The two central characters are the Americans Bremen and Gail. Both are telepaths, the only other telepaths that either has ever known. Inevitably, they fall in love. When Gail dies of illness, Bremen is devastated. He gives up his career in mathematics and becomes a drifter. At the commencement of the action, he has ended up at a facility for retarded and otherwise disabled minors. He becomes sort of fond of one named Robby, who had been blinded and mentally crippled before birth by his mother's drug abuse habits, and resolves that before he leaves the facility (for he feels he has been there too long), he will use his telepathic power to give Robby a gift of sorts: images and sounds of the outside world.