The Ripple in Space-Time: Free City Book 1 (The Free City Series) Read online

  The Ripple in Space-Time

  Free City Book 1

  S F Chapman

  The Ripple In Space-Time

  Free City Book 1

  by

  S F Chapman

  is also available as

  a trade paperback

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  Learn more about the author at www.SFChapman.com

  The pawing cat logo and the phrases

  “From the files of the Free City Inquisitor’s Office,”

  “The Free City Series,” and “The MAC Series”

  are trademarks of Striped Cat Press.

  Copyright © 2014 S F Chapman

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-10: 0985536926

  ISBN-13: 978-0-98553692-3

  Striped Cat Press

  First e-book Edition, Fifth Printing:

  April 2015

  K1e5pc

  Works by S F Chapman

  Literary fiction:

  I’m here to help

  The Missive In The Margins

  (Coming soon)

  Science fiction:

  The Free City Series:

  The Ripple in Space-Time – Free City Book 1

  Torn From On High – Free City Book 2

  The MAC Series:

  Floyd 5.136

  Xea in the Library

  of All Human Knowledge

  (Coming soon)

  Beyond the Habitable Limit

  (Coming in 2016)

  Contemporary fiction:

  On the Back of the Beast

  To John Nelson;

  a fine craftsman,

  an affable father-in-law and a longtime supporter of my work.

  Acknowledgments

  As I write, and I spend hours at it nearly everyday, my huge former feral cat Lucky stretches out nearby to watch over the work. He is the lone witness to the long and slow process.

  When the task of creating the novel is complete, the big cat takes a nap and the manuscript is handed over to a bevy of humans who help me craft it into the book that can be shared with readers.

  The first to lend their hands, of course, are my three stalwart editors: Clint, Tina and Mark. All are excellent writers in their own rights, avid readers of science fiction and wonderful friends. Without their exceptional efforts my many novels would not have been possible.

  But a book travels much farther than the comparatively short trip from author to editors. A cover is produced and the interior is laid out. Clinton D. Anderson, a superb Graphics Designer in the San Francisco Bay Area, did the work on The Ripple in Space-Time.

  My dear wife, Patricia, and my two kids have indulged the crazy old writer in me for many years even though I spend countless hours in the back room tapping away at the keyboard of the ancient Mac iBook. I reluctantly set aside the work when the big house cat reminds me that he needs to be fed.

  Thank you all.

  Introduction

  Of all of the eight works that I’ve completed to date, I most enjoyed writing The Ripple in Space-Time.

  I played around with ideas and put together chapter summaries for the book about a year and a half ago. I visualized a dark and gritty Film Noir-like world with danger and scoundrels skulking around every corner. It would be an archetypically bad world with just a few good guys trying to save the day.

  I imagined Humphrey Bogart or perhaps Bruce Willis as the aging male protagonist. Rutger Hauer or Edward G. Robinson would be the sociopathic super villain. The rest of the characters would fall into place as is typical of the genre.

  I discovered a collection of newspaper clippings from the mid-1800’s that my great great grandfather had pasted into an old leather covered ledger book. The articles that he collected were filled with the florid language that was common in the papers of the day.

  As I read through dozens of accounts of local scandals, odd natural phenomenon and criminal misdoings I began to appreciate the heavy-handled use of adverbs and adjectives. I scribbled a few gems on a scrap of paper: “rapacious raiders” in a report about the lingering threat of piracy, “citizens brooded over the most retched of all human undertakings” to describe a Civil War commemoration, and, one of my favorites, “With speeds climbing ever higher and a confusing hodgepodge of systems to measure that velocity still persisting from the earlier days...” denoting an attempt to standardize the maritime “Knot.”

  I decided to intersperse these often overwritten “official accounts” of what was happening in the book as “News Items” to counterpoint what the reader had already discovered to be untrue.

