The Ripple in Space-Time: Free City Book 1 (The Free City Series) (11 page)

Philip and Lucas told her about
the terrible abuse that Ramesh had suffered since the
Lightning
had
arrived. Both Bosco and Captain Gristle had repeatedly beat the
sometimes-arrogant and often defiant man.

Jana listened in alarm as the men
described Erik
’
s rapid and unexplainable descent into madness shortly
after the pirates had snatched them from the Moon.

All were starved.

The slaves greedily devoured
dozens of the moldering rations. Although eventually satiated by the
substandard fare, Jana felt quite queasy after the rancid feast.

They slept fitfully heaped
together, loosely bound against the lack of gravity by the rope that had
constrained Erik.

When they heard the approaching
pirates in the passageway, the five slaves trembled and groaned uncontrollably
in despair.

• • •

The respite during the Mars
crossing earlier in the day had paid off, Ryo noted as he pulled himself
through the dark narrow passageway towards the cockpit. For the first time in
weeks, his shipmates had spent much of the day together as they worked through
their various tasks. As he had returned from the lavatory, he
’
d glimpsed Keira and Lev clenched in a passionate embrace in the dim
sleeping berth of the
Seiran
.

Thankfully the sexual tension and
the inexplicable animosity between the two was now likely to vanish.

Ryo smiled smugly as he slipped
into the pilot
’
s seat for the second half of the midnight watch; to his
surprise, he rather enjoyed his burgeoning role as the group
’
s patriarch. Perhaps he would expand upon the notion when he returned to
Free City.

The old Investigator’s mirthful
contemplation was interrupted when the incoming message light flashed several
times.

Ryo studied the sender
information; the dispatch was from Carla Stuhr.

He watched the recorded message
that she had sent hours earlier,
“
I
’
ve just discovered another unusual ripple.
”

The shadowy image of the woman
glanced at the desktop display,
“
It
’
s much smaller than the earlier one.
”

She made several adjustments to
the bright image before continuing;
“
It
’
s a single small very dense object with a mass of about 1,200 grams
traveling at around 75 kilometers per second.
”

Carla stared at him in concern,
“
I don
’
t have a very good plot on the
trajectory yet, but it seems to have originated near Lutetia and is headed
towards Earth!
”

20. News Item: The war of words continues
Dateline: 30th of July, 2445; Arusha, EurAfrica, Earth

The bitter rancor continues to
escalate between Daniel Kufuzu, the Exalted Warlord of EurAfrica and his much
younger half-brother, Dimitri Verhovnyi, the Supreme Imperial Warlord of the
Outer Reaches.

The current war of words was set
off many years ago when Verhovnyi claimed that Kufuzu had attempted to
clandestinely derail the construction of his immense Kuiper Belt Gas Refinement
Facility. The Free City Inquisitor
’
s Office has since determined
that, in fact, Kufuzu had secretly meddled with the establishment of the
facility because it would eventually out produce the Xenon gas monopoly of the
EurAfrican Exotic Gas Consortium of which he is the primary stakeholder.

In the current wave of acrimony,
Kufuzu accused Verhovnyi of complicity in the assassination of his third wife,
Sophia, as she attended trade talks in New Rome. The still unexplained murder
in late May has continued to baffle New Roman investigators.

Speaking from the capital city of
Arusha yesterday, the EurAfrican Warlord promised brutal retaliation against
his brother if he is implicated in the crime.

Verhovnyi for his part accused
Kufuzu of using the assassination of his wife to fan the growing anti Outer
Reaches sentiment on Earth. The Warlord of the Outer Reaches even went so far
as to imply that his brother may have had a hand in the woman
’
s murder.

Dimitri Verhovnyi luridly
proclaimed in a press release from the Outer Reaches that
“
death would soon rain down upon Kufuzu for his treacherous misdeeds.”

21. The plummeting sky
The Spanish teenager shivered as
he crawled out of the warm little backpacker
’
s tent. It was a
surprisingly cold evening for equatorial East Africa.

He smiled to himself as he stood
up; the chilly air probably had much more to do with elevation than anything
else. After all, at nearly 4,600 meters above sea level, he could easily have
expected a light dusting of snow on Mount Meru.

He switched on his lamp and
studied the tiny campsite. The little ravine that he
’
d hastily chosen earlier after the bleary all day solo hike from the
outfitter
’
s base camp now seemed ideal after a much needed nap. The
steep cliffs of gray volcanic rubble that surrounded the tent shielded his
flimsy abode from the ever-present wind that buffeted the peak.

Overhead, thousands of glinting
stars populated the indigo sky. He checked the time, it would take about twenty
minutes to hike to the vantage point and witness the spectacular view far below
on the Maasai Steppes that he
’
d come all this way to see.

He closed the flap of the tent and
started off.

He
’
d left the
stodgy comfort of his parent
’
s home in Madrid nearly six
months ago as a naive seventeen-year-old, full of himself and the unattainable
ideals of the Enlightenment Crusade. His new Crusade
“
friends
”
had robbed and abandoned him after a long, slow train ride
together to New Rome. He
’
d reluctantly contacted his
parents for help after only eleven days on the road. His father had grudgingly
sent him five hundred Units and indicated that no more would be forthcoming
should other disasters arise.

The experience had left him much
more wary of entanglements. He
’
d met two beautiful young women
on the Mediterranean crossing. Both seemed mildly interested in him, but they
were bound for a western Morocco beach enclave and he for the Great Rift
Valley. After a long night of drinking together in Tunis, they’d split up.

