Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra Read online

  Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra

  Copyright © 1985 by Stephen R. Lawhead

  ePub ISBN 978-0-9567731-3-5

  Mobi ISBN 978-0-9567731-2-8

  Published electronically by Lawhead Books

  Visit www.stephenlawhead.com

  Published in the United States of America

  All rights reserved

  Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Cover design by Lina Bronson

  Cover photo from NASA Archive

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  Other books by Stephen R. Lawhead

  The Dragon King Trilogy

  In the Hall of the Dragon King

  The Warlords of Nin

  The Sword and the Flame

  Dream Thief

  The Empyrion Saga

  The Search for Fierra

  The Siege of Dome

  The Pendragon Cycle

  Taliesin

  Merlin

  Arthur

  Pendragon

  Grail

  Avalon

  The Song of Albion

  The Paradise War

  The Silver Hand

  The Endless Knot

  Byzantium

  The Celtic Crusades

  The Iron Lance

  The Black Rood

  The Mystic Rose

  Patrick

  The King Raven Trilogy

  Hood

  Scarlet

  Tuck

  Bright Empires

  The Skin Map

  The Bone House (2011)

  The Search for Fierra

  Empyrion I

  by

  Stephen R. Lawhead

  Forward to the 2011 electronic edition

  It’s said that even a stopped clock tells the correct time twice a day. The same can be said about virtually every SF writer: stuck in your own time, you’re still bound to get some predictions right. Thus, I take particular satisfaction in publishing this electronic version of a twenty-five-year-old book that imagined something called a ‘laserfile reader’ — a device similar to the one you’re holding right now to read this.

  Everything else that was got wrong will not, I hope, prove too great a distraction to your enjoyment, for the EMPYRION SAGA – consisting of The Search for Fierra and The Siege of Dome – is not an attempt to predict the future. It is, like most works of science fiction, about explaining and understanding the present. In 1985, when the first volume was written, two superpowers vied for world supremacy. One championed individual freedom, the other limited it in the name of a collective good. Both were armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons (still are), and no one was setting a date for an end to the Cold War. The Doomsday Clock was set just a few minutes before midnight in the mid-80s, and like everyone else, my mind was occupied with these matters. As a consequence, my characters were, too.

  Rereading my own book, I remember the thrill of fearlessly inventing two divergent cultures, each with its own landscape, political and social hierarchy, creation myths and religion. And I remember how fun it was to give characters names such as Orion Treet, Asquith Pizzle, and Giloon Bogney.

  Perhaps this sort of fantasizing was always my first love – an affair born of countless hours in the library stacks with Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, and Kurt Vonnegut. And maybe it’s significant that I’ve returned to it in recent years. For if we cannot creatively and bravely envision a redemptive future – and do it with a certain degree of humour — what hope is there for the world we must one day inhabit?

  Stephen Lawhead

  Oxford

  2011

  And though the last lights off the black West went

  Oh, morning, at the brown brink Eastward, Springs—

  Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

  World broods with warm breast and ah! bright Wings.

  —G. M. Hopkins, God’s Grandeur

  The Search for Fierra

  Empyrion I

  PRELUDE

  Transcript #2-1BX = EMP

  V1: [Static] We’re down! And it’s beautiful! Wonderful!

  V2: It’s heaven! It really is.

  V1: All probe data confirms observational analysis. Geoscience Officer Tovardy will dispatch a brief preliminary report.

  V2: Okay—

  V1: Keep it short, Ben.

  V2: Right—just the highlights. Atmosphere is thin, but friendly—high oxygen and nitrogen content; other gas ratios well within normal tolerances—except for minute levels of rardon ionization in the inert sectors. No idea at present what affect that will have on free-breathing; we’ll check that out. Weather—there’s no weather to speak of here! It’s Hawaii every day. No observed cyclonic disturbances; projected climatic variation: negligible. Flora and fauna? This is a fairly complex environment. It’s going to take time to sort everything out properly. At present no known pathogenic lifeforms identified. No sentient life either, for that matter. Like I said, the place is an absolute paradise! That’s it for now. Full report to follow.

  [ten seconds silence]

  V1: Okay, let’s take a look … How long ago did this happen?

  V3:Three minutes maybe … not more.

  VI: Ground control, we’ve got a situation here. We’re not sure …

  [static—two seconds]

  … event monitors have picked up electromagnetic disturbances that could indicate …

  [static—four seconds]

  —anomaly in singularity region. Don’t know what it means. We’ll stay on it at this end. Next dispatch will be at our regularly scheduled time. This is Empyrion Colony Com—

  [static—five seconds]

  End of Transcript

  ONE

  The body staring up through the translucent green of the nutrient bath might have been dead. It floated beneath the surface, open-eyed, its face becalmed, a snaking nimbus of dark hair spreading like a black halo: a saint embalmed in emerald amber.

  Presently a small bubble formed on the rim of one nostril, puffed up bigger, and broke free, spiraling to the surface. Plick! This was followed by another slightly larger bubble, which also spun up to the surface of the bath, drifted momentarily, and burst. Plick!

