The Sky Road
Ceres
The Sky Road
Salt and silence. The white spots are natron — soda left by brine that climbed from below; break the salt of Occator or dig natron ore from the clay rock. Natron is a flux: two raw pieces of a star metal and a pinch of it give three ingots. The salt glows at night — those are the lights of Occator; at dawn the crater breathes: brine bursts into hoar, a rainbow halo rings the Sun, and pinches of natron settle on the ground — pick them up. Young craters lie in pale rays. To the south-east stands Ahuna Mons, a lone mountain of salty ice. A day here is nine hours; the small world closes on itself.
gravity0.06 gairnone — wear a suitorbit2.77 AU
- Distance from the Sun: 414 million km
- Day: 9 h
- Dwarf planet of the Main Belt
Views
Creatures
Structures
Brine Seep
Ceres is not quite dead: here the brine still finds its way up. The mound breathes — every half a minute the crack on its top throws salt water into the sky, and it falls back as snow.
Dawn Camp
The camp of the Dawn expedition. They came for the bright spots, drilled the salt for a season and left in a hurry: the rover is still out there, and the last cores are still in their boxes.
Occator Lights
Three mirrors under the salt of Occator, older than the salt itself. Turn them so that the light of the sun-eye falls into the dark niche, and the niche opens. Who set mirrors on a world where nobody lives?
Ores
Weather
- Breath of Occator. At dawn the Sun warms the salt and the brine under it boils off into the void: plumes of hoar burst over the bright spots, a pale haze stands over the ground, a rainbow halo rings the Sun, and natron settles.
Events
- Ahuna Awakens. Salty mud seeps from the cracks and creeps downhill. Step aside from its edge: it grips your feet but spits out natron
- Ejecta Curtain. Belt fragments strike Ceres, and a slow wall of ejecta spreads from each crater. Take cover on the crater side