  Enjoy the book as it was intended; I wrote The Ripple in Space-Time as a tongue-in-cheek romp though serious matters.

  To aid in the navigation through The Ripple In Space-Time:

  List of Characters

  Chapter 1. News Item: Obituary

  Chapter 2. The impartial inquiry

  Chapter 3. News Item: Free City Bicentennial preparations Chapter 4. Contacts and cohorts

  Chapter 5. News Item: The pirate scourge continues Chapter 6. A call to action

  Chapter 7. The Butin Belle

  Chapter 8. Beyond the city limits

  Chapter 9. News Item: A somber Commemoration Day Chapter 10. The accomplice

  Chapter 11. News Item: Bold hijacking near Saturn Chapter 12. Free City University

  Chapter 13. Titan Palace

  Chapter 14. News Item: Lunar Lab investigation continues Chapter 15. Keira Norton after hours

  Chapter 16. A lamentable lack of mirth

  Chapter 17. News Item: New speed standard announced Chapter 18. The ripple

  Chapter 19. Hot on the trail

  Chapter 20. News Item: The war of words continues Chapter 21. The plummeting sky

  Chapter 22. News Item: ARUSHA DESTROYED!

  Chapter 23. Calamity Chapter 24. News Item: Sabbatical for beloved professor Chapter 25. Extortion

  Chapter 26. News Item: Megalomaniac of the Outer Reaches Chapter 27. Tensions abound

  Chapter 28. The tip

  Chapter 29. The risky ruse

  Chapter 30. Atonement

  Chapter 31. News Item: Verhovnyi culprit in Lab blast Chapter 32. The long sought objectives

  Chapter 33. News item: Death of the despot?

  Chapter 34. Advanced Mission Completed

  Chapter 35. The payoff

  Chapter 36. Reunion

  Chapter 37. The old African

  Appendix

  About the novel

  1. News Item: Obituary

  Dateline: 30th of May, 2445; Free City, Earth

  The Academy of Quantum Physics announced this morning that the brilliant Nobel Prize winning researcher, Dr. Jana Bethany Fesai has died. It was reported today that Dr. Fesai was thought to be one of the many victims of the still unexplained destruction two days ago of the immense Lunar Ultra Energy Research Laboratory on the plains of the Sea of Crisis.

  Dr. Fesai was 51 years old.

  Jana Fesai was born in Buenos Aires on August 23, 2393. As with most noncloned offspring of wealthy parents, Ms Fesai enjoyed a pampered and indulgent upbringing in South America before moving to Free City at age 17.

  Ms Fesai was an honor student at the prestigious School of Advanced Physics at Free City University where she graduated summa cum laude in 2416.

  Dr Fesai was awarded a Nobel Prize in 2438 for her extraordinary pioneering work with Tauons and massive Quarks, most notably the creation of dozens of stable “Tauonic” elements, including the unimaginably dense Tau
Iron atoms.

  Lunar authorities suspect that rogue moon miners may have inadvertently pierced the Antimatter Containment structure buried deep below the lunar surface. The resulting antimatter annihilation obliterated the huge facility. Earth-bound Astronomers report that a colossal new crater now marks the location of the doomed laboratory. Lunar investigators have been unable to approach the site due to extremely high radiation levels.

  The Warlord Syndicate, which has generously funded the Ultra Energy Laboratory and hoped to benefit greatly from the promising research conducted there, has asked the impartial Free City Inquisitor’s Office to investigate the Lunar catastrophe.

  The family of Dr. Fesai has yet to announce memorial plans.

  2. The impartial inquiry Xylitol?

  What in the world is xylitol?

  Ryo Trop refocused his flagging attention back to the top most sheet on the seemingly unending stack of Bills of Lading.

  As a 54-year-old Investigator Second Class for the Free City Inquisitor's Office, he was obligated to find out how and why 27 kilograms of xylitol had gone missing.

