Read Online Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra by Stephen Lawhead - Free Book Online Page B

route—and the acceleration created a comfortable one-half G, which allowed them near-normal conditions.
    He was still sitting in the center of his compartment when he heard a muffled thump—a sound he had come to recognize as someone knocking on the padding around his door. “What do you want?” he hollered.
    “Can I come in?” Pizzle yelled back.
    “No!”
    The door folded back regardless. “Sorry, Treet. I feel silly talking to closed doors. Let me in, okay?”
    “It seems I can't keep you out!”
    “Look, I brought you something.”
    Treet still stared at the blank computer screen across the room. “What is it?”
    “It's that book I told you about. Some of it, that is. I only printed up the pertinent chapters. Here, take it.”
    “Go away. I'm not in the mood.”
    Pizzle put the book on the bed and took a seat there himself. “I was wondering if you've seen our fellow passenger yet.”
    “No, I haven't. So what?” Treet turned and looked at his guest for the first time.
    “Well, I haven't either. And it's going on two days now. Don't you think that's strange?”
    “Not particularly. He probably just wants to avoid having to play that stupid game with you.”
    “You said you
liked
Empires. You almost won last time.”
    “I lied. Besides, you let me win just so I will keep playing with you, which I won't.”
    “Two days though. That's a long time. One of us should have seen him.”
    “Did you ask Crocker?”
    Pizzle nodded. “Sure. He said he didn't know who it was, but that he wasn't concerned and furthermore it was none of my business.”
    “There you are. It's none of your business.”
    “But two whole days, Treet. What if something happened to him? Maybe he had a heart attack on liftoff or something like that.”
    Treet thought about this. “What do you want me to do about it?”
    “Be a spy with me. Help me find out who it is.”
    For a moment Treet considered this. “It
does
seem a trifle strange, as you say. But then,” he added grumpily, “it wouldn't be the first strange thing about this trip.”
    “Like what?” Pizzle sat cross-legged on the bed, elbow on knee, resting his receding chin in his hand.
    Treet got to his feet. “You really want to know? Okay. First, there's the supposedly oh-so-secret nature of this trip. Only I find out from you in casual conversation that you were one of five hundred applicants. Seems like everybody and his mother knows about this colony but me. Secondly, how come I've never heard of this wormhole business? I'm an intelligent person; I've been around a long time, and I've never heard mention of the alleged phenomenon. Thirdly, why were they so anxious to get me aboard this crate? The ink wasn't even dry on the line when I was hustled aboard. Why the big hurry? And why won't Crocker tell me anything? What more is there I'm not supposed to know? Shall I go on?”
    Pizzle shrugged. “You're making more of this than there is, really. I can explain everything.”
    “Go ahead; be my guest. I wish you would.”
    “Well, the mission
is
secret. Sure, they took applications, but that's standard for any transfer situation. I knew only that there was a hefty pay bonus and a promotion for going. I'd been looking for a way out of the Northwestern Hemisphere Division for over a year and when the chance came up, I grabbed it.”
    “Even though you didn't know where you were going or what your assignment would be?”
    “Didn't matter to me. Anything was better than NH under Oberman, not to mention there were at least seven guys ahead of me in line for promotion. I'd have been eighty-five before I joined senior staff!”
    “Still, you knew about it. Varro told me it was a secret.”
    “It was for me too, up until the time I boarded the
Zephyros.
There was a confidential packet waiting for me in my cabin: length of trip, our destination, my assignment, that sort of thing. I'd never heard of Empyrion Colony either, until after I read my packet.”
    “What about