The Ripple in Space-Time: Free City Book 1 (The Free City Series) (19 page)

37. The old African
Far out in the night darkened
Maasai steppes, sheltered from the lingering radiation by the northern flanks
of Mount Meru, the ancient African man set aside the gazelle thigh that he had
been feasting upon for most of the evening.

The breeze smelled of dung and
fresh grass, a favorable sign of many more successful hunts to come.

Just before sundown he had killed
a juvenile gazelle with the broad-tipped steel spear that had been passed down
for many generations in his family.

The old Maasai hunter had severed
his favorite parts from the warm carcass after thanking the animal for giving
its life to feed him.

He left the remains to the lions
that he had seen earlier on the far edge of the herd. They too would surely
thank the young gazelle for filling their bellies.

A mzungu doctor had visited his
little hut nearly a week ago and warned him that the great fire that had seared
away Arusha months ago had contaminated the animals that now grazed on the
steppes. But he didn
’
t care. He would die when he died; until then he would live
as hundreds of generations had done before him, by their skill at hunting on
the broad African plains.

The campfire had dwindled to a
shimmering mound of red embers. Soon he would return to his hut to sleep.

The canopy of stars above him
shimmered as well. In the distance a lion roared, perhaps calling to its pride
or warning away the hyenas that bedeviled the big cats at every opportunity.

Amongst the crowd of stars, he
noticed a tiny blue one grow suddenly much brighter. Wispy violet flares
stretched out from the celestial visitor as it moved slowly across the sky.

He watched for many minutes until
the unusual comet gradually faded.

The old man smiled to himself, it
was surely another favorable omen for the creatures of the Maasai steppes.

Appendix

List of Characters

In
order of appearance:

Inspector
Second Class Ryo Trop
Mr. Trop is currently employed as an Investigator for the Free
City Inquisitor's Office. He is a divorcee, has no children and is a long time
resident of Free City. The 54 year-old is a sequential clone of his late father
Ezo Trop.

Lev
Fesai
The
28 year-old only child of the well-respected Professor and Researcher Dr. Jana
Fesai has been halfheartedly pursuing a Doctorate Degree in Physics at Free
City University. Mr. Fesai has been a longtime member of the mildly subversive
movement called the Enlightenment Crusade. He currently resides at his mother’s
townhouse on Breton Street in the Old Town District of Free City.

Chief
Inspector Helga Bennet
The 68 year-old hard-nosed and cynical head of the Free City
Inquisitor's Office rarely sleeps as she directs the many ongoing
investigations at the renowned agency.

Mining
Guild Appraiser Thacker
Tough, corrupt and immoral, Thacker frequents sleazy nightspots
in Free City and elsewhere when he is not extracting “fees” from both
legitimate and illicit mining operations for the Guild.

Dr.
Jana Fesai Ph.D.
Born in Buenos Aires on August 23, 2393, Dr. Fesai is currently
the Chief Researcher at the Lunar Ultra Energy Research Laboratory on the
plains of the Sea of Crisis. The 51 year-old Nobel Prizing winning Physicist
has taught for many years at Free City University. She is unmarried and has an
adult son.

First
Mate Bosco Kremerling
Rowdy and often foolhardy, the 48 year-old pirate has spent many
years in the Outer Reaches Penitentiary. Kremerling was imprisoned when he was
caught at the Kuiper Belt Station with illegally obtained Xenon most likely
looted from the Kuiper Belt Gas Refinement Facility. Often seen in the company
of Olin Gristle, his current location is unknown.

Captain
Olin Gristle
Thought to be about 42 years old, little else is known about the pirate Captain
who is currently believed to be involved in the recent hijacking of the Ore
Runner Class Midget space freighter
Butin Belle
.

Dimitri
Verhovnyi, the Supreme Imperial Warlord of the Outer Reaches
The especially violent 46
year-old half brother of Daniel Kufuzu became a Warlord when he killed his
father to assume control over the vast and thinly populated Outer Reaches which
extends from Saturn to the fringes of deep space. Producing great wealth from
bribery, mining, slavery, and most recently the construction of the Kuiper Gas
Refinement Facility, Dimitri Verhovnyi rules from his palace on Titan, the huge
moon of Saturn.

