Captain Don Davidson, the human leader of the Smith Camp on the “New Tahiti” colony—also known as the planet Athshe—starts his day thinking about a shipment of women coming to Centralville (New Tahiti’s headquarters) from planet Earth. He’s excited to “tame” New Tahiti, including its “creechie” (otherwise known as Athshean) natives, who work in the planet’s logging camps as slaves. Before heading to Central, Davidson speaks with the ecologist Kees Van Sten, who’s worried that the colonists’ poaching will cause the planet to turn into Earth (also known as Terra), which is all cement now. Davidson also chats with the camp’s foreman, Ok, who complains about how lazy the planet’s three-foot-tall, furry “creechies” are. Davidson agrees: the creechies should be wiped out. He tells Ok about a creechie that attacked him in Central and wouldn’t let up even as Davidson beat him.
Davidson visits Central, and when he returns to Smith via helicopter, he sees that the camp is burned and deserted. He runs into a group of creechies, including the creechie who attacked him. Claiming responsibility for the massacre, that creechie pins Davidson down, steals his gun, and bizarrely sings over him. He then lets Davidson escape to his helicopter, and Davidson drops bombs on Smith before returning to Central.
The Athshean who attacked Davidson, Selver, walks through the forest alone before running into a sleeping Athshean man, Coro Mena, who’s called “Great Dreamer.” Coro Mena sees Selver in his dream and takes him to his village, Cadast, where Selver shares his story: he was previously enslaved by the humans, and Davidson raped Selver’s wife, Thele, who died during the assault. Selver tried to kill Davidson before the human Raj Lyubov broke up the fight. Selver later burned Smith and killed the humans there. When he saw Davidson again, he sang over him and let him go.
Coro Mena enters a dream-state to verify this information. His role as Great Dreamer is to translate what he sees in his dreams into reality, as the Athsheans live both in dream-time and world-time. The village’s women then act on his observations. Coro Mena pronounces that Selver is a god, as he now knows what death is. Selver decides to gather other Athsheans to drive the humans out of their world. Lyubov taught Selver human ways, but Selver still doesn’t know whether the “yumens” are even men, since they kill one another. Coro Mena sends Selver off, telling him that he saw Selver in his dreams prior to Selver’s arrival, and that Selver will change their world.
Meanwhile, the anthropologist Raj Lyubov has a stress-induced migraine. He’s been researching the Athsheans and believed they were nonviolent, but the attack at Smith proves him wrong. Commander Yung, a Terran leader who originally traveled to Athshe to transport the women, calls a meeting at Centralville to discuss the Smith massacre. Yung brings along two non-Terran humans: a Hainishman, Mr. Lepennon, and a Hairy Cetian, Mr. Or. Yung, Lepennon, and Or ask Davidson questions about the attack, and Lepennon and Or discover that the Athsheans are enslaved rather than voluntary laborers.
Lyubov speculates that the reason Selver attacked Davidson was personal—Davidson killed Selver’s wife—and that the reason he let Davidson go this time was because Davidson laid in a position the Athsheans would see as surrender. The reason Selver sang is that this is a combat substitute for the Athsheans. Yung then reveals that Lepennon and Or have decided to give the colony on Athshe an ansible, a new transmitter for instant communication between planets that will force the humans on Athshe (also known as World 41) to have oversight from Earth. This ansible comes from the League of Worlds, a new interstellar government; Lepennon and Or are emissaries. Yung tells the colonists that his ship will return in three years to pick them up, as World 41’s colony status is in flux. Lyubov argues that the Athsheans can’t last that long, as the natives are in danger and overlogging has damaged the planet. Before the meeting ends, Lyubov quietly asks Lepennon to tell the League to save the Athsheans.
As punishment for bombing the Athsheans immediately after the Smith attack, Davidson’s superior, Colonel Dongh, sends Davidson to work at New Java Camp under Major Muhamed’s supervision. Davidson is appalled at the fact that the men are following the new orders from the ansible, which include letting the Athsheans go. Planning to take over New Java from the by-the-book Muhamed, Davidson begins convincing the loggers that the creechies are dangerous, and a group of his converts help him to secretly carry out a raid on a creechie town.
On Colonel Dongh’s orders, Lyubov goes to visit an Athshean village to ensure that the Athsheans aren’t planning another attack. The Athsheans in the village treat Lyubov coldly, and he runs into Selver, who warns him to leave Central in two days. One of the Athsheans tells a distressed Lyubov that Selver is a god now.
Lyubov reminisces on his friendship with Selver, which began while Selver was a slave for Central’s officers and an anthropological informant for Lyubov. Lyubov wanted to help Selver escape, but Selver couldn’t leave his wife, so Lyubov arranged meetings between Selver and Thele instead. Davidson saw Thele leaving one night, which led to her assault. After Selver attacked Davidson, Lyubov stopped Davidson from killing him and dropped Selver off in another part of Athshe. Lyubov wonders what Selver’s new god status means; he assumes it implies that Selver can introduce new information, such as murder, into his people’s dreams. Lyubov chooses not to disclose any of his concerns in his report to Dongh, and two nights later, he wakes up to see Central on fire, including HQ (where the ansible was). His lack of surprise makes him realize that he’s a traitor. He attempts to save a human woman from a burning building, but a wood beam knocks him down, and an Athshean slits the woman’s throat. Wandering through the city, Selver finds a dying Lyubov, who tells Selver that the killing has to stop.
The Athsheans leave the male humans in Central alive and hold them prisoner. Selver meets with the ecologist Gosse and tells him that the attack on Smith was in retaliation for a recent raid on an Athshean village (Davidson’s secret attack). Selver says that he’ll free the humans if they agree to live in their logging camps until their ship brings them back to Terra in three years. Gosse berates Selver for killing the human women, and Selver tells him that this was intentional: now, the humans can’t breed. The next day, a bewildered Dongh meets with Selver and agrees to his terms.
Shortly after this meeting, Davidson goes rogue in New Java. After the humans agreed to surrender to the creechies, Davidson killed Muhamed and other traitorous loggers, and he’s now defying orders to return to Central, as he hopes to wipe out the creechies himself. One night, a large army of creechies attack Davidson’s camp, and Davidson escapes in a helicopter with his right-hand men, Aabi and Post. When Aabi insists on returning to Central, Davidson threatens him and causes Aabi to crash the helicopter in the forest. Creechies, including Selver, discover Davidson, and he assumes the surrender position. Selver tells him that he plans to isolate Davidson on an island, which is what Athsheans do when one of their own goes insane. He and Davidson are both gods, Selver says: Davidson taught Selver to kill, and Selver will teach him the opposite.
Three years later, Commander Yung’s ship returns to Athshe, and he tells Selver that the humans will leave the planet and never return. Selver gives Lyubov’s research to Lepennon, who asks Selver whether the Athsheans have stopped killing entirely—specifically, he wants to know whether the Athsheans are now killing one another. Selver tells him that sometimes gods change the way things are, and that there’s no point in pretending that the Athsheans don’t know how to murder now. The world may return to how it was before the humans came, but Selver doesn’t think it will.
