Humanity has mastered many planets; civilization there is at a high level, yet there are also underdeveloped planets with a feudal world—where they don’t even suspect the existence of a more advanced humanity.
And on such a planet languishes an unwilling slave nicknamed the Silent One.
He neither speaks nor hears, and is valuable only because he can reliably turn the winch of a water-drawing device in conditions where other slaves and draft animals can’t endure. But then an unexpected event occurs—something small—that makes the Silent One “wake up” and lead a fight against pirates from space who have arrived for “live” cargo. He saves his masters and becomes, once again across the expanses of the universe, the person he was long ago…