In the brief time Earl considers his answer (which he spends figuring out how to say “no way, psycho” politely enough that it won’t get him killed), he has to rebuff an offer from Lisa to assassinate Parect and rule by her side, and then avoid an assassination attempt by Parect’s grandson (a not-too-bright hothead who is a danger to everyone, including Parect).  Both men are severely injured in the fight, but the grandson is killed by a mysterious malfunction of his own laser before either one of them can finish the job.

With the carrots already on the table, the sticks come fast and furious.  Earl could be executed for killing a nobleman.  Never mind that Parect probably gave him a booby-trapped laser and goaded him into the attack to simultaneously get rid of a troublemaker and gain leverage to be used against Dumarest.  Also, Earl owes a ton of money for the medical treatment he received from Parect’s physicians after the assassination attempt, and if he doesn’t agree he will be sold into slavery.  Plus while he was under the anesthetic, he was implanted with a mysterious device which will signal his location to the Cyclan if he betrays Parect.  Oh, and Zenya will be accompanying him on the mission to make sure he behaves.  Zenya naturally takes full advantage of their cover story (traveling as a married couple). Dumarest resists at first but gives in to keep up appearances when it becomes apparent they are under surveillance.  Poor guy.  About the only bright spot is that Dumarest befriends Branchard, the captain of their ride - a fast merchant vessel called the Topheir engaged in speculative trading and a perhaps a bit of smuggling. 

If all that’s not bad enough, the planet Chard (where Salek is to be found) is at war, and Earl’s cover story as a nobleman from Samalle, one of the Warrior Worlds, lands him an unsolicited job as a military advisor to the local militia.  It seems the Ayutha, apparently the regressed descendants of a much earlier wave of galactic colonization, have recently abandoned their pacifistic lifestyle and have taken to raiding the farming villages outlying the planet’s main city. The more recent colonists on Chard have advanced technology, but they are also predominantly peaceful, hence their eager acceptance of Earl’s military advice based on his otherwise flimsy cover story. They are reluctant to embark on a war of genocide, at least partially because the Ayutha provide a cheap source of labor to harvest the multipurpose plant that provides fruit, textile fibers, and the rare and mildly hallucinogenic oils used in manufacturing perfumes and unguents that are the planet’s only significant export goods.

Earl insists on a full military physical but their scanners can detect no device implanted in his body.  Earl is unsure if Parect was bluffing, or if he has used a surprisingly advanced technology that has evaded detection.  Earl engages Branchard to search for Salek while he plays full-time general to maintain his cover.  Most of the rest of the novel is a nifty little SF whodunit in which Earl discovers the root cause of the outbreak of violence and reconciles the two factions.  When Lisa arrives to complicate things further, he goads her into revealing that he doesn’t have a physical device implanted, but a technologically enhanced post-hypnotic suggestion that will compel him to turn himself in to the Cyclan if she says the magic word.

Earl eventually discovers that the hallucinogenic plants have mutated and their pollen is causing the violence for which each side has blamed the other.  During his investigation, he surmises that the Ayutha would never have formed a resistance movement without outside help, and with Branchard’s help determines that Salek, who has lived among the Ayutha for years, is responsible.  After arranging a truce between the factions, Dumarest goes to capture Salek, but tries to kill him instead, the result of another of Parect’s post-hypnotic suggestions. Parect’s unrealistic plan to reunite the family to resist the other noble houses is thus revealed to be a ruse to cover the much more realistic goal of eliminating a potential usurper.  Earl’s own troops restrain him until he can overcome the compulsion to kill Salek. Once Earl informs him what triggered the whole mess, Salek is chastened and regrets teaching the Ayutha how to make war .

Dumarest doesn’t appreciate all this hypnotic cleverness, and although he suspects Parect probably encoded more than one trigger phrase (to be able to play the heiresses off against each other), Lisa tries to kill Salek and Dumarest kills Lisa before he can find out all the details of his mental programming.  Zenya is sent packing back to Paiyar where she will presumably be safe from Parect’s paranoia because she is Parect's last surviving heir, although nobody really seems to care one way or the other what happens to her.  Salek will hopefully stay out of harm’s way on Chard, helping to rebuild relations between the technological culture and the Ayutha while they all deal with the economic repercussions of their cash crop’s mutation.

And, lo and behold, Salek, who has lived and worked among the Ayutha this long because he actually is a scholar of ancient history and they actually are descendants of a very early wave of galactic colonization, actually does have useful information about Earth.  Although Earl’s cover has long since been blown, he is offered a chance to stay on as permanent military advisor, but after Parect’s manipulations he fears the Cyclan is now hot on his trail and hires on to Branchard’s crew to make an anonymous exit.