  A whole fountain of bubbles erupted and boiled up, and in the center, rising with them, the head of Orion Tiberias Treet, sputtering and inhaling great draughts of air, like a whale breeching after a long nap on the ocean floor.

  Two broad hands came up, dashing liquid from two dark eyes, pushing ropy strands of hair aside. Treet snatched up a watch from the rim of the white marble bath and held it before his face. “Six minutes!” he shouted triumphantly. “A new record.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  Treet glanced up quickly and saw a stranger sitting on the edge of the bath opposite him. The stranger had a needle gun aimed at his throat, and, contrary to his word, did not seem at all impressed with the new submergence record. Besides himself and the gunman, there was not another person in the public bath.

  “What do you want?” Treet asked, the skin at his throat tingling beneath the aim of the needle gun.

  “I have what I want: you,” replied the gunm
an. Cool menace clipped his words efficiently. “Get out of the soup and get dressed.”

  Orion Treet glared dully at the slim needle gun in his abductor’s hand as he rose slowly from the bath, took up the fluffy white bath towel the attendant had given him upon entering, and began drying his limbs and torso with exaggerated care in order to give himself a moment to think. By the time he was fully dressed he had concluded that it was probably no use trying to talk his way out of whatever it was this stranger with the gun wanted to do with him—he looked like a man who was used to having his way, and was not overly shy about how he got it.

  “You have been a problem, Treet,” the man was saying. “I don’t like problems. In my line of work, problems cost me money, and you’ve cost me plenty. It’s over now, so you might as well relax and put that brain of yours in neutral for a while. I don’t want you taxing yourself over how to get away this time. Just stand easy, do as you’re told, and you’ll likely live that much longer. You like living, don’t you, Treet?”

  Treet had to admit that he did indeed like living; it was, after all, one of the things that made life so worthwhile. But he did not share this observation with the man training the needle gun on his jugular. Instead, he just glared and tried to look dutifully irritated.

  The man took a short step closer. The gun did not waver. “I almost had you in Cairo, and then again in Addis Ababa, Cologne, Zurich, Salzburg, Milan, Tokyo, and San Francisco. I’ve got to hand it to you, you’re a shrewdy. I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed myself more, but it’s over.”

  “As long as it’s over,” replied Treet evenly, “maybe you won’t mind telling me why you’ve been trailing me all this time. What do you want?” He had known since Zurich that he was being followed, but was unsure why, though several possibilities sprang to mind. Still, he felt entitled to an explanation. Wasn’t that a victim’s prerogative?

  “I don’t mind telling you at all, scumbag. There are some people who want to talk to you. They seem quite anxious, in fact. Personally I don’t give a rat’s hind end. I’d just as soon drop you where you stand.”

  At least this meant the man would not kill him outright. But who were the people so desperate for conversation? Treet ran down a list of former employers, angry innkeepers, outraged restauranteurs, and offended debtors of various sorts, but the effort proved futile. He could not come up with anyone who would go to this amount of trouble to reach him. “So?”

  “So, bright boy, we lockstep it to the nearest teleterm. I’m going to report in. Keep your hands where I can see them; turn around slowly and move. Outside there’s a terminal directly to the right. If you so much as deviate one millimeter from the course, you’re dead. Understand?”

  Treet understood. They turned and marched from the spa and out into the main corridor of Houston International Skyport. Travelers, not a few of them free-state refugees by the tattered look of them, jammed hip to thigh, swept along the moving walkway before them, and Treet entertained the notion of jumping on the conveyor and worming himself into the crowd—a trick he had used in Salzburg. He started to turn his head, but felt the needle gun’s sharp nose in the small of his back.

  “Try it, slime ball. Let’s see how you look with a cyanide tattoo.” The voice behind him was disconcertingly close.

  “Don’t get your hopes up.” Treet saw the triangular sign with the distinctive blue lightning bolt on a white oval screen and stopped in front of the booth. Passengers sliding by on the walkway ignored the two men as they squeezed into the booth together.

  The gunman jammed a card into the slot above the keypad, and the screen flicked on. A line of blue numbers appeared in the upper right hand corner of the oval screen. Treet watched as his captor entered an alphanumeric code; the screen blanked. Instantly another code came up in the center of the screen. With one hand the man typed in two words: GOT HIM.

  For a moment nothing happened. Then as Treet watched, hoping for some clue to the identity of the person or persons on the other end of the linkup, the words HOLD FOR PICKUP appeared below the gunman’s entry. With that, the gunman tapped a key, the screen cleared, and his card ejected from the slot. “Okay, move it.”

  “Where to?”

  “Heliport Six.” The man jerked the gun upward toward Treet’s chin. “Let’s take our time, shall we? There’s no hurry, and I wouldn’t want you to get overheated.”

  They exited the booth and shunned the people mover, walking instead to a bank of escalators. They jumped on an escalator labeled TO HELIPORT SIX and rode up three levels to the rooftop. Through the tinted bubble, the sky glowed dark green-gray and the sun shone a nauseating chartreuse. Radiating out from the bubble were at least a dozen landing platforms on the end of walkway tubes. Helicopters sat on two or three platforms, their rotors spinning idly.

