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It was 1939 and Edmond Shaw was growing awfully tired of Nazis. His dissertation on the transmogrification of deceased flesh had earned him simultaneous praise and ridicule amongst his peers, and ever since his April publication in the Scientific Annum, he had been pestered with anonymous late-night telephone calls and strange, unlabeled packages left in the dark corners of his laboratory at the Berkeley campus of the University of California.

The Soviet secret agents were a bother, certainly, but he’d noticed they’d cooled their pursuits somewhat ever since the increased and surely unrelated FBI presence around the San Francisco area. Although hardly patriotic, Doctor Shaw worked and resided on American soil, and so he chose his political neutrality with care.

All that aside, the occult imagery of the Nazis was a slight against the very core of Edmonds scientific ideology and he’d be damned if he ever shared so much as a scrap of his research with the goons.

So far his stealthy stalkers had only attempted to contact him at his home or public laboratory. He suspected they had yet to discover the existence of his other, better, and far more secret (and doubtlessly illegal) second laboratory deep in the bowels beneath the old Hickman Manor up on Big Mountain.

It was in this other, better, secret laboratory where Dr. Shaw was at present engrossed in another of the offending, unlabeled documents. A warm glow crackled from the hearth to the left of the overstuffed leather sofa on which he was currently reclined. The contents of the strange package lay scattered about the spacious study with little care, while Edmond Shaw alternated between sipping a glass of Buchanan and scoffing incredulously at whatever he was currently reading.

The HMS Oberon was a ship with a noble history. Built in 1906, she had sailed under the flag of the British Empire during the Great War. At the tail end of 1918, she was decommissioned and then sold to the Northstorm Shipping Company, where she was rebranded as the SS Lisburne.

She was docked at the Whalesmouth pier in Innscantry, Scotland. Professor Charles Weir marvelled at the sight of her. She was an old thing, at a length of just shy of 100 metres, she had two smokestacks, three steam-powered turbines, and could travel at a speed of 20 knots. At her prime, she would have boasted a company of 200 men, though these days she was lucky to be manned by more than a skeleton crew.

At present, she would be crewed by 30 men and accompanied by 21 additional passengers. The passengers were all party to Putrid Strait expedition - a scientific and anthropological endeavour supported by the University of Manchester and privately funded by a trio of discerning households. With the reputable Captain Fitzsimmons at the helm, Professor Weir was confident in the expeditions timely and safe arrival at the Strait in a little under 5 days’ time.

Professor Weir was standing before the gangway, the stiff collar of his woollen jacket pulled up tightly about his face. He held a heavy leather valise under one arm, and with his other hand, he kept his wide-brimmed hat pressed firmly to the top of his head. The weather was abysmal, the wind ripping white-capped waves up across the salt-soaked dock.

It was early June and their journey would take them north, to the island of Svalbard. Although it was nearly summer, the weather approaching the arctic circle promised to be treacherous. Professor Weir was thankful to be in the company of such an experienced captain and crew.

Most of his colleagues had already boarded the ship, but the Professor had lingered, expecting a final arrival of passengers. He wanted to be certain everyone was accounted for before he began to settle into his small cabin.