[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
87-034.
STORE YOUR effects. Save rent, avoid Corporation seizure while out. Fee
includes disposal instructions if nonreturn. 88-125.
----------------------------------------
"Probably," she said, "providing you're a Heechee with pilot training."
"Not even like one color means you're going farther from here than some other
color?"
"Not that anybody here has figured out. Of course, they keep trying. There's a
whole team that spends its time programming returned mission reports against
the settings they went out with.
So far they've come up empty. Now let's get on with it, Broadhead. Put your
whole hand on that first wheel, the one the others have used. Shove it. It'll
take more muscle than you think."
It did. In fact, I was almost afraid to push it hard enough to make it work.
She leaned over and put her hand on mine, and I realized that that nice
musk-oil smell that had been in my nostrils for the last little while was
hers. It wasn't just musk, either; her pheromones were snuggling nicely into
my chemoreceptors. It made a very nice change from the rest of the Gateway
stink.
But all the same, I didn't get even a show of color, although I tried for five
minutes before she waved me away and gave Sheri another shot in my place.
When I got back to my room somebody had cleaned it up. I wondered gratefully
who that had been, but I was too tired to wonder very long. Until you get used
to it, low gravity can be exhausting; you find yourself overusing all your
muscles because you have to relearn a whole pattern of economies.
I slung my hammock and was just dozing off when I heard a scratching at the
lattice of my door and Sheri's voice: "Rob?"
"What?"
"Are you asleep?"
Obviously I wasn't, but I interpreted the question the way she had intended
it. "No. I've been lying here thinking."
"So was I. . . . Rob?"
"Yeah?"
"Would you like me to come into your hammock?"
I made an effort to wake myself up enough to consider the question on its
merits.
Page 29
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"I really want to," she said.
"All right. Sure. I mean, glad to have you." She slipped into my room, and I
slid over in the hammock, which swung slowly as she crawled into it. She was
wearing a knitted T-shirt and underpants, and she felt warm and soft against
me when we rolled gently together in the hollow of the hammock.
"It doesn't have to be sex, stud," she said. "I'm easy either way."
"Let's see what develops. Are you scared?"
Her breath was the sweetest-smelling thing about her; I could feel it on my
cheek. "A lot
file:///F|/rah/Frederik%20Pohl/Pohl,%20Frederik%20-%20Heechee%201%20-%20Gatewa
y.txt (23 of 109) [1/15/03 6:31:20 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Frederik%20Pohl/Pohl,%20Frederik%20-%20Heechee%201%20-%20Gatewa
y.txt more than I thought I would be."
"Why?"
"Rob--" she squirmed herself comfortable and then twisted her neck to look at
me over her shoulder, "you know, you say kind of asshole things sometimes?"
"Sorry."
"Well, I mean it. I mean, look what we're doing. We're going to get into a
ship that we don't know if it's going to get where it's supposed to go, and we
don't even know where it's supposed to go. We go faster than light, nobody
knows how. We don't know how long we'll be gone, even if we knew where we were
going. So we could be traveling the rest of our lives and die before we got
there, even if we didn't run into something that would kill us in two seconds.
Right?
Right. So how come you ask me why I'm scared?"
"Just making conversation." I curled up along her back and cupped a breast,
not aggressively but because it felt good.
"And not only that. We don't know anything about the people who built these
things. How do we know this isn't all a practical joke on their part? Maybe
their way of luring fresh meat into
Heechee heaven?"
"We don't," I agreed. "Roll over this way."
"And the ship they showed us this morning doesn't hardly look like I thought
it was going to be, at all," she said, doing as I told her and putting a hand
on the back of my neck.
There was a sharp whistle from somewhere, I couldn't tell where.
"What's that?"
"I don't know." It came again, sounding both out in the tunnel and, louder,
inside my room. "Oh, it's the phone." What I was hearing was my own piezophone
and the ones on either side of me, all ringing at once. The whistle stopped
and there was a voice:
"This is Jim Chou. All you fish who want to see what a ship looks like when it
comes back after a bad trip, come to Docking Station Four. They're bringing it
in now."
I could hear a murmuring from the Forehands' room next door, and I could feel
Sheri's heart pounding. "We'd better go," I said.
"I know. But I don't think I want to -- much."
The ship had made it back to Gateway, but not quite all the way. One of the
orbiting cruisers had detected it and closed in on it. Now a tug was bringing
it in to the Corporation's own docks, where usually only the rockets from the
planets latched in. There was a hatch big enough to hold even a Five. This was
a Three, what there was left of it.
"Oh, sweet Jesus," Sheri whispered. "Rob, what do you suppose happened to
them?"
"To the people? They died." There was not really any doubt of that. The ship
was a wreck.
The lander stem was gone, just the interstellar vehicle itself, the mushroom
cap, was still there, and that was bent out of shape, split open, seared by
Page 30
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
heat. Split open! Heechee metal, that doesn't even soften under an electric
arc!
But we hadn't seen the worst of it.
We never did see the worst of it, we only heard about it. One man was still
inside the ship. All over the inside of the ship. He had been literally
spattered around the control room, and his remains had been baked onto the
walls. By what? Heat and acceleration, no doubt. Perhaps he had found himself
skipping into the upper reaches of a sun, or in tight orbit around a neutron [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl wyciskamy.pev.pl
87-034.