  He rubbed his weary eyes. The investigation into freight pilferage at the Municipal warehouse was into its third bleary week with little progress to show for the nearly one hundred hours of work.

  Ryo slid his fingertips over his desktop interface screen and carefully pronounced the word, “Xylitol; definition and commodity price please.”

  The small shiny rectangle retrieved the required information, “Xylitol is a crystalline artificial sweetener with qualities similar to common sugar. Current market price is 1.28 Standard Units per kilogram. Chemical formula: CH2 OH(CHOH)3 CH2 OH.”

  Ryo shook his head in annoyance. So a quantity of imitation sugar worth about as much as a good dinner for two had gone unaccountably astray? Over almost thirty-five years at the preeminent and highly regarded Free City Inquisitor's Office, he had developed a reputation for being very thorough and uncompromising when investigating sensitive or potentially embarrassing matters.

  This investigation into the minor theft of nearly worthless commodities was a terrible waste of his talents, especially so close to his planned retirement in two years.

  He set aside the suspect document for future scrutiny.

  • • •

  Lev Fesai stared at the photograph of his mother and tried to recall when he had last seen her in person. It was about four years ago, he realized, when she turned over the house to him just before leaving for the Ultra Energy Lab on the Moon.

  Now she was dead.

  The young man gently placed the smiling image of his mother back on to the side table.

  Lev didn’t feel like a 28-year-old orphan. He almost expected to receive a fresh video message from her at any time, she’d sent him five or ten second greetings several times a day for many years.

  Lev dolefully played the final dispatch that had waited unviewed for the last two days.

  “Lev, Something strange has happened here. Take care of my cat. Love, Ma.” The message ended with a blurry frozen image of his mom staring off screen in distress.

  Something wasn’t quite right about this message; he watched it a second time.

  The jerky video ran its course.

  He stared at the final image of his mother, she still didn’t seem to be gone for some reason; scared but not dead.

  Perhaps he was trying to avoid the obvious, Lev realized.

  Many people, including his Grad student advisors at the University Advanced Physics Department had browbeaten him recently about his deplorable lack of motivation and his aimless avoidance of responsibility. He just wasn’t ready for the rigors of a science career like his mother’s that involved a lamentable lack of uninhibited mirth and self-indulgence.

  Oddly, he noted with a start, his current hedonism coincided with his mother’s departure for the Moon.

  The overly large home that they had shared for most of his life had suddenly became a sterile and inhospitable place without her. For weeks he moped around the empty townhouse. His mother had suggested from afar that he should find some roommates to fill the vacant bedrooms on the third floor and eventually Lev advertised for some renters.

  A quirky art student named Desiree moved in a few weeks later and quickly set about repainting the unimaginative dwelling with elaborate murals. She was an amusing whirlwind of activity and entertainment; Lev particularly admired Desiree’s propensity for enjoying the moment. She quickly recruited him into the developing Enlightenment Crusade, a somewhat subversive nonconformist movement at the University.

  Before long, his house was filled with an ever-changing group of Enlightenment Crusaders. Slowly he had let his tiresome obligations slip away in favor of the pleasure-seeking ways of his new lifestyle. The small amount of rent that he sporadically collected had kept him going for years without a regular job.

  Now what? With his mother gone perhaps he should renew his efforts to eventually succeed her as the leading authority on Tau Hadrons and Ultra Energy Physics.

  He played her final message again.

  “Lev, Something strange has happened here. Take care of my cat. Love, Ma.”

  He studied the final frozen image of her for many minutes. Lev noticed an especially disturbing juxtaposition between the cheerful photo and the jarring message screen. It didn’t make sense. The researchers at the lunar lab were absurdly cautious about the handling of the unstable antimatter that they produced in the giant well-protected reactors.

  Perhaps he should contact the investigators with his concerns.

  • • •

  “Ryo, come into my office for a consultation.”

  He smiled pleasantly at small image of his ever-grumpy 68-year-old boss, “I’ll be right there, Helga.”

