Gateway
- Frederik Pohl (1976)
Structurally, 'Gateway' is composed of a series of psychiatric sessions, punctuated
by the story, told in flashback, of the patient, and the events which made him
rich and brought him to the psychiatrist's couch.
The book is also peppered with random downloads from various sources (the AI
psychiatrist's record of the session; postings from the Gateway notice board;
letters to the press; transcripts of training lectures etc) which add depth
to the narrative while making oblique comments about the society of the time.
Our protagonist, Robinette Broadhead, makes an interesting hero. It's a tribute
to Pohl's powers of characterisation that Broadhead - essentially what one may
describe as a coward, and who at one point beats up his girlfriend - comes across
as a likeable and sensitive character.
Gateway is an asteroid, somewhere within the orbit of Venus, which, millions
of years ago, was a base for the long-vanished HeeChee. The HeeChee left behind
several hundred (still-working) ships, each capable of automatic return trips
to a series of preset - but unknown - destinations. Some prospectors returned
with valuable HeeChee artefacts or scientific data. Others returned dead. Some
never returned at all.
Broadhead gambles his lottery-won fortune to buy a trip to Gateway and the Russian
Roulette chance of flying to an unknown destination to discover something that
would make him rich enough to solve all his problems.
Obviously since we know Broadhead did become rich and is now in therapy (under
the treatment of Sigfrid, the AI psychiatrist) his problems were not solved.
The beauty of this book is that we are left - as we generally are in life -
with unresolved issues. Had there been no sequels, this would undoubtedly stand
as a masterpiece, but the three ensuing books, in which the mysterious HeeChee
are discovered, and their disappearance explained, erode the mystery which is
such a valuable part of this novel.
As a stand-alone novel, it leaves one with that poignant feeling that the book
is going on without you somewhere.
Pohl is the nearest thing we have to an American Socialist SF writer. Where
other writers would concentrate on the militaristic or larger social consequences
of an overpopulated world with few resources, Pohl concentrates on the issues
of individuals, and those individuals who exist on the lowest social level (Broadhead
grew up in one of the communities which harvest the specialised protein fungi
which grows in the shale of one of earth's many food-mines. Wealth seems the
only way to escape the poverty trap.)
Pohl's society is also a liberal society, and it's nice to see that, in the
mid-seventies, he could include gay characters who weren't defined solely by
their sexuality. Broadhead himself has a sexual experience with a male crewmate
which is discussed firstly during a therapy session. Broadhead first avoids
the subject, then dismisses it as situational homosexuality, in that he was
frustrated on a long trip with an all-male crew.
Later, this episode is told in flashback via first-person narrative, in which
Broadhead describes it in fonder, even more romantic terms.
Every character seems fully rounded, and are skilfully presented as people with
flaws, with faults, and no one lives happily ever after. It is not, however,
bleak. It is an optimistic view of human aspiration and endeavour.
The most intriguing character is the HeeChee race itself, and in this novel
at least, Pohl carefully avoids the temptation to put flesh on their bones.
He does not even provide the bones. Nothing is known of them, other than what
can be deduced from their abandoned ships and tunnels. Jack McDevitt's 'Engines
of God' employs the same device, and, as in 'Gateway' the novel is stronger
for it.
One could argue that The HeeChee are a metaphor for either Happiness or God.
The thing that we would risk all to search for, sure that it will bring us security
and independence. Broadhead confuses wealth with spiritual and personal contentment,
although at times it is his own fear of either failure or death which prevents
him from achieving either.
The chance of a huge bonus for a scientific mission ends with Broadhead escaping
the event horizon of a black hole, forced to leave his girlfriend trapped inside,
subject to the effects of time-dilation and living through only a few seconds
for every year that passes in Broadhead's life.
The narrative guides us to Broadhead's loss in parallel to the course of the
therapy sessions which take us to his eventual confrontation with his own memory
of the event, and the belief that he killed her, or worse, that she is still
trapped, living out her last days over the coming centuries. Without doubt,
Pohl's best work to date.
Sequels: Beyond The Blue Event Horizon: HeeChee Rendezvous: Annals of The HeeChee.


