Tony Neptune continues the story of Yuri Gagarin, the fabled cosmonaut and explorer who tragically died in 1961. In the second of these odes to Gagarin we join our hero at a point of catastrophe on the planet of Toierra. Two pieces of original music have been to accompany the painting on the sleeve and as part of a wider soundtrack to complement the narrative of this remarkable yet troubled man. An insert detailing the story will supplement the narrative of this issue...

Many millennia ago the Gods, the twelve spirit like creatures that fled from the void, changed the city of Toierra and the planet itself forever. It started with the last of the Twelve, Rem Katar, who made this planet, he made this city. In jealousy and spite the other of the Eleven sought to control his creation. A secret plan was set in motion to command the most influential Toierrans, who were at this point a thriving civilisation in their own right. They were craftsmen, thinkers, artists and warriors, but like all sentient beings they held a resolution to survive and were thus corruptible.

Gifts of power, riches and technology were given to the most prominent Toierrans, gifts that came with a caveat of fealty to the Eleven. Over time the wealthy in the city, with help from the Gods, augmented their bodies using cybernetics giving them a faster more agile minds as reward for tampering with their anatomy. From the outset, their new metal extremities scraped together with sharp ringing as they moved, leading the poor to call them, under their breaths, the Clinks.

The little Toierrans, those left with the unbeknown gifts of a mind that is pure and untampered with, were now a slave class confined to squalor at the base of the city. They were the metal workers, the builders and the disposal staff. They worked the forges night and day, they cleaned the city and they did so without complaint or the strength to fight back.

When the Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin landed on the planet many millennia after, he finds a city on the brink of upheaval. Enrolled in the Resistance Gagarin tours the streets with other Toierrans reeking petty havoc on the Clinks. Yuri is captured by a unit of patrolling guardsmen and dragged through the streets. Up step after step they cart him, never stopping, until whispers are heard. He hears the great creaking of enormous doors. He finds himself in a long and richly decorated gallery room bathed in light from a great glass ceiling. There is shouting, laughter and the general hubbub of a room in session. When curious eyes move towards Yuri the talk ceases and as the doors close behind him and the guards drag him forward he has never felt so alone..