1918.  The world is at war.  A terrible raging conflict that has left no one untouched.

In the North Yorkshire village of Hawkswick, it seems that the dead won't stay down.  There are reports of horrifically wounded soldiers on manoeuvres in the night.  Pets have gone missing, and now livestock is found slaughtered in the fields.

Suspicion naturally falls on the nearby Hawkswick Hall, a psychiatric hospital for shell-shocked soldiers, where Private Daniel Corey senses a gathering of evil.

As events escalate, a stranger arrives on the scene.  Can this Man from the Ministry solve the mystery of Hawkswick?  And can Hawkswick solve the mystery that is this Man from the Ministry?

The planet Ceres Alpha is being 'developed'.  The surface crawls with gigantic city-machines that are churning and rebuilding the world, seeding it with tomorrow's vegetation so that full-scale colonisation can follow.

But Gaskill Tyran, head of the biosphere-engineers WorldCorp, is finding things more difficult than he would like.  The whole project seems to be falling apart under an ever-increasing burden of mysteries.

Why has a batch of strange babies been born with telekinetic powers?  Why wont the terraforming go according to pan?  Why are there more and more problems with the comp systems that run the city-machines?

It seems there may be conspirators.  A rival Corporation with its eye on the contract for Ceres Alpha.  And Tyran's patience is now wearing thin.

But then he gets his answer.  A mysterious infiltrator known only as the Doctor.