Pohl, Frederik - The Gateway Trip

This old geezer with the muscle-beach body was beginning to bother me, with his disturbing habit of asking the questions I didn't want to answer. There definitely was a reason why I had picked this site. It had to do with about five years of study, a lot of digging, and about a quarter of a million dollars' worth of correspondence, at space-mail rates, with people like Professor Hegramet back on Earth.

But I didn't want to tell him all my reasons. There were about a dozen sites that I really wanted to explore. If this happened to be one of the payoff places, he would come out of it a lot richer than I would-that's what the contracts you sign say: forty percent to the charterer, five percent to the guide, the rest to the government-and that should be enough for him. If this one happened not to pay off, I didn't want him taking some other guide to one of the others I'd marked.

So I only said, "Call it an informed guess. I promised you a good shot at a tunnel that's never been opened, and I hope to keep my promise. And now let's get the food put away; we're within ten minutes of where we're going."

With everything strapped down and ourselves belted up, we dropped out of the relatively calm layers into the big surface winds again.

We were over the big south-central massif, about the same elevation as the lands surrounding the Spindle. That's the elevation where most of the action is on Venus. Down in the lowlands and the deep rift valleys the pressures run a hundred and twenty thousand millibars and up. My airbody wouldn't take any of that for very long. Neither would anybody else's, except for a few of the special research and military types. Fortunately, it seemed the Heechee didn't care for the lowlands, either. Nothing of theirs has ever been located much below ninety-bar. Doesn't mean it isn't there, of course.

Anyway, I verified our position on the virtual globe and on the detail charts, and deployed the first three autosonic probes.

The winds threw them all over the place as soon as they dropped free. That was all right. It doesn't much matter where the probes land, within broad limits, which is a good thing. They dropped like javelins at first, then flew around like straws in the wind until their little rockets cut in and the ground-seeking controls fired them to the surface.

Every one embedded itself properly. You aren't always that lucky, so it was a good start.

I verified their position on the detail charts. It was close enough to an equilateral triangle, which is about how you want them. Then I made sure everybody was really strapped in, opened the scanning range, and began circling around.

"Now what?" bellowed Cochenour. I noticed the girl had put her earplugs back in, but he wasn't willing to risk missing a thing.

"Now we wait for the probes to feel around for Heechee tunnels. It'll take a couple of hours." While I was talking I brought the airbody down through the surface layers. Now we were being thrown around by the gusts. The buffeting got pretty bad.

But I found what I was looking for, a surface formation like a blind arroyo, and tucked us into it with only one or two bad moments. Cochenour was watching very carefully, and I grinned to myself. This was where pilotage counted, not en route or at the prepared pads over the Spindle. When he could do what I was doing now he could get along without someone like me-not before.

Our position looked all right, so I fired four hold-downs, tethered stakes with explosive heads that opened out in the ground. I winched them tight, and all of them held.

That was also a good sign. Reasonably pleased with myself, I released the belt catches and stood up. "We're here for at least a day or two," I told them. "More if we're lucky. How did you like the ride?"

Dorrie was taking the earplugs out, now that the protecting walls of the arroyo had cut the thundering down to a mere scream. "I'm glad I don't get airsick," she said.

Cochenour was thinking, not talking. He was studying the airbody controls while he lit another cigarette.

Dorotha said, "One question, Audee. Why couldn't we stay up where it's quieter?"

"Fuel. I carry enough to get us around, but not to hover for days. Is the noise bothering you?"

She made a face.

"You'll get used to it. It's like living next to a spaceport. At first you wonder how anybody stands the noise for a single hour. After you've been there a week you'll miss it if it stops."

She moved over to the bull's-eye and gazed pensively out at the landscape. We'd crossed over into the night portion, and there wasn't much to see but dust and small objects whirling around through our external light beams. "It's that first week I'm worrying about," she said.

I flicked on the probe readout. The little percussive heads were firing their slap-charges and measuring each other's echoes, but it was too early to see anything. The screen was barely beginning to build up a shadowy pattern. There were more holes than detail.

Cochenour finally spoke up. "How long until you can make some sense out of the readout?" he demanded. Another point: he hadn't asked what it was.

"Depends on how close and how big anything is. You can make a guess in an hour or so, but I like all the data I can get. Six or eight hours, I'd say. There's no hurry."

He growled, "I'm in a hurry, Walthers."

The girl cut in. "What should we do, Audee? Play three-handed bridge?"

"Whatever you want, but I'd advise some sleep. I've got pills if you want them. If we do find anything-and remember, the odds are really rotten on the first try-we'll want to be wide awake for a while."

"All right," Dorotha said, reaching out for the spansules, but Cochenour stopped her.

"What about you?" he demanded.

"I'll sack in pretty soon. I'm waiting for something."

He didn't ask what. Probably, I thought, because he already knew. I decided that when I did hit my bunk I wouldn't t~ke a sleepy pill right away. This Cochenour was not only the richest tourist I had ever guided, he was one of the best informed. And I wanted to think about that for a while.

So none of us went right to sleep, and what I was waiting for took almost an hour to come. The boys at the base were getting a little sloppy; they should have been after us before this.

The radio buzzed and then blared. "Unidentified vessel at one three five, zero seven, four eight, and seven two, five one, five four! Please identify yourself and state your purpose."

Cochenour looked up inquiringly from his gin game with the girl. I smiled reassuringly. "As long as they're saying 'please' there's no problem," I told him, and opened the transmitter.

"This is pilot Audee Walthers, airbody Poppa Tare Nine One,

out of the Spindle. We are licensed and have filed approved flight plans. I have two Terry tourists aboard, purpose recreational exploration."

"Acknowledged. Please wait," blared the radio. The military always broadcasts at maximum gain. Hangover from drill-sergeant days, no doubt.

I turned off the microphone and told my passengers, "They're checking our flight plan. Nothing to worry about."

In a moment the Defense communicator came back, loud as ever. "You are eleven point four kilometers bearing two eight three degrees from terminator of a restricted area. Proceed with caution. Under Military Regulations One Seven and One Eight, Sections-"

"I know the drill," I cut in. "I have my guide's license and have explained the restrictions to the passengers."

"Acknowledged," blared the radio. "We will keep you under surveillance. If you observe vessels or parties on the surface, they are our perimeter teams. Do not interfere with them in any way. Respond at once to any request for identification or information." The carrier buzz cut off.

"They act nervous," Cochenour said.