The Ripple in Space-Time: Free City Book 1 (The Free City Series) by S F Chapman

that we couldn’t detect them.”
    “Just in the last thirty years, ” Lev interjected, “ the University finally developed
a really good Gravitational Observatory satellite which peers down from way
above the center of the Solar System. The equipment in the Astronomy Lab
filters out the nearly overpowering gravitational waves from the sun, the
planets and all of the larger moons, leaving just the small and really strange
stuff that zips about through space. ”
    Carla smiled in triumph, “ That ’ s what I work with as the junior researcher for the Solar
System Gravitational Anomalies Project. ”
    Ryo shook his head in confusion, “ I still have no idea of how this connects to our investigation. ”
    “ I ’ m sorry, ” Carla apologized, “ Lev has a way of knocking me off
track. As we just talked about with the sheet analogy, when mass moves through
Space-Time it causes a distortion or bending that we see here as a ripple; the
higher the mass and speed, the bigger the ripple or wave. Currently our
research group is looking at the high speed and high mass exosolar particles
that constantly stream through the Solar System. ”
    Lev interrupted the Astronomer, “ Tiny fast moving bits of really heavy junk that get spit out of big
stars when they explode. ”
    Keira squinted at the brightly
colored screen, “ Is there much of that stuff whizzing around? ”
    “ There are always some massive particles. If a star
supernovas in our section of the galaxy, the constant trickle turns into a
torrent for a few weeks. ” Carla ’ s fingers glided over the speckled screen, “ We can ’ t detect high speed electrons or muons, mainly because
their mass is so low, but we can spot nearly anything else, especially if it is
moving at more than a couple of kilometers per second.
    Ryo scrutinized the image, “ What ’ s that little trail? ”
    Dr. Stuhr glanced at the monitor,
“Judging by the color and the slight curve of the tracing, I ’ d guess it ’ s most likely a few alpha particles that are zipping along
at about a third of the speed of light. We can request a detailed velocity and
mass analysis if you want to know for sure. ”
    “ I think we ’ re OK, ” Ryo smiled at the scientist. “ What is it that you found for
us, Ms Stuhr? ”
    “ Ah, I recorded a peculiar observation about a month ago, ” Carla summoned a new image to the screen, “ I was right in the middle of a transitional metal ion study at the time,
so I saved it for future scrutiny. ”
    A fuzzy and slowly moving group of
a few sparkling yellow and orange specks produced a noticeable wrinkling of the
surrounding gray and brown mottled background on the display.
    “ This is not normal, ” she assured them. “ None of the other researchers has ever seen anything like it. The tight grouping
of the dots and the relatively slow speed suggests that this is a spacecraft
carrying a small quantity of unusually dense material. ”
    “ Maybe it ’ s a bulk freighter loaded with
Uranium? ” Keira wondered.
    “ It seems to be a much smaller ship with just a tiny amount
of stuff onboard that ’ s really heavy. ”
    Lev tapped at the brightly
shimmering cloud on the screen, “ What ’ s the density of these little guys, Carla? ”
    She toggled the controls to freeze
the image and several numbers appeared next to the splotches. “ This one has a density of about 32,000 grams per cubic centimeter and is
moving along at 120 kilometers per second. ”
    “ Wow! ” Lev exclaimed. “ I recall that Uranium is only about 19 grams per cubic centimeter. ”
    “ What is this then? ” Ryo pondered.
    “ Could it be a cluster of mini black holes? ” Lev guessed.
    “ No, that would be so rare as to be unheard of, ” Carla concluded, “ even the smallest black hole
would warp Space-Time much more than these things. The gravitational effects
upon everything in the Solar System would also be quite noticeable. This is
something