Norman works as a technician aboard the Tolmeckius ESP Research Center, an orbital station circling the planet Tolmeckius. He is among the crew experimenting on a psychic named Moira when the derelict spacecraft *Green Planet* arrives unexpectedly.

His past includes military service, where he abandoned his comrade Sander to a hostile extraterrestrial creature, a "Mordi" or "galactic space slug." This act leaves him burdened by deep-seated guilt.

When an alien entity assaults the research station, it psychologically torments Norman by exploiting this past trauma. Confronted by a hallucination of Sander, Norman is lured into an airlock. Manipulated by the vision and believing he can atone, Norman opens the airlock without a spacesuit and dies from explosive decompression.

The alien entity, identifying itself as a divine instrument of punishment, specifically targets Norman for this unresolved guilt over Sander's death, categorizing the abandonment as a sin worthy of execution.