Space and time have no beginning and no end and pasts we thought long gone, and futures we hope to come, are parts of the same thing and are separated only by the limits of our consciousness. But though they are, they frequently collide like bubbles in a soapy bath to reveal worlds we might enter as if through an open door, as many of us have; or will. As Captain William 'Billy' Kepple, newly and surprisingly promoted Captain of HMS Parrot, a 10-gun brig of war, Tom (not her real name), Polly, a servant girl with the gift of second sight, and Duffy his Boatswain, heroes of our timeless adventure, will, when they leave the troubled waters of Portsmouth's Spithead mutiny to rescue a party of French royalist fugitives from the coast of France.