Some weeks go by and then, suddenly, the first beta-effects of the PAD-Epidemic appear on the earth. All Terrans are beset by the wish to return to the home of their predecessors or to visit the underwater continent of Lemuria. They cannot be talked out of this urge by anyone and don’t even have second thoughts about murder and homicide in order to reach their goal. The government undertakes the most possible in order to put a stop to this development. However all attempts to calm down people through persuasion and the dispensation of Psycho-pharmaceuticals (drugs) remains useless. The size of the migration is too big, and there are too few people that still fight successfully against the symptoms of the PAD. Also Perry Rhodan perceives the pushing wish to return to his ancestral homeland of Bavaria, and Atlan must be allotted Takvorian as a bodyguard since the Arkonide hardly still has his enhanced aggressive tendencies under control. A hundred thousand residents of Earth die in the meantime through accidents and shootings.

However it gets even worse, because suddenly, a pilgrim-fleet of approximately 10,000 spaceships materializes in the proximity of the old Pluto-track, with millions of PAD-infected former settlers on board. These Terran settlers want to land on the Earth. This new threat brings Atlan and Rhodan again to the reason, and the Arkonide starts from the Earth with approximately 1,000 USO-battleships in order to detain the pilgrims. Initially he has success, not least due to the help of Ras Tschubai and Pucky, who, at short notice, teleport again and again onto the pilgrim ships in order to abduct the ringleaders of the invading fleet. As however, a Terran commander threatens to explode his ship if he should not be allowed to land on the earth, and then actually carries out his threat, the situation escalates once again. Only the timely intervention a 9,000 ships of the Terran fleet under the command of Rhodan, finally stops the Pilgrim fleet in its tracts. The fleet does this by producing a gigantic flame-belt of transform bombs around the Earth. The self-preservation-instinct is stronger than the PAD-Epidemic, and most pilgrims flee from the Sol System. Nevertheless, collisions and accidents cannot be avoided, and some dozen ships fall victim and are destroyed.

However, 62 battleships of the Pilgrim fleet under the command of Colonel Olgor Trattin succeed in breaking thru the Terran and USO fleets and landing in Terrania City. From these ships, 280,000 settlers emerge who are half mad and want to level Imperium-Alpha to the ground. As a result, they run blindly into the activated energy shield around the Terran Government HQ - and, thus, into their death. Only as the solar fleet utilizes its narcosis emitters does the onrush of the lunatics finally come to an end. The unconscious are shipped back onto their ships, and on the earth, there is silence for a short time.