The narrative follows a young third-level time explorer, Urs, who faces an ultimate tribunal after a mission error that exposed a future alloy sword to a primitive culture. The story alternates between the formal, austere hearing—where policy, culpability, and the ideal of absolute justice are weighed—and vivid field recollections of pursuit, danger, and the moment the alloy blade becomes lodged in a rock. It examines the moral and professional tensions of time exploration, the gap between bureaucratic standards and practical peril, and the unintended cultural consequences that can arise from a single technical mistake.