Returns Policy Secure transaction Phoenix Lafayette is a combat correspondent on the Pacific island of Guam during World War II, who comes to believe he can only survive the carnage by enacting for himself the mythical twelve labours of Hercules. And the woman who puts this idea into his head is Professor Serena Freeman of Cambridge University. But Serena is not from 1944, but the present. She has devised a time machine that can put her into the mind of anyone from the past, and 'Nix' is her first experiment. Unknown to her, a government agency has got wind of her invention, and is prepared to secure it any cost, including murder. These two total strangers, separated by time but united by dreams, are now both in deadly danger. And the mathematics of time itself are about to change.