* * * DOBAY – HOSLICK OF THE TWO DAWNS * * *

A party wipe! A frigging party wipe! And it was their own fault. The damn dungeon was probably laughing itself sick, that is, if it could laugh. They had miscalculated badly, but in their defence they had not considered the properties of water when it came to electricity.

Once again Hoslick watched the recording of the disaster. The obscenely flexible dungeon monsters gave him the shudders. The dungeon’s first success came with the long thin creature, the one with the circular mouth. It ripped a hole in the convict-worker’s armoured water suit. The influx of water had caused a short in the doomed bastards suicide charge. The shaped charge bolted to his carapace had promptly blown his brains out. Hoslick considered that a merciful death, much preferable to the agony caused by the dissolving of the various salt nodes necessary for life.

The real surprise came with the clouds of black ink that the smaller monsters had produced, that stuff greatly increased the water’s ability to conduct electricity even as it impeded magic. It just took one convict-worker triggering his electric rod for the disaster to happen. All the convicts covered by the ink cloud had been affected. Their suicide charges had been triggered when the unexpected combination of circumstances had blocked the beamed signal.

The dungeon creatures seemed to be resistant, almost immune to electricity. The surviving party member, the sergeant in charge of the work detail hadn’t stood a chance on his own.

Hoslick turned in disgust from the monitor running the depressing film. He flicked two switches and, rather reluctantly, returned his attention to it now, the screen was split in two; on the larger section it was showing the feed from their drone. The drone’s camera was showing the small matt black disk floating on the surface of the sea. He could just make out the cable that was holding it in position disappearing into the depths. The other part of the screen was displaying seemingly random characters and static.

The scientists believed that the signal that was being beamed from space was some kind of encrypted video feed. They were working frantically to decipher it.

* * * EARTH – SHADOW * * *

Shadow was not impressed by the museum’s articulated triangular shape, frankly he found it somehow lacking. He freely acknowledged to himself that his tastes ran more to the traditional, Parthian styles of architecture. He did however enjoy many of the exhibits, and he had lots of fun using his specialised illusions to play with the staff. Mycroft had warned him that the museum filmed, photographed, and recorded visitors for educational and promotional uses.

So by the time Shadow called it a day, those recordings included a besuited humanoid dragon puffing away on a Cuban cigar, the president walking arm in arm with the speaker of the house, a kzin drooling over other visitors and a klingon admiral.

* * *

Next day found him once again on the road. It wasn’t a long journey this time, just a matter of two hours. After an early lunch at a roadside diner that commended itself to him by the number of trucks parked outside, Shadow made his way to the local nursing home.

After making use of the documents supplied by Mycroft he joined Dr Piraeus Jacobs. Jacobs had an air of suppressed anxiety as he peered at the small catman.

“Mr Shadow, forgive me but do I know you?”

Shadow felt a slight twinge of compassion; he smiled and replied, “No Dr Jacobs, this is the first time we have met.”

Jacobs blinked and seemed relieved, “why did you want to see me?”

“My principal has need of someone with your speciality. She believes she has a unique package that will entice you out of retirement. She has found a unique location with several unique life forms. They appear at first sight to be silicon based.”

Jacobs leant forward in his chair, then he slumped back looking defeated. “I’m sorry, but I forget things, constantly. I could recommend Dr Wendy Forrester....”

Shadow shook his head even as he produced a small potion bottle. “My principal had a nurse take a sample of your blood a few weeks ago to enable her to produce this. This potion will rejuvenate you by ten years. I have two others. This is a targeted potion, it is poisonous for anyone other than yourself.”

Jacobs eyed the potion with disbelief.

Shadow grinned and – persuaded – Jacobs to take the potion. “I’ll be back in a week for your answer, and you might like to study the proposed contract of employment.”

Shadow rose, dropped a thin folder on the side table by Jacobs’ side and left, deftly avoiding the burly male nurse who had been dispatched to stop him, due to the CCTV recording of the meeting.

* * * PARTHIA & FRAGATTA – MARY & MARY * * *

Thankfully things were quiet on Parthia as Mary was only half paying attention to what was occurring in her throne room, she was far more interested on the scene playing out on the big wall screen.

On Fragatta the big auditorium was almost empty, Mary was watching an identical scene on the big screens that lined the room.

Mary – both of her – refused to occupy her dungeon on Dobay, that world made her uncomfortable. The only time she had visited she had found herself fighting a visceral urge to send out a fleet of spaceships to find ice comets to humidify the planet. She was currently searching for someone to take over her Dobayan dungeon.

The screens showed the dusty yellow ball of Dobay receding behind the Magellan. The focus then switched to the approaching blue planet.

The Magellan diverted to avoid the point in space that both of the tide locked planets were orbiting around, on the assumption that it might be littered with space junk. The Magellan dropped a couple of repeater satellites as it prepared to swing round to view the farside of the blue planet. With the exception of a few small islands on the fringes, the nearside seemed to be all ocean.

The Farside was radically different, two huge kidney shaped continents dominated. A narrow sea separated them, barely one hundred kilometres at its widest point, with innumerable volcanoes dominating its centre, and both coasts of the continents.