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searching for his visitor. “Did someone call for me?”
    He reached the door, and checked his quaint cubby area where he slept, but there was no one there. The young man sighed to himself and shook his head. Was someone playing practical jokes on him? He doubted that. Just his strained mind. But he could hold it together, surely.
    “Nobody’s there, then? Just the plant and I,” he said looking over at the strange Venusian flora that managed to resist the harsh environment of the engine room. “It wasn’t you who called me, surely?”
    Before returning to his duties, Fenn took a moment to ponder the absurdity of a man whose conversation owed its majority to himself, the rest to a leafy plant…
    4.
    NATHANIAL LEFT THE engine room, his mind in turmoil. This would not do, not at all. He knew Fenn was a sensible chap, brilliant at his job as well, but the poor man had no comprehension of just what would happen should Nathanial’s worst fears be realised. It was all well listening to hearsay, but to be a party to it was something else entirely. No matter how stern the stuff you were made of, it could bring a sense of hopelessness that was unparalleled.
    It would be like Peregrine Station all over again, only this time there would be no escape. It was going to pull them in and melt them away without a second thought. Nathanial knew he was worrying, but it could not be helped. Both he and Annabelle had seen an aether vortex at its worst, and he’d be damned if he was willing to see it happen again, especially to his close friends.
    The images of Holmes, Fullbright and Provost swam around in his mind. He had believed that he had been at the beginning of what would have been long, prosperous friendships with these men, but any such possibility had been ripped away by the destructive nature of the phenomena. It was something that still came to mind whenever he heard word of an aether vortex. A most unpleasant association indeed. It was something that he assumed would stay with him for the entirety of his life, and he would not let it happen again. He shook the image from his mind—he had to make sure Folkard knew what he and Fenn had found out, about the unusual pull of the planetary wakes. The forewarning of an aether vortex!
    Passing the laboratory he heard Arnaud, apparently talking to himself. He stopped to listen.
    “We have all had a strange turn or two since we left for Mars. I do not know what ails us, but it will pass,” Arnaud was saying, his voice muffled.
    An unexpected smile crept over his face. It was most endearing that Arnaud voiced out loud his thoughts, something Nathanial had noticed often, not that he would ever tell the Frenchman that.
    Nathanial stopped listening to Arnaud’s soothing tones and set himself back on course to talk to Folkard. Now that he was on his way, he wondered exactly how to broach the subject to him. He knew the captain was a most competent pilot, but Nathanial was unwilling to leave anything to chance.
    5.
    “ CAPTAIN, HAVE YOU noticed anything odd with the ship of late?”
    Folkard turned his head slightly to regard Stone from the corner of his eye then turned back to look out of the main window.
    “Nothing that would raise any alarm, Professor.” Folkard batted away the concern.
    “So we’re definitely not veering dangerously close to an aether vortex?”
    Folkard turned around, discomforted by the tightly fastened straps digging into his sides. “I trust you do not doubt my abilities as your captain.”
    “No,” Stone said meekly, retreating somewhat from his slightly inappropriate insinuation. “I have just been down to the engine room and Fenn reported irregular readings with the pressure, and spoke of the boiler ‘playing up’, as he put it.”
    Folkard frowned and stroked his bushy beard. “Yes, he did mention said matter through the pipe, however it is only momentary, it will soon pass.”
    Folkard regarded Stone carefully as the red-haired man glared out of