Gateway - Frederik Pohl Page 0,28

on that one. Lay off Dorlean's flight. There's a million-dollar bonus, but what they don't tell you is that they've got a bastard control board in it. The Corporation's experts have put in a computer that's supposed to override the Heechee target selector, and I wouldn't trust it. And, of course, I wouldn't recommend a One in any circumstances."

Lois Forehand asked, "Which one would you take if it was up to you, Klara?"

She scowled thoughtfully, rubbing that dark left eyebrow with the tips of her fingers. "Maybe Terry. Well, any of them. But I'm not going out again for a while." I wanted to ask her why, but she turned away from the screen and said, "All right, gang, let's get back to the drill. Remember, up for pee; down, close, wait ten and up for poo."

I celebrated completing the week on ship-handling by offering to buy Dane Metchnikov a drink. That wasn't my first intention. My first intention had been to buy Sheri a drink and drink it in bed, but she was off somewhere. So I worked the buttons on the piezophone and got Metchnikov.

He sounded surprised at my offer. "Thanks," he said, and then considered. "Tell you what. Give me a hand carrying some stuff, and then I'll buy you a drink."

So I went down to his place, which was only one level below Babe; his room was not much better than my own, and bare, except for a couple of full carry-alls. He looked at me almost friendly. "You're a prospector now," he grunted.

"Not really. I've got two more courses."

"Well, this is the last you see of me, anyway. I'm shipping out with Terry Yakamora tomorrow."

I was surprised. "Didn't you just get back, like ten days ago?"

"You can't make any money hanging around here. All I was waiting for was the right crew. You want to come to my farewell party? Terry's place. Twenty hundred."

"That sounds fine," I said. "Can I bring Sheri?"

"Oh, sure, she's coming anyway, I think. Buy you the drink there, if you don't mind. Give me a hand and we'll get this stuff stored."

He had accumulated a surprising amount of goods. I wondered how he had managed to stash them all away in a room as tiny as my own: three fabric carriers all stuffed full, holodisks and a viewer, book tapes and a few actual books. I took the carriers. On Earth they would have weighed more than I could handle, probably fifty or sixty kilos, but of course on Gateway lifting them was no problem; it was only tugging them through the corridors and jockeying them down the shafts that was tricky. I had the mass, but Metchnikov had the problems, since what he was carrying was in odd shapes and varying degrees of fragility. It was about an hour's haul, actually. We wound up in a part of the asteroid I'd never seen before, where an elderly Pakistani woman counted the pieces, gave Metchnikov a receipt and began dragging them away down a thickly vine-grown corridor.

"Whew," he grunted. "Well, thanks."

"You're welcome." We started back toward a dropshaft, and making conversation, I assume out of some recognition that he owed me a social favor and should practice some social skills, he said:

"So how was the course?"

"You mean apart from the fact that I've just finished it and still don't have any idea how to fly those goddamned ships?"

"Well, of course you don't," he said, irritably. "The course isn't going to teach you that. It just gives you the general idea. The way you learn, you do it. Only hard part's the lander, of course. Anyway, you've got your issue of tapes?"

"Oh, yes." There were six cassettes of them. Each of us had been given a set when we completed the first week's course. They had everything that had been said, plus a lot of stuff about different kinds of controls that the Corporation might, or might not, fit on a Heechee board and so on.

"So play them over," he said. "If you've got any sense you'll take them with you when you ship out. Got plenty of time to play them then. Mostly the ships fly themselves anyway."

"They'd better," I said, doubting it. "So long." He waved and dropped onto the down-cable without looking back. Apparently I had agreed to take the drink he owed me at the party. Where it wouldn't cost him anything.

I thought of looking for Sheri again, and decided against it. I was in a part