Chulyin, shaman of the North, is on the wind of time. He flies high above man and watches with interest as the prospect of nuclear war begins. Chulyin chooses Eleanor, a scientist at an Oceanographic Institute in the United Kingdom to help him avert international disaster. Eleanor is working with a team of other scientists, all of whom are attempting to translate the language of the killer whale. The shaman makes sure that Eleanor's dreams take her on journeys across the threshold of man's dominions and into the shaman's world.