Heechee Rendezvous: A Novel by Frederik Pohl

Author:Frederik Pohl
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: High Tech, Frederik - Prose & Criticism, Space Opera, Fiction, Science Fiction, Science Fiction - General, &WORKING, Adventure, Pohl, General
ISBN: 9780345300621
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2010-01-22T07:44:06+00:00

When Gelle-Klara Moynlin awoke she was not dead, as she had confidently expected to be. She was in a Heechee exploration ship. It was an armored Five by the look of it, but not the one she had been in at the last she remembered.

What she remembered was chaotic, frightful, and filled with pain and terror. She remembered it very well. It had not included this lean, dark, scowling man who wore a G-string and a scarf and nothing else. Nor had it included some strange young blond girl who was crying her eyes out. In the last memory Klara had there had been people crying, all right, oh, yes! And shrieking and cursing and wetting their underwear, because they were trapped within the Schwarzschild barrier of a black hole.

But none of those people were these people.

The young girl was bending over her solicitously. “Are you all right, hon? You’ve been through a real bad time.” There was no news for Klara in that statement. She knew how bad the time had been. “She’s awake,” the girl called over her shoulder.

The man came bounding over, pushing the girl aside. He did not waste time inquiring about Klara’s health. “Your name! Also orbit and mission number-quickly!” When she told him he didn’t acknowledge the answer. He simply disappeared and the blond girl came back.

“I’m Dolly,” she said. “I’m sorry I’m such a wreck, but honestly, I was scared to death. Are you all right? You were all messed up, and we don’t have much of a medical program here.”

Klara sat up and discovered that, yes, she was messed up, all right. Every part of her ached, starting with her head, which appeared to have been bashed against something. She looked around. She had never been in a ship so full of tools and toys before, nor one that smelled so pleasantly of cooking. “Look, where am I?” she asked.

“You’re in his ship”-pointing. “His name’s Wan. He’s been wandering around, poking into black holes.” Dolly looked as though she were getting ready to cry again, but rubbed her nose and went on: “And listen, hon, I’m sorry, but all those other people you were with are dead. You were the only one alive.”

Klara caught her breath. “All of them? Even Robin?”

“I don’t know their names,” the girl apologized. And was not surprised when her unexpected guest turned her bruised face away and began to sob. Across the room Wan snarled impatiently at the two women. He was deep into concerns of his own. He did not know what a treasure he had retrieved, or how much that retrieved treasure complicated my life.

For it is pretty nearly true that I married my dear wife, Essie, on the elastic rebound from the loss of Klara Moynlin. At least, on the upsurge of feeling that came when I shed the guilt, or anyway most of the guilt, I felt for Klara’s loss.

When ultimately I found out that Klara was alive again it was a shock.

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