STORE YOUR effects. Save rent, avoid Corporation seizure while out. Fee
includes disposal instructions if nonreturn. 88-125.
----------------------------------------
"Probably," she said, "providing you're a Heechee with pilot training."
"Not even like one color means you're going farther from here than some other
color?"
"Not that anybody here has figured out. Of course, they keep trying. There's a
whole team that spends its time programming returned mission reports against
the settings they went out with.
So far they've come up empty. Now let's get on with it, Broadhead. Put your
whole hand on that first wheel, the one the others have used. Shove it. It'll
take more muscle than you think."
It did. In fact, I was almost afraid to push it hard enough to make it work.
She leaned over and put her hand on mine, and I realized that that nice
musk-oil smell that had been in my nostrils for the last little while was
hers. It wasn't just musk, either; her pheromones were snuggling nicely into
my chemoreceptors. It made a very nice change from the rest of the Gateway
stink.
But all the same, I didn't get even a show of color, although I tried for five
minutes before she waved me away and gave Sheri another shot in my place.
When I got back to my room somebody had cleaned it up. I wondered gratefully
who that had been, but I was too tired to wonder very long. Until you get used
to it, low gravity can be exhausting; you find yourself overusing all your
muscles because you have to relearn a whole pattern of economies.
I slung my hammock and was just dozing off when I heard a scratching at the
lattice of my door and Sheri's voice: "Rob?"
"What?"
"Are you asleep?"
Obviously I wasn't, but I interpreted the question the way she had intended
it. "No. I've been lying here thinking."
"So was I. . . . Rob?"
"Yeah?"
"Would you like me to come into your hammock?"
I made an effort to wake myself up enough to consider the question on its
merits.
Page 29
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"I really want to," she said.
"All right. Sure. I mean, glad to have you." She slipped into my room, and I
slid over in the hammock, which swung slowly as she crawled into it. She was
wearing a knitted T-shirt and underpants, and she felt warm and soft against
me when we rolled gently together in the hollow of the hammock.
"It doesn't have to be sex, stud," she said. "I'm easy either way."
"Let's see what develops. Are you scared?"
Her breath was the sweetest-smelling thing about her; I could feel it on my
cheek. "A lot
file:///F|/rah/Frederik%20Pohl/Pohl,%20Frederik%20-%20Heechee%201%20-%20Gatewa
y.txt (23 of 109) [1/15/03 6:31:20 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Frederik%20Pohl/Pohl,%20Frederik%20-%20Heechee%201%20-%20Gatewa
y.txt more than I thought I would be."
"Why?"
"Rob--" she squirmed herself comfortable and then twisted her neck to look at
me over her shoulder, "you know, you say kind of asshole things sometimes?"
"Sorry."
"Well, I mean it. I mean, look what we're doing. We're going to get into a
ship that we don't know if it's going to get where it's supposed to go, and we
don't even know where it's supposed to go. We go faster than light, nobody
knows how. We don't know how long we'll be gone, even if we knew where we were
going. So we could be traveling the rest of our lives and die before we got
there, even if we didn't run into something that would kill us in two seconds.
Right?
Right. So how come you ask me why I'm scared?"
"Just making conversation." I curled up along her back and cupped a breast,
not aggressively but because it felt good.
"And not only that. We don't know anything about the people who built these
things. How do we know this isn't all a practical joke on their part? Maybe
their way of luring fresh meat into
Heechee heaven?"
"We don't," I agreed. "Roll over this way."
"And the ship they showed us this morning doesn't hardly look like I thought
it was going to be, at all," she said, doing as I told her and putting a hand
on the back of my neck.
There was a sharp whistle from somewhere, I couldn't tell where.
"What's that?"
"I don't know." It came again, sounding both out in the tunnel and, louder,
inside my room. "Oh, it's the phone." What I was hearing was my own piezophone
and the ones on either side of me, all ringing at once. The whistle stopped
and there was a voice:
"This is Jim Chou. All you fish who want to see what a ship looks like when it
comes back after a bad trip, come to Docking Station Four. They're bringing it
in now."
I could hear a murmuring from the Forehands' room next door, and I could feel
Sheri's heart pounding. "We'd better go," I said.
"I know. But I don't think I want to -- much."
The ship had made it back to Gateway, but not quite all the way. One of the
orbiting cruisers had detected it and closed in on it. Now a tug was bringing
it in to the Corporation's own docks, where usually only the rockets from the
planets latched in. There was a hatch big enough to hold even a Five. This was
a Three, what there was left of it.
"Oh, sweet Jesus," Sheri whispered. "Rob, what do you suppose happened to
them?"
"To the people? They died." There was not really any doubt of that. The ship
was a wreck.
The lander stem was gone, just the interstellar vehicle itself, the mushroom
cap, was still there, and that was bent out of shape, split open, seared by
Page 30
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
heat. Split open! Heechee metal, that doesn't even soften under an electric
arc!
But we hadn't seen the worst of it.
We never did see the worst of it, we only heard about it. One man was still
inside the ship. All over the inside of the ship. He had been literally
spattered around the control room, and his remains had been baked onto the
walls. By what? Heat and acceleration, no doubt. Perhaps he had found himself
skipping into the upper reaches of a sun, or in tight orbit around a neutron [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]