Story is told by a narrator who is a psychologist working in Indian country. What appears to be a consultation with a patient ends up being a meeting with his teacher, Tarrence. Tarrence proceeds to take the narrator into a dreamtime journey that melts the worldview held by the storyteller. The dream leads the narrator to a place in which the energy generated by ancient dreamers must be balanced. The lack of balance brought on by the power dreamers and their ceremony has resulted in the atomic bomb. New realms also give insights as to why the bomb was dropped on the Japanese. Throughout the story there are conflicts between western and aboriginal ways of knowing, the main protagonist being Carl, who is a psychiatrist.