Young Uli Merkel is an engineer and inventor. He has a wife and child and is primarily interested in his career. One day, he receives a strange assignment from general manager Zeim. He is to track down the former chief designer Heiner Rudolf in order to take his inventions out of his pocket. Rudolf, ridiculed at the time for his forward-looking work, had taken all his documents with him when he left. Now they are needed to fulfill an important export order. In his search for Rudolf, Uli begins to realize that he, the boy, is being used. He finally finds Rudolf as a gravedigger on the island of Rügen. The encounter reinforces Uli's doubts about the moral integrity of his mission. He gets out and stays there, while Rudolf accepts an offer from the general manager.