The Ripple in Space-Time: Free City Book 1 (The Free City Series) (10 page)

“Ryo,” Keira stared at the old
Investigator, “Could ‘BU BEL’ be the
Butin Belle
?
”

He hoisted the communication
device up in front of the frozen image of the unusual ripple in Space-Time that
they had been studying in earnest.
“
Yes, I suspect that we
’
ve just stumbled upon two clues here.
”

During the next twenty minutes,
Keira uploaded Carla
’
s information to the Inquisitor's Office and Ryo contacted
Helga to share the startling new evidence.

Lev stood stiffly considering the
ramifications of the revelations amidst the burst of activity.

When she had finished her work,
Keira pulled gently at Lev
’
s sleeve and he hesitantly
followed her to the door.

“
Dr. Stuhr,
”
Ryo turned towards the helpful
young Astronomer as the group of investigators shuffled out of the workroom,
“please let me know right away if you spot anything like this again.
”

19. Hot on the trail
Ryo regarded the sparkling trove
of billions of stars with interest through the generous front windows of the
new craft. He had rarely been in space and with each visit its cold stark
beauty had amazed him.

This trip was no exception.

Weeks had dashed by since Dr.
Stuhr had alerted them to the peculiar gravitational readings in an obscure
section of the Asteroid Belt and Lev had received the unusual message from his
mother.

Helga had insisted that Ryo and
his team of lucky young cohorts should track down the
Butin Belle
which
now seemed likely to contain Jana Fesai, the fugitive pirates and apparently a
cache of stolen materials from the Lunar Lab.

To his left, pressed into the
Second Mate’s seat by the brisk acceleration of the ship, Lev gazed out at the
celestial vista. Ryo had noticed that the young man had been clumsily striving
to avoid watching Keira as she busied herself at the controls of the impressive
and speedy new law enforcement interceptor called the
Seiran
.

Ryo mused that the name of the
vessel referred to an elusive and ethereal mist that appeared without warning
in the mountains of ancient Japan. With the
Seiran
’
s
speed, stealth and formidable
armaments, he hoped to locate and seize the
Butin Belle
undetected.

Now at last they were underway.
The powerful engines were quickly pushing the sleek craft away from Earth
towards the Lutetia sector of the Asteroid Belt twenty days away.

Keira engaged the autopilot,
“
There
’
s not much to do now, I
’
m afraid.
”

“
Ah, but there is,
”
Ryo chortled,
“
if we are to succeed and hopefully avoid a most painful death at the
hands of the pirates, we need to familiarize ourselves with several vital areas
of knowledge.
”

He turned to Lev,
“
I want you to carefully study all available information about the
Butin
Belle
. Hopefully you can discover some weaknesses that could be exploited
in its capture.
”

The young man winced at the
burdensome mandate.

Keira smirked wryly at Lev
’
s misfortune.

“
You, young lady,
”
Ryo directed in his most
paternal voice,
“
will spend all of your spare time learning the capabilities
of the
Seiran
, paying close attention to weaponry and maneuvering
abilities. We don
’
t want to be figuring out how to operate the ordnance while
the pirates are shooting at us.
”

She nodded ruefully.

“
With Lev
’
s help,
”
Ryo added,
“
I hope to learn as much as possible about the Tau Atoms
that were being produced at the Lunar Lab.
”

The
Seiran's
speed indictor
was rapidly approaching the craft
’
s maximum velocity.

• • •

Dimitri Verhovnyi could restrain
himself no longer.

He snickered triumphantly at his
superb little secret. With one swift and decisive strike all of humanity would
know and fear his name.

The Warlord of the Outer Reaches
had been preparing his brutal vengeance against his arrogant half-brother for
years and now its fulfill was less than a week away.

He strutted around his chamber in
search of some diversion.

Dimitri idly surveyed several
routine reports detailing mining outputs but they seemed so trivial compared to
his shrewd plan.

Perhaps an early meal would relax
him.

“
GIRL!
”
he bellowed.

His tremulous parlormaid appeared
at the door,
“
Yes Master?
”

He leered contemptuously at the
pathetic little sprite; he resolved to replace her in the coming months with
two or three more pleasing slave girls. “Bring me my supper now!”

She nodded in distress at his command
before hurrying off.

• • •

“
Alright, I think I understand this now,
”
Ryo frowned as he stared at Lev.
“
Everything around us is made of
‘
Electron Atoms
’
or energy.
”

“
Right,
”
Lev nodded.
“
The oxygen in the air, the gold in the banks and the calcium in your
bones; these are all made of atoms that are composed of only three parts:
electrons and the two lightest quarks which are called
up
and
down
.
There
’
s some force particles and perhaps some neutrinos, but we
’
ll ignore them.
”

The old Investigator scratched is
head in confusion,
“
I seem to remember something about protons and neutrons in
atoms, how do they fit into this mess?
”

The younger man smiled, “Protons
and neutrons are made of
up
and
down
quarks. A proton
’
s got two
ups
and one
down
. A neutron has two
downs
and one
up
.
”

“
OK. What about those unusual Tau Atoms that your mom was
putting together at the Lunar Ultra Energy Lab?
”

“
That is what earned her a Nobel Prize,
”
Lev smiled.
“
Long ago, a few much heavier atoms were put together using
two much more massive quarks called
charm
and
strange
.
”

Ryo laughed,
“
Who came up with these odd names?
”

“
I don
’
t remember, but Physicist often
have a peculiar sense of humor regarding subatomic particles. Other than the
much greater mass, a
charm
quark is essentially identical to an
up
quark and
strange
is identical to
down
. Instead of electrons
spinning around the atom, scientists added the identical but much more massive
muons; hence the name Mu Atoms. Amazingly, we can bash these parts together and
make many types of atoms that are identical to the regular stuff except they’re
hundreds of times more massive.”