Desiree
MacFarland
This quirky 24 year-old art student at Free City University is a long time
member of the Enlightenment Crusade. She lived with Lev Fesai for nearly two
years at his townhouse on Breton Street.

Sabra
MacFarland
Nineteen years old and a part-time student at Free City University, Sabra is
Desiree’s younger sister. Idealistic and naive, she often emulates the antics
of her idolized older sister.

Cyndi
Currently one of the many
housemates of Lev Fesai.

Deputy
Assistant Liaison Agent Norton
The 26 year-old spent several years living in the fiefdoms as one
of the several chidden of Jen and Bill Norton while the family searched for
merchandise for their well-known Free City business “Leitrim Importers.” This
early experience abroad provided Agent Norton with invaluable knowledge of the
people and conventions in the fiefdoms. Agent Norton is considered an
especially promising new addition to the Free City Fiefdom Liaison Office.

Professor
Malcolm Evans/ Lieutenant Zmuda
Very few know of this 43 year-old’s dual personas. As Lieutenant
Zmuda he is currently the leader of the super-secret CRAMP Operation, a covert
organization centered at Free City University and dedicated to the overthrow of
the Warlords and the return of freedom to the citizens of the fiefdoms. As
Professor Malcolm Evans he is a beloved instructor in the Department of
Advanced Applied Molecular Biology and an occasional advisor for the
Enlightenment Crusade.

Daniel
Kufuzu, the Exalted Warlord of EurAfrica
Although thoroughly corrupt and manipulative, the
EurAfrican Warlord is considered by many to be the least tyrannical of the
seven Warlords that rule most of humanity. The 62 year-old oversees the
wealthiest and most populated of the seven fiefdoms from his opulent palace in
huge capital city of Arusha in East Africa.

Dr.
Carla Stuhr
The tall, dark haired 25 year-old is a Junior Researcher Astronomer for the
Solar System Gravitational Anomalies Project at Free City University. Although
currently single, Dr. Stuhr briefly lived on Breton Street with Lev Fesai.

The
Spanish teenager
The nearly 18 year-old young man from Madrid has been backpacking
across Europe and Africa. His goal is to scale at least three of Africa’s
highest peaks before he turns 19.

The
old African
It is entirely unclear as whether this is two different people or merely one.

Mixion
Fahmi
A
mysterious sequential clone of a long dead petite Australian Aboriginal woman
from the mid Twenty-first century, Mixion was secretly produced by Lieutenant
Zmuda using an unusual new procedure in the Advanced Biology lab at Free City
University. She has been working since then as an agent for the CRAMP.

Jasper
Pomeroy
Originally from Blackall, Queensland. Like Mixion, Jasper is also a clone of a
long dead Australian. Big, burly and redheaded; Jasper was produced by
Lieutenant Zmuda to act as an untraceable agent for the CRAMP.

Dilma
The tremulous eleven-year-old
slave girl is currently a parlormaid at the Titan Palace for Warlord Dimitri
Verhovnyi of the Outer Reaches. It seems likely that she will be sold into sex
slavery in the coming years.

Benny
With his brothers, 15 year-old
Benny secretly mines Rock 853111, a small asteroid near Lutetia in the Main
Asteroid Belt. He frequently delivers ore to the Lutetia Asteroid Mining
Facility.

The
spacecraft:

Butin
Belle
Built at the Vesta Shipworks in 2429, the comparatively small, fast and highly
maneuverable Ore-Runner Class midget space freighter was used by illicit miners
in the Main Asteroid Belt for many years to evade Mining Guild inspectors. More
recently the small freighter has been used by Celestial Delivery Systems as a
quick transporter between Mars and the Kuiper Belt Station in the Outer
Reaches.

Xenon
Lightning 54
Plying the Solar System for the past four years, the immense robotic gas
supertanker is the first of five vessels to be built to transport valuable
Xenon gas from the huge Kuiper Gas Refinement Facility in the Outer Reaches to
the inner Solar System. The
Xenon Lightning 54
is currently valued at an
astonishing 3.5 trillion Standard Units.

