Lazy repairman Des Kinvig's life changes when he imagines meeting a glamorous alien from Mercury, who looks a lot like his latest customer Miss Griffin.
When his wife Nell tells him she saw a man in the neighborhood who looked like him, Des has a dream where Miss Griffin warns him that the Xux have created a clone to replace.
Miss Griffin has not been in the shop for a few days. Des has a home-medicine induced vision of his alien friends telling him that she has disappeared on her last mission. All evidence points to the local park.
Des has a nightmare of humanoid replicas of Mr Horsley emerging from the burning council building. At the same time Mr Horsley's nephew is creating a new line of shop dummies.
Netta shows a sudden and obsessive interest in the subject of alien spacecraft. When Des and Jim discover that she has invited a strange being to tea, they become rather alarmed.
