Read Online The Ripple in Space-Time: Free City Book 1 (The Free City Series) by S F Chapman - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: S F Chapman
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saw in
startling detail, ‘ Mommy, this is the parlor. The walls are white. Under the
gray sofa is a yellow ball with light blue stripes and big red stars. Out of
the window, I can see the transports on Breton Street. ’
A keen sense of the physical world
had come easily to him, social skills had not.
In those aspects they had been the
same, Jana winced. She had quite willingly forgone the long and uncertain path
of romance for the solitude of a predictable and secure life as a Physicist.
When the task of completing her
education had been achieved, she methodically set about producing a child.
Jana had eschewed all of the
ordinary complex social interactions with men and instead chose to be
clinically inseminated with the genetic material of an anonymous and randomly
selected academic from the University.
Brainy parents had begat a
brilliant son, she wryly noted.
When he was young she had
dutifully carted him off to peewee football and preteen art classes. They had
both struggled mightily to interact with their peers at the sports venues and
art studios; neither had much luck.
Just as she had done in Buenos
Aires many years earlier, Lev excelled in school. While he spent progressively
more time studying the complexities of Literature, Mathematics and especially
the Sciences, she had been drawn further into her own pursuit of Ultra Energy
Physics. He had earned a High School diploma with highest honors just as she
had been awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics.
Lev had of course attended Free
City University.
In his second year he ’ d sat through the final class that she ’ d taught as a
Senior Professor before accepting a staff researcher ’ s position at the small High Energy Lab in the Physics Department
basement. Not surprisingly he had easily earned the highest marks in the huge
lecture hall of over three hundred students.
When he started his graduate
studies, Jana was promoted to the Chief Researcher ’ s position at the Lunar Ultra Energy Lab.
After she ’ d left Earth, he ’ d wandered off course.
People told her that she should be
dismayed by his supposed failings, but she knew better. After more than twenty
years of excelling at academics he was finally delving into the much more
difficult to fathom subtleties of human interactions.
Lev’s long string of girlfriends
and casual lovers had much more to do with systematically comparing different
female personas than promiscuity.
Eventually he would settle on one
that he liked, she chuckled.
Jana wriggled around and floated
to the porthole. The view was exactly the same as it had been for days:
hundreds of gray asteroids slowly tumbled together through cold dark space.
Wait!
She pressed her cheek against the
frigid window and strained to resolve the tiny anomaly.
There was color!
A minuscule red speck flashed on
and off at the extreme limit of what Jana could see through the porthole. It
was a ship of some kind, she finally decided.
For hours Jana studied the
approaching vessel until the strain in her neck and the immense craft’s slow
trajectory past the Butin Belle made further viewing impossible.
• • •
“ I saw something! ” she blurted out to Bosco as he
dragged her backwards through the dim passageway.
“ Yes you did, you old hag. ” He tugged her
past a thick bulkhead door.
Her hands were tightly bound
behind her back but Jana managed to twist around to see him. At this point,
even the crude and volatile thug was preferable to the slow numbing madness of
prolonged solitude. “ Can I call you Bosco? ”
“ Boz, ” a twitchy half smile darted
across his scruffy face.
“ It was a ship, wasn ’ t it Boz. ”
He stopped at a closed hatchway
and spun her around to face him, “ It’s the Lightning . ”
Jana watched him slide his
fingertips over the door ’ s security interface. If she
ever escaped from her cell, this was as far as she ’ d get without being detected.
“ It was supposed to be here weeks ago, ” Bosco
startling detail, ‘ Mommy, this is the parlor. The walls are white. Under the
gray sofa is a yellow ball with light blue stripes and big red stars. Out of
the window, I can see the transports on Breton Street. ’
A keen sense of the physical world
had come easily to him, social skills had not.
In those aspects they had been the
same, Jana winced. She had quite willingly forgone the long and uncertain path
of romance for the solitude of a predictable and secure life as a Physicist.
When the task of completing her
education had been achieved, she methodically set about producing a child.
Jana had eschewed all of the
ordinary complex social interactions with men and instead chose to be
clinically inseminated with the genetic material of an anonymous and randomly
selected academic from the University.
Brainy parents had begat a
brilliant son, she wryly noted.
When he was young she had
dutifully carted him off to peewee football and preteen art classes. They had
both struggled mightily to interact with their peers at the sports venues and
art studios; neither had much luck.
Just as she had done in Buenos
Aires many years earlier, Lev excelled in school. While he spent progressively
more time studying the complexities of Literature, Mathematics and especially
the Sciences, she had been drawn further into her own pursuit of Ultra Energy
Physics. He had earned a High School diploma with highest honors just as she
had been awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics.
Lev had of course attended Free
City University.
In his second year he ’ d sat through the final class that she ’ d taught as a
Senior Professor before accepting a staff researcher ’ s position at the small High Energy Lab in the Physics Department
basement. Not surprisingly he had easily earned the highest marks in the huge
lecture hall of over three hundred students.
When he started his graduate
studies, Jana was promoted to the Chief Researcher ’ s position at the Lunar Ultra Energy Lab.
After she ’ d left Earth, he ’ d wandered off course.
People told her that she should be
dismayed by his supposed failings, but she knew better. After more than twenty
years of excelling at academics he was finally delving into the much more
difficult to fathom subtleties of human interactions.
Lev’s long string of girlfriends
and casual lovers had much more to do with systematically comparing different
female personas than promiscuity.
Eventually he would settle on one
that he liked, she chuckled.
Jana wriggled around and floated
to the porthole. The view was exactly the same as it had been for days:
hundreds of gray asteroids slowly tumbled together through cold dark space.
Wait!
She pressed her cheek against the
frigid window and strained to resolve the tiny anomaly.
There was color!
A minuscule red speck flashed on
and off at the extreme limit of what Jana could see through the porthole. It
was a ship of some kind, she finally decided.
For hours Jana studied the
approaching vessel until the strain in her neck and the immense craft’s slow
trajectory past the Butin Belle made further viewing impossible.
• • •
“ I saw something! ” she blurted out to Bosco as he
dragged her backwards through the dim passageway.
“ Yes you did, you old hag. ” He tugged her
past a thick bulkhead door.
Her hands were tightly bound
behind her back but Jana managed to twist around to see him. At this point,
even the crude and volatile thug was preferable to the slow numbing madness of
prolonged solitude. “ Can I call you Bosco? ”
“ Boz, ” a twitchy half smile darted
across his scruffy face.
“ It was a ship, wasn ’ t it Boz. ”
He stopped at a closed hatchway
and spun her around to face him, “ It’s the Lightning . ”
Jana watched him slide his
fingertips over the door ’ s security interface. If she
ever escaped from her cell, this was as far as she ’ d get without being detected.
“ It was supposed to be here weeks ago, ” Bosco
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