He’d wandered eastward alone
across North Africa to Egypt before arriving at the Nile and the ruins of the
ancient city of Cairo. He
’
d lived with an ever-changing
group of like-minded vagabonds in a squatter
’
s camp outside
of Memphis for nearly a month. On his eighteenth birthday, he
’
d set out for the Rift Valley far to the south. He told his casual
companions at the camp that he planned to scale at least three of East Africa
’
s tallest mountains before his next birthday.

After much effort, he had arrived
in Nairobi and several days later ventured to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. But
Africa
’
s highest peak had been a disappointment. The towering
volcano was an unsatisfying tourist trap catering to rich and flabby tourists
and curio hunters. More than once on the tame and well-paved trail up the
mountain, street vendors had offered him “Kilimanjaro Kocktails
”
or flimsy volcano snow globes.

At the crowded peak, a young and
athletic couple from New Reykjavik had suggested Mount Meru as a much more
challenging and solitary undertaking.

Days later on the trip to Arusha,
he had met an ancient black man who professed to be the descendant of Maasai
warriors that had stalked lions around the banks of the Mara River before it
was channelized and diverted for agricultural purposes in 2280. The old man had
claimed to have seen huge herds of zebra and gazelle trailed by a few vigilant
big cats north of the bustling capital city. When he scoffed at the man
’
s tale, the elderly African produced a tattered travel brochure as proof
of the elaborate reforestation and
“
reanimalization
”
projects initiated by the EurAfrican government a few years earlier.

The old man had left him on the
outskirts of the opulent capital city, mumbling something about great swarms of
animals returning to the Maasai Steppes when, at last, the human hindrances had
been seared away.

He shook his head and chuckled as
he thought of the old African while he hiked in the cold blustery night air.
Ahead was the outcropping that had been described to him earlier. He carefully
scaled the craggy face of the dark edifice.

And there it was spread out below
him.

Millions of lights from Arusha
shimmered across the lowlands and oddly mimicked the droves of stalwart stars
above. The immense and orderly arrangement of street lamps split the metropolis
into tiny squares and rectangles each filled with dozens of wavering building
lights. Long streams of headlights seeped down the main thoroughfares,
conveying work-weary Africans back home.

At the horizon far to the
southwest, the lights of the megacity merged with the star-splattered tapestry
of the night sky. The cool and dispassionate celestial vista above was
tremendously older than the cheery and emotional earth-bound construct below.

No doubt, he mused, his ancient
ancestors had also marveled at the vast overhead realm many millennia before.

Slowly moving ruby or emerald
lights plied purposefully through the star field, most likely satellites and
space freighters, he realized.

As many teenagers had done before
him, he contemplated his own insignificance compared to the nearly boundless
cosmos that stretched out above. The cold windy air seemed to sharpen the
reality of one
’
s place in the grand scheme.

His philosophical introspection
was interrupted by a peculiar sputtering orange speck high in the western sky.

Something was plummeting from
above.

The smoldering ember grew steadily
brighter as it arced down towards the steppes.

It seemed to be a large falling
star, perhaps a meteor or a bit of space junk burning up in the atmosphere.

He hastily plotted the path of the
heavenly invader, it seemed destined to impact the capital city he concluded in
sudden panic.

With growing fear he followed the
hurtling fireball.

The Spanish teenager cringed when
the tumbling incandescent object exploded into scorching white light just above
the city.

An angry and seething bubble of
ultra hot gases expanded rapidly outward over the Maasai steppes and blasted
against the base of the staunch peak.

The ensuing torrent of trillions
of high energy gamma rays swiftly dispatched the lone backpacker perched on the
high vantage point of Mount Meru.

Twenty-five seconds later the
shock wave from the terrible blast tore his lifeless body apart.

22. News Item: ARUSHA DESTROYED!

Dateline: 2nd of August, 2445; Nairobi, EurAfrica, Earth

The EurAfrican capital of Arusha
is no more!

A tremendous explosion destroyed
the city and severely damaged most of the neighboring suburbs last night. The
city of Arusha and its nearly nine million residents were utterly wiped out by
the blast.

Several badly injured survivors
have reported seeing an odd shooting star plunging towards the doomed
metropolis seconds before the destruction.

New Roman and Free City
investigators are racing to the scene of the catastrophe. The Warlord Syndicate
has pledged to aid any survivors.

Many in East Africa are already
blaming Dimitri Verhovnyi and Outer Reaches terrorists for the horrific
devastation.

Amidst the chaos of the disaster,
this much is certain: at 9:23 pm local time, a tremendous aerial explosion
destroyed the EurAfrican capital city.

After carefully scrutinizing all
available information, scientists at the University of Nairobi released some
preliminary data about the dreadful event. At about 550 meters above the spires
of the opulent city, a magnetic containment bubble that had apparently
contained slightly more than 500 grams of antimatter ruptured. The almost
instantaneous annihilation of the small mass released nearly 90 petajoules of
energy producing an immense explosion similar in size to a large old-style
nuclear bomb.

The origin of the antimatter that
destroyed the city is uncertain, however Dr. Hekima from the University of
Nairobi noted that the radiation signature emanating from the strange shooting
star that preceded the blast was remarkably similar to a small sample of
anti-tauons that he had recently obtained from the late Dr. Jana Fesai of the
Lunar Ultra Energy Research Laboratory.

Those who wish to contribute to
the relief effort may make donations to the Free City Aid Society.