  The screen faded. ‘Consultation’ nearly always meant that he’d soon have a new assignment. Ryo gleefully set aside the tedious shipping documents; hopefully any new work would take him out into the huge metropolis of Free City. A perplexing murder or complex case of racketeering could keep him out of the dreary office for months.

  He strolled cheerily across the hallway.

  Ryo pushed open the door. Helga was, as usual, hunched behind her ancient desk glowering at her desktop interface screen. Inspector Fourth Class Edwin Chin stood timidly off to the side. A striking young man with an unruly head of curly black hair and dressed in the outlandishly colorful fashions of the Enlightenment Crusade sat on the austere office chair facing his perpetually sour boss.

  Helga began without formalities; “Mr. Chin has been fumbling about with this Lunar Lab disaster for two days now.”

  The novice detective cringed at the woman’s displeasure.

  “We’ve just come across some new evidence that will require the instincts of a more veteran staff member.” Her eyes narrowed, “Chin, I’m switching you and Mr. Trop effective immediately. Head across the hall and finish up his work on the pilferage inquiry.”

  She pointed at the door and the hapless man shuffled off.

  When the door slammed shut, Helga briefly smiled at Ryo, “This is Lev Fesai, son of the presumed dead Dr. Jana Fesai who, as I sure you are aware, was employed as the Chief Researcher at the recently destroyed Lunar Laboratory.”

  Ryo chuckled to himself, this was already much more interesting than tracking down a few missing kilos of artificial sweetener.

  For the next hour, the young visitor recounted his growing suspicions about what had happened several days earlier at the complex on the plains of the Sea of Crisis.

  Ryo pressed his fingertips against his furrowed brow, “Play the message again for me, Lev.”

  The lanky young man complied.

  “Lev, Something strange has happened here. Take care of my cat. Love, Ma.”

  “You see, Mr. Trop...”

  The older man held his hand up, “Lev, just call me Ryo.”

  “OK, Ryo,” he bit his lip for several seconds, “if miners had accidentally ruptured the antimatter c
ontainment structure, as the press seems to think, there wouldn’t have been any warning.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  Lev tapped idly on the message screen. “My mom would have been killed in an almost instantaneous fireball before she could send off the dispatch.”

  Helga nodded sternly in agreement.

  “Alright;” Ryo replied, “I’ll get to work on this case right away.”

  “Before you leave, Mr. Trop,” Helga glanced at the younger man, “I’d like you to include Lev in as much of the investigation as you see fit.”

  Lev stared at Ryo with a particularly pleading look.

  Helga eyebrows arched up in anticipation.

  Ryo sighed and scrawled out directions for Lev, “Meet me at this address at 9:30 tonight.”

  3. News Item: Free City Bicentennial preparations

  Dateline: 30th of May, 2445; Free City, Earth

  Free City Mayor Lily Borja detailed the elaborate preparations pertaining to next year’s Bicentennial celebrations for the fair city today.

  At a daylong media conference in City Hall, Mayor Borja unveiled detailed renditions and models of the several pavilions sponsored by some of Free City’s most prominent institutions and organizations.

  The ornate exhibit submitted by the Free City Historical Society garnered much attention by the conference attendees. The group plans to reenact the long history of the autonomous and independent municipality from its origins more than two hundred and fifty years ago as a disorganized refugee camp on the northern edge of the Shannon Basin following the anarchy at the conclusion of the Second Amero-Asian War to its much revered current status as the sole shining light of freedom and enlightenment in the otherwise grim Solar System.

  Free City University will highlight the many achievements that have sprung from the venerable institution in the last two centuries. Foremost, of course, is the extensive effort to store progressively higher energy densities in ever-smaller spaces, mainly by developing various pairings of matter and antimatter. The work carried out at the recently destroyed Lunar Ultra Energy Lab run by the University undoubtedly will receive significant scrutiny by the celebrants.