Minor Terran bureaucrat, Hobart Floyt, has been left a mysterious inheritance by the ruler of an empire located many light-years away. Earth's government is broke and its functionaries want Floyt to collect the money. To make sure he succeeds, they blackmail a brash young spacer named Alacrity Fitzhugh into shepherding him on a dangerous interstellar quest.

The flies in the ointment. Once upon a time the dying ruler of a small interstellar kingdom made a minor Old-Earth bureaucrat named Hobart Floyt the surprised inheritor of an interstellar spaceship. And that was wonderful, for in those days, when Mankind was again expanding into the galaxy, a private spaceship was a license to coin credits. There were just a couple of minor problems. The dead ruler never told Floyt how to find the ship, the bureaucrats of Earth wanted the ship for themselves, and someone kept trying to murder Floyt and his friend Alacrity Fitzhugh....

Alacrity required only a few minutes at the White Ship's helm to learn that a captain's problems can be tougher than those of a knockabout spacer. Solving them could cost a piece of his heart.