Gateway - Frederik Pohl Page 0,101

want a poet in residence or an English teacher who's been on seven missions. They'll pay me something, and the money from this will keep me in extras all the rest of my life."

All I had really heard was the one word, and that I had heard loud and surprising: "Poet?"

He grinned. "Didn't you know? That's how I got to Gateway; the Guggenheim Foundation paid my way." He took the pot out of the cooker, divided the stew into two dishes, and we ate.

This was the fellow who had been shrieking viciously at the two Dannys for a solid hour, two days before, while Susie and I lay angry and isolated in the lander, listening. It was all turnaround. We were home free; the mission wasn't going to strand us out of fuel, and we didn't have to worry about finding anything, because our reward was guaranteed. I asked him about his poetry. He wouldn't recite any, but promised to show me copies of what he'd sent back to the Guggenheims when we reached Gateway again.

And when we'd finished eating, and wiped out the pot and dishes and put them away, Dane looked at his watch. "Too early to wake the others up," he said, "and not a damn thing to do."

A NOTE ON PIEZOELECTRICITY

Professor Hegramet. The one thing we found out about blood diamonds is that they're fantastically piezoelectric. Does anybody know what that means?

Question. They expand and contract when an electric current is imposed?

Professor Hegramet. Yes. And the other way around. Squeeze them and they generate a current. Very rapidly if you like. That's the basis for the piezophone and piezovision. About a fifty-billion-dollar industry.

Question. Who gets the royalties on all that loot?

Professor Hegramet. You know, I thought one of you would ask that. Nobody does. Blood diamonds were found years and years ago, in the Heechee warrens back on Venus. Long before Gateway. It was Bell Labs that figured out how to use them. Actually they use something a little different, a synthetic they developed. They make great communications systems, and Bell doesn't have to pay anybody but themselves.

Question. Did the Heechee use them for that?

Professor Hegramet. My personal opinion is that they probably did, but I don't know how. You'd think if they left them around they'd leave the rest of the communications receivers and transmitters, too, but if they did I don't know where.

He looked at me, smiling. It was a real smile, not a grin; and I pushed myself over to him, and sat in the warm and welcome circle of his arm.

And nineteen days went like an hour, and then the clock told us it was almost time to arrive. We were all awake, crowded into the capsule, eager as kids at Christmas, waiting to open our toys. It had been the happiest trip I had ever made, and probably one of the happiest ever. "You know," said Danny R. thoughtfully, "I'm almost sorry to arrive." And Susie, just beginning to understand our English, said:

"Sim, ja sei," and then, "I too!" She squeezed my hand, and I squeezed back; but what I was really thinking about was Klara. We had tried the radio a couple of times, but it didn't work in the Heechee wormholes through space. But when we came out I would be able to talk to her! I didn't mind that others would be listening, I knew what it was that I wanted to say. I even knew what she would answer. There was no question about it; there was surely as much euphoria in her ship as in ours, for the same reasons, and with all that love and joy the answer was not in doubt.

"We're stopping!" Danny R. yelled. "Can you feel it?"

"Yes!" crowed Metchnikov, bouncing with the tiny surges of the pseudo-gravity that marked our return to normal space. And there was another sign, too: the golden helix in the center of the cabin was beginning to glow, brighter every second.

"I think we've made it," said Danny R., bursting with pleasure, and I was as pleased as he.

"I'll start the spherical scan," I said, confident that I knew what to do. Susie took her cue from me and opened the door up to the lander; she and Danny A. were going to go out for the star sights.

But Danny A. didn't join her. He was staring at the viewscreen. As I started the ship turning, I could see stars, which was normal enough; they did not seem