This epic drama opens in Boulder, Colorado, at the home of Oxford-educated Robert Dalton, an internationally known chemistry professor. His houseguest is Jozef Bardowski, head of the analytical laboratory of Warsaw's Nuclear Energy Institute. Knowing that Dalton, accompanied by his Polish-born wife, Helena, will shortly embark upon a year's sabbatical at the University of Vienna, Bardowski expresses his fears that someone is introducing mind-altering drugs into Poland's natural gas to subdue the Polish people. To present the matter to the United Nations, he asks Dalton to analyze gas samples to be smuggled from Warsaw into the Austrian capital. Dalton agrees, unaware that by doing so, he will subject both himself and Helena to acts of terror, including an attempt on his own life.