Seiran
The newest of more than a
dozen long-duration patrol craft used primarily by Free City Law enforcement
personal. The
Seiran
can easily accommodate up to six people for more
than a year. The heavily armed and very maneuverable Interceptor Class ship can
reach speeds of up to 45 Astronomical Units per year. The
Seiran
is
currently registered to the Free City Inquisitor's Office and stationed in Low
Earth Orbit.

“Fast
prototype interceptor”
Little is known about this secret, diminutive and unnamed
experimental four-seater spacecraft. It is equipped with a tiny landing craft
suitable for two passengers. The highly innovative vessel was produced by Free
City engineers for the Municipal Government and its speed is rumored to exceed
75 Astronomical Units per year. It has been recently speculated that the craft
is housed in a top-secret black ops hanger at the Ballyshannon Space Port.

Special Bonus
Material:

Torn From On
High

Free City Book
2

Chapter 1.
Dreg’s
Scamp

“There
it friggin' is!” Nate Briggs scowled.

Far
below him was the derelict hulk that he'd been sent out to recover.

Clad
in an ancient and ill-fitting spacesuit, he dangled precariously upside down at
around a hundred and twenty kilometers above the northwestern Pacific in the
open cockpit of the beat-up little salvage runabout that long ago had been
scornfully dubbed
Dreg's Scamp
.

At the
ragged and turbulent boundary between the thin outer atmosphere of the Earth
and space, buffeted relentlessly by ionized oxygen atoms, the house-sized
object glowed with a faint pinkish hue.

At
least a dozen times a day for many years, Captain Takahashi had dispatched Nate
from the mother ship, now thirty kilometers higher up in a much safer orbit, to
wrangle and retrieve marginally valuable space debris before it plunged into
the thicker atmosphere below and burned up.

The
Captain had made millions over the years in the risky business of space junk
recovery; Nate, of course, had made nothing. Serfs were rarely paid.

“Come
on, Nate! I don't friggin' have all day,” the Captain harangued him over the
radio. “Pick up the pace. Time is money!”

“Yes
sir, I'm working on it,” Nate meekly replied.

This
particular bit of scrap metal, which Nate guessed was probably a three hundred
year-old rocket booster from the late 21st century, was going to be an
especially difficult snatch. “I won't be able to use the dragline, I don't see
anything that the hook could snag.”

“Use
the bridle, you moron!”

Nate
winced; the bridle was a huge, cup-shaped steel net that could be tugged behind
the little salvage craft by long cables. It worked quite well when recovering
large, well-behaved objects in much higher orbits, but at the fringe of the
atmosphere the giant net might catch the thermosphere and act like a braking
parachute. He and the rickety runabout would be pulled inexorably downward to a
fiery demise.

“Alright;”
Nate sighed, “I'm deploying the bridle.”

He
pulled himself out of the tight cockpit, stood cautiously on the open deck of
the runabout and cast off the heavy net. The bridle wafted and fluttered
slightly as it unfurled. With his safety cable firmly clamped to the railing,
Nate straightened up to watch the progress of the drifting net.

“What
the hell?” At the far edge of his peripheral vision, a curious pulsing purple
glow caught his attention.

Nate
cringed in agony.

Several
vertebrate in his neck briefly sizzled and sputtered under the narrow intense
beam of high-energy neutrons before they shattered and severed his spinal cord.

He was
paralyzed!

The
spacesuit air leak alarm squealed and the self-sealing membrane slowly
contracted.

Nate
cursed to himself.

He’d
been saved from a quick and merciful death by the automatic safety system only
to undoubtedly suffer a much more gruesome fate.

He
could barely breathe and certainly couldn't speak.

“NATE!
Get it friggin' together and haul that crap back up here!” The Captain was
obviously unaware of his predicament.

The
falling bridle caught the edge of the booster and the cables drew taut. The
added drag and mass of the net jerked the rocket and the trailing runabout
downward. Nate was flung limply from the little vessel. Still tethered to the
Scamp
by the safety line, he bobbed face down like a buoy in rough seas.

Below
him, the jumble of ensnared debris was rapidly falling out of orbit.

He
watched impassively for several minutes as he was dragged steadily towards the
cloud-dappled ocean below.

Nate
lost consciousness just as the outer layer of the spacesuit burned away in the
angry and abrasive atmosphere.

Two
minutes later, he was dead.

Torn From On High
is now available at Amazon.com.