Andrew Harlan’s job is to range through past and present centuries monitoring and even altering Time’s myriad cause-and-effect relationships.

As a Technician with the Allwhen Council, he initiates Reality Changes that may affect the lives of as many as fifty billion people – and a million or more of them may be so drastically affected as to be considered new individulas. Above all, therefore, a Technician must be dispassionate. An emotional make-up is a distinct handicap. Then Harlan meets Noÿs and falls victim to a phenomenon older than Time itself – love.

Years of self-discipline are cast aside as Harlan uses the awesome techniques of the Eternals to twist Time so that he and Noÿs might survive… together.