Based on the story "Incomplete Superman" by Poul Anderson Sylvia Mencken was a Mortal, the most populous human form, with its passions and centuries of stubborn pride. Alec Richmond, her lover was a Superior, one of the orphans of earth living in the shadows, blessed with superpowers, cursed with madness. And then there were the Others, who sought to enslave them - whose alien acts of terror against the planet had already begun.