The Caves of Ceres: Tales from the Age of Aether

By Sawyer Grey

The first two expeditions to the abandoned Martian base on Ceres vanished without a trace. Captain Allen Warren, Royal Navy, is determined that the third will succeed. When he reaches Ceres the ships of the first two expeditions are still parked on the landing field, but there is no sign of the crews except for a single dead man inside the base's airlock.Within days Warren has established a camp near the airlock and teams have surveyed the main levels of the underground base. Everything is going according to plan. But soon the expedition is rattled by rumors of voices whispering in the air vents and automatic lights that turn on when no one is there. People begin to disappear, vanishing in the night without a trace, while the remainder are torn apart by an epidemic of madness and violence. And down in the lowest level of the base there are warnings written in blood about the Great Old Ones. Perhaps Ceres is not quite as abandoned as it appears. The Caves of Ceres is a standalone novella set in The Age of Aether universe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tove Press
• Release date: Dec 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386207290

Book preview

THE CAVES OF CERES

TALES FROM THE AGE OF AETHER

BY

SAWYER GREY

Copyright © 2017 by Sawyer Grey

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher.

All characters in this story are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

DEDICATION

To Virginia Provost, who went so far above and beyond that she should have been an astronaut instead of a teacher. While I was grateful to take most of your other advice, I’m afraid that I was never able to rid myself of my obsession with elves or fantasy. And maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part I – Spitalfields, June 11, 1887

Part II – RNS Antigone, August 8, 1887

Part III – Ceres, November 17, 1887

Part IV – Ceres, November 20, 1887

Part V – Ceres, November 28, 1887

Part VI – Ceres, December 11, 1887

Part VII – Ceres, December 12, 1887

Part VIII – RNS Antigone, January 1, 1888

Epilogue

About the Author

PART I

SPITALFIELDS, JUNE 11, 1887

THEY PICKED ME UP coming home from the docks that night as I turned off Commercial Street into the fetid squalor of White’s Row. It was two weeks past the anniversary of my desertion from the Navy and flight into obscurity in the slums of London, and I had finally allowed myself to relax a bit. Oh, I knew I would never be free of looking over my shoulder, but I breathed a little easier as I drifted with the crowds along the streets towards home—a three shilling a week windowless cellar beneath a hovel that would have made rats turn up their noses in disgust.

I caught the first man out of the corner of my eye, turning in as I did on the other side of the street. Policemen in Spitalfields rookery are not unusual, but they never venture in there alone. This one stepped along bold as brass, looking straight ahead but obviously pacing me. A cold chill swept down my spine. There would be more of them ahead positioned to cut me out of the crowd, and others back on Commercial Street waiting in case I tried to bolt that way.

A knot of filthy, half-naked urchins clad mostly in worn strips of sacking swirled around the policeman, distracting him just long enough for me to squeeze into a cramped little alley between two crumbling lodging houses. I slogged as quickly as I could through ankle-deep filth and tried not to choke on the fetid air trapped in those awful confines. At the end of the alley I stepped over the sprawled form of an insensible drunk and out into Dorset Street, where I pulled my cap low over my face and shuffled into the crowd.

It was still early evening, but already throngs of drunks and whores swarmed the narrow street. I started to head west, in the opposite direction from where I had entered Spitalfields, but after a moment I changed my mind and doubled back the way I had come towards Commercial Street again. The police were not likely to expect me to go back that way, and I could not see any uniforms standing out from the crowd around me. To my surprise there were three more policemen standing across the street at the intersection when I got there, but fortunately for me they were looking the wrong way and I took advantage of their lapse to slip into Ringer’s pub.

Flickering gaslight cast a mask of subtle shadows on every face, granting me a degree of blessed anonymity. Even if the police ventured inside it was doubtful that they would recognize me at a glance. I found a place at the far end of the bar and waved down Mrs. Ringer.

Gin, I called out over the roar of voices.

She quickly returned with a chipped mug stained from long use and I was reaching for my money when a low voice beside me said, Allow me.

Mrs. Ringer’s eyes widened as a white-gloved hand dropped a couple of coins to clatter on the bar. She scooped them up with a bob of her head and scuttled off to the other end of the bar, wanting no part of whatever was behind me.

Commander Warren?

I gripped the mug tightly, ready for trouble, and found myself facing a lady who had no business being in Spitalfields. She had dressed down a bit, but at a glance you knew she was someone used to moving in the most rarefied heights of society. Earnest blue eyes regarded me from an oval face that while not strictly beautiful was starkly handsome. Her lips quirked in a half-smile as I realized that she was also a good four inches taller than I was. Striking as she was, I did not even notice the four Royal Marines flanking her until it was far too late to attempt an escape through the crowd.

Please relax, Commander. I’ve gone to a great deal of trouble to find you. I don’t mean you any harm.

I looked pointedly at the grim-faced Marines behind her, but she only shook her head.

"They are here for my protection. I would much rather have come alone, but the Foreign Secretary insisted."

What the hell; I wasn’t going anywhere. I forced myself to relax and threw back a slug of gin. Good thing for you that he did. You wouldn’t have made it halfway down this street without that escort. The police would have found your body in an alley—eventually. Now, who are you?

My name is Margaret Wylie. She offered me a gloved hand, and I bent over it just as though we were not standing in one of the very worst dives in London. Sometimes when the government has a problem that can’t be solved with ordinary means they send me around to see if it can be solved with extraordinary means. And just now I have a problem that I think you can help me solve.

I’m not interested in solving any problems whatsoever for the government. You might as well just arrest me now.

Will you at least do me the favor of sitting down and hearing me out? I might persuade you.

It was