To meet with the GANYMED, Thora suggests the planet Honur orbiting the sun Thatrel as a meeting place. However, this planet has been under galactic quarantine since around 12,538 BC. The Dust Desert, Bully lovingly calls the wasteland, seems to harbor no risks. The TITAN comes in to land. They are greeted by the local people who call themselves the chastened, but are referred to by Perry Rhodan as Honos. They seem to be descendants of Arkonides, but these are degenerates. Apathetic, they sit in front of the spaceship and seem hardly to notice the crew. With them, they carry the seemingly innocuous Nonus-bears, which are ogled by the crew. After a short time the spaceman are crazy about the animals and keep them as pets.

Rhodan meanwhile ponders the question of why this planet appears to be so unrealistically harmless. To substantiate his doubts, he takes a scout Gazelle with Julian Tifflor, the Arkonide Crest and Wuriu Sengu, to investigate the wilderness closer. Also joining them is the mousebeaver Gucky, who is bothered by the "stench" of the crew’s new favorite pets. While exploring, the spacemen find several Arkonide wrecks and other vessels and examine them in detail. In the completely demolished and dismantled shipwrecks, Gucky and Sengu find skeletons in the rooms, which are completely undressed and lie partly under meters of dust. Rhodan decides to return to TITAN, but meanwhile there the Nonus plague has erupted. The Argonin pathogen is threatening the lives of the 700 crew, including Bully and Thora.

Rhodan and his companions manage with great difficulty to bring the TITAN in their possession, while the SOS sparks an attack by robot ships that the GANYMED destroys. Thes scientists on the  GANYMED find out that the Nonus-bears are of artificial nature and carry the pathogens, but a cure for the 700 infected is not found.