Walter Chase, a fresh graduate of Civil Engineering from "Eastern University", is a man on the make. Having been skillfully steered into his education with the promise of a guaranteed job on the Shelter programs to come, he regards all the people he meets as potential stepping stones on his way up the ladder. Those who do not look like good prospects he efficiently discards, an example being his college girlfriend whose father is only a passed-over Federal bureaucrat. Leaving college behind, he heads towards his destiny, the first stop being the staff of Senator David Horton, of Indiana, a passionate and slightly unstable advocate of the Civilian Shelters Bill.