The Gravitational Leap. Darrell Lee

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      “We’re not throwing it away. You’re worrying about nothing,” Timo answered. Timo stood and finished dressing. “At least we don’t have to start the day on patrol.”

      Alyd didn’t answer. As he laced up his boots, Timo felt the silence from her fill the room.

      “What do you want me to do? I can’t go back and tell the general now.”

      “At least hide it in a better place than under the mattress.”

      ****

      Timo looked up at the Tower. It stood one hundred meters west of the Five-Seven-One chamber. The Tower was a square building, fifty meters wide and long, made of large granite cubes. At a height of forty-five meters, it loomed over all the other one-story dwellings and shops in the village. A single set of oversized metal doors on the south side provided the only entry. Halfway up the Tower on the north side were two vents that constantly released a lazy column of white steam. The steam drifted away from the Tower vertically in the breeze, and then broke apart into small cloudlets that reminded Timo of the cotton-like clouds on a sunny day during the growing season. Just below the top of the Tower, on each of the four sides, protruded a large loudspeaker. Timo did not know what purpose these had. A two-meter-tall security barrier ringed the Tower, and a heavily armed special police force provided security. Only the council and family members were allowed inside. Like the wall that surrounded the village, the Tower took decades to complete, centuries ago.

      The doors to the chamber were opened by two security officers. Timo and Alyd walked into the room and the doors shut behind them. The room had no windows. The stone walls and floor were illuminated by electrical lamps mounted on the walls. Neither of them had seen electrical lighting inside before. In the room was a long table, and seated there, facing them, were the five members of the High Council.

      Maldor, by far the oldest member, had pale, blotchy skin and clear blue eyes to match his razor-sharp mind. His stern, clean-shaven face glared at them. There were a few short sprouts of white hair on top of his head. He reminded Timo of an angrier version of a school principal. He was the Engineering and Science director and keeper of the historical records for the clan. He motioned to two stone stools before him with his hand. “Please have a seat.”

      Timo and Alyd did as they were instructed.

      “We’ve summoned you here to enquire about the man you killed yesterday,” Maldor said. “Timo, would you recount the event to us?”

      Timo could always tell when Alyd was nervous because she got very still and a small vein protruded on her forehead. At this moment she was more rigid than the stone stool she sat upon, and the vein was clearly visible. Couldn’t we get a stool with some padding? Timo thought.

      “We were on sniper patrol in sector twenty-seven. We’d been there since before daylight, to relieve team-five. We had seen nothing until this contact. Alyd acted as spotter. I was behind the rifle. About four hours into the shift, Alyd spotted movement in a ravine across the riverbed. We watched it carefully and determined it to be rock camouflage, known to be used by enemy scouts. I fired one round into the camouflage cover, striking the scout in both legs. He came out of the cover and attempted to crawl to a nearby boulder. I fired a second round, killing him on the spot.”

      “Alyd, is that how you recall the events?” Maldor asked.

      Timo looked at her. The vein is still there.

      Alyd stayed stiff. “Yes, sir,” she replied.

      “Continue,” Maldor instructed.

      “We reported the contact and were told to conduct normal intel retrieval. We waited for darkness and did that. When we returned to the village we gave what we recovered to General Bartel.”

      Bartel leaned his broad, thick chest and shoulders forward in his seat. “You were not instructed to bring the body back to the village?”

      “No, sir. We were told to do normal intel retrieval,” Timo replied.

      “Timo and Alyd,” Maldor interjected before Bartel could ask another question. “We are not here today to blame anyone for anything, nor are we going to give out any punishment. And nothing you say here will be told to your commanding officers. We are simply seeking the truth about what happened yesterday. Do you understand?”

      They both nodded. Please, Alyd, don’t say a thing.

      “Was there anything unusual about the man you killed?”

      “He was an Asus soldier, but he was dressed in Denock gear,” Timo said. “After we got back, the general sent another team to retrieve the body. You can see it for yourself.”

      “That’s part of the problem,” Maldor said. “When the sniper team got to the location you reported, there wasn’t a body there. They found a large amount of blood and three sets of boot prints leading to the west but no body. So, you see, the testimony of the both of you is all we have,” Maldor said.

      “We recovered a backpack full of intel,” Alyd said.

      “And it had a strange-looking walkie-talkie inside. Certainly that must be of some use. Have you seen that?” Timo asked.

      Maldor removed the walkie-talkie from a pocket of his jacket and placed it on the table. “We have received those items,” Maldor said. “The radio is unique. It appears to have a way to encode the radio signal it transmits. No way our scanners would pick the signal up. It could have other features of which we are unaware. We will continue to examine it and the other items in the pack. Besides those items, did you recover anything else, from his person or in his pockets?”

      Timo could feel Alyd stop breathing.

      “No, sir,” Timo said.

      “Is there any other relevant information either of you would like to add?”

      “No, sir,” Timo said.

      Maldor looked at Alyd; so did Timo.

      “No, sir,” she said.

      Piet, a short, round man with no neck and long black hairwho oversaw the manufacturing of glass, electronics, metals, ammunition, and armaments, spoke to Maldor.

      “My concern is the radio. The technology is new; the manufacturing is better than anything we have. If they can do that with a radio, they can do it with weaponry.”

      “I doubt they made it,” Maldor said. “More likely it is the spoils of a conflict with a clan from their home territory.”

      Next, Eduart, the youngest member, with brown hair and a chiseled jaw who managed agriculture production and village civil maintenance, chimed in. “If they have formed an alliance, they would more than triple our number of soldiers. Maybe not enough to breach our wall, but certainly enough to put us under siege. We barely have enough food stored to get us through the winter—if the coming winter isn’t too severe. If they keep us penned inside the wall through early spring, we won’t be able to get the crops planted in time. We’ll starve.”

      Suddenly Timo felt irrelevant—it was a relief. Alyd still sat rigid.

      “Sjund won’t wait. Time is not on his side. He is going to attack, sooner rather than later. Bartel, double the number СКАЧАТЬ