Thomas Thomas is an indigent writer involved with Elizabeth Knockington-Squidgley, archeologist and pillar of society, 49th in line to the Throne. Thomas spends his life in a mildly altered state of consciousness in which he sees beings from other worlds disguised as humans and believes in a cosmic conspiracy to enslave mankind, which he alone might foil as he is among the last on the Old Ones who know what’s going on. Liz, infinitely more sensible, has, nevertheless, found artefacts below London ten times older than they should be and is on a collision course with her Establishment. She is pregnant and about to lose her job when mysterious Professor Roth shows up and offers her a mercifully large salary to study scientific anomalies, including the mysterious properties of dreams, which they do on a vast scale. Back at the family castle the 18th Baron introduces them to alchemical equipment last played with by his grandfather who had been friends with J W Dunne of Experiment With Time fame. The 16th Baron’s notebooks are full of references to things which had not occurred at the time he was writing. Particularly noteworthy were Dunne’s swept-wing aircraft, a design which was not explored again for 30 years. Was it possible that the old boy HAD travelled in time? Chain-smoking Professor Siglinda ‘Ciggie’ Freud appears, enquiring about the Shardam or the Stone of Death, a mysterious power object known to the alchemists.

“Which is?”

“Perhaps the most primordial artefact, Adam’s portion of Eve’s Apple."

The Baron realises it sounds very like an object he used to make his grandfather’s tea.

Thomas, on a straightforward mission to save the world from bad aliens, is beginning to find it's nowhere as simple as that.