“I guess that makes sense.”

“Tau atoms were recently built
with even heavier quarks called
top
and
bottom,
then surrounded
by tauons instead of electrons. There are still only tiny quantities of this
stuff and it can be very unstable. It
’
s mainly being studied by
researchers for now. Tau atoms are
thousands
of times more massive than
their electron atom equivalents.
”

The old investigator frowned,
“
Why go to all of the trouble of making super heavy atoms?
”

“
E=mc2,
”
Lev smirked.
“
A tiny bit of mass can be converted into a vast amount of energy. The
more mass that you can jamb into a small space, the more energy can be
released.
”

“
So something that
’
s tiny and very heavy is really
just a way of storing a huge amount of energy?”

Lev nodded, “Frightening, yes.”

• • •

Fortunately, Jana concluded, Bosco
seemed to favor her over the group of her hapless coworkers.

He had dragged her alone through
several airlocks and left her more or less unharmed locked away in the
gargantuan aft bulk cargo compartment of the
Lightning
with only the
feebleminded cabin boy to stand guard.

While the boy had looked on with
his dull brown eyes, Jana had quickly surveyed the immense and nearly empty
space. She
’
d found many crates of long expired survival rations, a
half dozen thin blankets and an austere portable space commode.

When she heard the First Mate
clattering and bellowing his way down the passageway, Jana hurried back to the
spot near the hatch where Boz had left her.

The door creaked open and the
unruly pirate flung Ramesh into the compartment. The battered grad student was
encrusted with dried blood, his left eye was swollen shut and a long ragged
gash ran across his forehead.

The unlucky janitor and student
intern tumbled into the chamber. Although apparently unharmed, both men shared
the same expression of utter terror.

Finally Boz hurled Erik through
the hatchway. Her deranged assistant was tightly bound with a thick scratchy
rope. Hideous red welts from the restraints covered much of his nearly naked
body. He quivered and shrieked at the rough treatment as a wild animal might
under similar conditions.

The ruthless First Mate joined the
novice slaves; “You will begin work in the morning.” He grinned scornfully at
Ramesh, “As you can see, any misbehavior will be repaid with harsh treatment.”

Boz beckoned to the cabin boy and
the two pirates left the miserable group in the locked compartment.

• • •

The trio aboard the
Seiran
was crowded into the snug cockpit admiring Mars as the ship streaked across the
orbit of the red planet at over 45 AU/yr.

Ryo had insisted that his young
charges should take time off from their various routines to celebrate the
event.

Lev grumbled that the
‘
trivial occasion
’
cut into the time that he would
spend on his painstaking examination of the records of the
Butin Belle
.
Keira had been equally cranky beforehand, maintaining that she should skip the
group meeting and continue to familiarize herself with the
Seiran
’
s
copious weaponry.

But the old Investigator knew
better; after nearly eight days of tedium in the cramped interceptor with the
oddly wary young people, he felt that the group would function much better
following the short diversion of the Mars crossing.

From below the sturdy external
umbrella of the ship’s forward facing Cosmic Ray deflector, Ryo watched as
Keira huddled next to Lev for an optimal view as the man pressed himself
against the window in awe.

“It’s really amazing,” Lev
whispered.

The tiny and scattered lights from
the Martian outposts bejeweled the nightside surface of the planet.

“I’ve been there twice,” Keira
uttered as she gawked at the dusky orb, “once when I was three and again when I
was about eight.”

The tawny sphere rapidly receded.

Ryo studied the spectacle from
behind their overlapping shoulders.

“The only two things that I
remember about Mars,” Keira recalled nostalgically, “was jumping around like a
little kangaroo in the low gravity and the fine red dust that was everywhere.
”
She laughed at the childhood memories;
“
It took weeks to
clean it out of everything when we got back to Free City.
”

Lev shook his head in envy,
“
I
’
ve never been there.
”

“
Twenty years ago,
”
Ryo reminisced, “when I was an
Investigator Fourth Class, I was sent along with a big group from the
Inquisitor's Office to look into irregularities at the Eos Mensa Cobalt Mine.
That, I
’
m afraid to say, was my only trip to the red planet.
”

• • •

Jana had spent hours tending to
Ramesh and Erik
’
s wounds in the cavernous cargo compartment.

She and her coworkers had talked
almost nonstop since Boz had imprisoned them together. Jana finally learned
that the janitor
’
s name was Lucas. The man was especially worried about his
wife and young daughter who had lived in one of the small apartments at the
Lunar Lab. She didn
’
t have the heart to tell the poor soul that his family had
quite certainly been killed by the blast that destroyed the facility.

The pudgy student intern was named
Philip; he was a bright fifteen year old on his first trip away from home. If
he ever saw his parents again, the teenager would have nearly unbelievable
traveler
’
s tales to share with them.