Free Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra by Stephen Lawhead

wormholes?”
    “Sure, I know about them. The concept has been around a long time. I'm surprised you haven't heard of them, really. But then again, they're not exactly common knowledge. In fact, they were entirely a mathematic speculation until Cynetics discovered one lurking on the rim of our solar system. On second thought, maybe you wouldn't have heard of them unless you read astrophysics abstracts or professional journals.”
    “How did you get so chummy with them then?”
    “I read old SF novels.” Pizzle's close-set eyes gleamed impishly.
    “Sci-fi, huh?”
    “Speculative fiction, if you please. There were some great books written about wormhole travel just before the turn of the century. Great stuff!
Timeslip
is a classic. My favorite, though, is
Pyramid on the Thames.”
    “Okay, so I'm out of touch,” Treet sniffed. “Now, why the big hurry to get me on board? Was that so I wouldn't change my mind?”
    “Well, if you know anything about wormholes at all—”
    “Which I don't.”
    “—you'd know that one of the major theories is that they are not a constant event.”
    “Meaning?”
    “They come and go. They change. They move around. One might appear one place for a while and then disappear, only to reappear somewhere else. They're sort of elastic, like I said. Where a black hole is a fixed phenomenon, wormholes—displacement tubes or dilation tunnels, as they're sometimes called—are more unpredictable.”
    “Therefore?”
    “Therefore, you have to move when there's one open or you miss your chance. Obviously—”
    “Cynetics found out the wormhole was open now and didn't want to lose the opportunity.”
    “Righto mundo! Who knows when it might come again.” Pizzle took off his glasses and polished them on his shirt.
    “You just said they move around.”
    “Relatively speaking. As far as anyone knows, they usually occur in the same general vicinity of space. Whatever kind of force or disturbance creates a wormhole operates in a localized region—you know, like a whirlpool in a river. It swirls around, opens, and closes, sometimes deeper, sometimes shallower, stronger one time, weaker another, and so on. That's how it is.”
    “And we're going to dive through the eye of this whirlpool.”
    “Banzai!”
    Treet gazed balefully at Pizzle, his brow wrinkled in thought. “Granting for the moment that what you say is true—which I intend to check out thoroughly—but say that it's true, just how did the first transport know that they'd reach Epsilon Eridani by jumping through this wormhole? How could they know that?”
    “My guess is they didn't.”
    “Great heavens! You mean they dove in blind?”
    Pizzle shrugged lightly. “It was a colony ship, remember. They were outfitted to start a colony, which they were intent on doing anyway, so what difference would it make where? They were pioneers. Someone had to be the first.”
    “But how do we know they made it?”
    “You've got me there,” Pizzle admitted. “Ask Crocker; maybe he knows something.”
    “We could be diving into … well,
anything.
Or nothing. There might be a sun at the other end and we'd burn up, or maybe an asteroid field and we'll be smashed to cosmic dust. What happens if the wormhole closes while we're still inside? What then?”
    “Look, what do you want from a bookworm? Nobody has ever done this before, so we'll just have to wait and find out.”
    “Wrong. The first transport found out, didn't they?” Treet huffed. “Well, where are they now?”
    Treet sat hunched on a folding stool in the crowded cockpit of the
Zephyros.
Pizzle sat next to him with his elbows on his knees, trying to take up less space. Crocker swiveled in his captain's chair, twirling his hat in his hand. After their discussion, Treet and Pizzle had gone directly to the Captain to find out what he knew of the fate of the first colonists.
    “Epsilon Eridani,” Crocker said, “is an extensive system. We know that it has at least thirteen