  “Number three platform,” the gunman whispered in Treet’s ear. He underscored his words with another nudge from the needle gun. When they reached the tube entrance, the gunman shoved Treet into a sculptured foam chair and said, “Sit.”

  Treet sat, his hands atop his knees, his knees beneath his chin. “Who’s coming to pick me up?”

  “You’ll see soon enough.”

  “How much are they paying you?”

  “Trying to figure out how much you’re worth? Forget it—you’re not worth that much.”

  “I’ll pay you more.” Treet thought he saw a glimmer of interest flit across the man’s pinched features.

  “How much more?”

  “How much are they paying you?”

  “Thirty-five thousand in metal, plus expenses. I have a lot of expenses.” The man with the gun watched him slyly. “Well?”

  “I’ll give you forty thousand.” Treet tried to sound as if that were in some way possible.

  “You lying filth! I ought to drill you for jollies.”

  Treet shrugged. “If you don’t want to be reasonable—”

  “What makes you think I’d let you go for any amount of money? You pus suckers are all alike.”

  “You won’t let me go?”

  “Never. I’d kill you first, and that’s a fact.”

  “Why? I’ve never done anything to you.”

  “Principle. How far do you think I’d get in this business if my clients couldn’t trust me to deliver the goods? Besides, you’ve made me look very bad in front of a very influential client. I don’t like that—bad business.”

  “You’ve got me now, don’t you?”

  “I’ve got you all right. But I lost a double bonus along the way.”

  Treet could tell he was getting nowhere and decided to wait and take his chances with whoever showed up on landing pad number three. He slumped back in his chair and tried to think who might value his company at thirty-five thousand plus expenses—and in precious metals, yet. He was still trying to produce a name when he heard the muffled sound of approaching rotors.

  “On your feet, grunt-face.” The gunman held his weapon level and pointed down the tube to where the helicopter was dropping onto the pad at the other end. “After you.”

  Treet got slowly to his feet and shambled down the tube, watching as the copter’s sidehatch opened and two men, dressed in dark blue paramilitary uniforms, scrambled out. They came to stand on either side of the tube exit and waited. Outside, the air was warm and rather humid. As Treet stepped from the tube, a hot wind from the helicopter’s twin jets hit him in the face. The uniformed men grabbed his arms and led him forward without a word.

  A third man inside the copter held the hatch open. Treet turned. “I guess this is good-bye,” he told the gunman.

  “This is good-bye all right.” The gunman raised the needle gun, and his finger pressed the flat trigger.

  Treet cringed away from the impact as a little puff of vapor issued from the sharp muzzle. He did not feel a thing. Was the gun unloaded after all?

  He glanced down and saw a tiny needle sticking out of his stomach, its red cap pulsating, pumping poison into him. His hands reached f
or the dart, plucked it out; and threw it before his guards could stop him. Momentarily free, he turned and dived away from the helicopter, hit the rubber surface of the landing pad, rolled to his feet, staggered once, and fell backward with arms outstretched, his head bouncing off the pad on impact. Treet stared upward at the clear blue Texas sky as his eyesight dimmed and the leering faces above him diffused and disappeared.

  TWO

  Waves crashed in his head and his stomach heaved, as with the ocean’s swell. Somewhere nearby someone was moaning, and Treet wished they would shut up—until he realized it was him. Well, perhaps moaning was called for, then.

  After several long minutes, the ocean effect subsided and he battled his eyelids open. But the light hurt his head, so he closed his eyes again and listened instead. The moaning—his moaning— had stopped, and silence lay thick and artificial. A synthetic silence, he decided, as if the quiet had been manufactured in some way and layered over the noise that was going on all around him just to prevent him from hearing it.

  He sniffed the air and smelled the heavily filtered, oxygen-enhanced stuff typical of a sealed building. Wherever they had brought him, it was at least up to code. But that could be any relatively modern structure anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere. Nevertheless, he guessed there was a good chance he was still in Houston. The copter—had there been a copter?—yes, he remembered something about a helicopter—had come from somewhere close to the skyport. No more than four or five minutes away.

  Of course, they could have taken him anywhere after that. He had no idea how long he had been out. A few hours, most likely; less than a day. His stomach gurgled, reminding him he had not eaten in quite a while. Orion, he thought, you’ve really done it this time.

  Close on this thought came a question: What had he done? He still didn’t know. If he hadn’t tried to escape, he would have found out by now. No, that pinhead gunman had shot him before he had tried to escape. At least the needle hadn’t carried the promised dose of cyanide. His hand went to the spot on his stomach where the dart had stuck him. The wound, though tiny, throbbed mightily and was inflamed.

  He was still taking physical inventory when he heard the sigh of a door opening automatically. “Up and at ‘em, tiger,” called a cheery female voice. “They’re waiting for you upstairs.” She gave the word upstairs a subtle rising inflection—as if Upstairs were the name of a foreign territory not altogether friendly to the interests of the sovereign state of Texas.