange planet and come across the wreckage of a spacecraft and its lone survivor. He is taken back to the Searcher by Wilma, while Buck and Hawk continue to explore. After some unexplained happenings on the planet, they return to the Searcher, where they find that everyone has undergone personality changes -- becoming the opposite of their real selves. Buck soon learns that he can not even trust Wilma and Hawk to help him solve the mystery of what has happened.