Gateway Chapter 9: Money Can Buy Everything Except Happiness
This chapter is short and it hurts in a quiet way.
We are back in the present with Rob and Sigfrid. No Gateway flashbacks this time. Just a rich man sitting in a therapist’s office, listing all the expensive things he buys. And somehow, every item on the list makes him sound more empty.
The Price Tag of Being Rob Broadhead
Rob starts by describing his lifestyle. And listen, this guy is not messing around with the spending.
His apartment costs eighteen thousand dollars a month. He lives under the Big Bubble, which is where the wealthy people in New York stay. He pays residence taxes on top of that. He has Full Medical, which in this world means he can basically pause aging and stay healthy for decades.
But that is just the basics. The real spending goes to other people.
Furs. Champagne. Lingerie. Jewelry. Flowers. Rob buys all of this for the women in his life. He is not shy about it. He lists these things like a grocery receipt. This much for the fur coat. This much for the wine. This much for the bracelet.
And when Sigfrid asks him why, Rob shrugs it off. He says he is trying to buy love. He says it like it is obvious. Like everyone does this.
The scary part is that Rob does not see a problem with it. He knows he is doing it. He admits it openly. But he thinks it is working. Or at least, he has decided to believe it is working, because the alternative is too ugly to look at.
Sigfrid Is Not Buying It
Sigfrid, being the patient machine that he is, does what he always does. He listens. He processes. And he pushes back, gently.
The thing about Sigfrid is that he never yells. He never judges. He just asks the next question. And somehow that next question always lands exactly where Rob does not want it to land.
Rob talks about buying love like it is a reasonable strategy. Sigfrid basically asks: if you can buy it, is it love?
Rob does not answer that one. He moves on.
This is the pattern we have seen through the whole book. Rob gets close to something true, then dodges. But with each chapter, the dodges get shorter. The truth gets closer. He is running out of room.
S. Ya. Lavorovna
Here is where the chapter gets interesting. Rob mentions a woman. Her name is S. Ya. Lavorovna.
She stayed at his summer place. Not his main apartment. The summer place, overlooking the Tappan Sea. Rob does not love her. He says that clearly. But he is interested in her, and the reasons are not what you might expect.
Lavorovna works in AI and information handling. She graduated from prestigious universities. She is smart. Really smart. And here is the key detail: she understands Sigfrid better than Sigfrid understands himself.
Think about that. Rob has spent years talking to this machine, fighting with it, hiding from it. And now he has met a woman who actually understands how the machine works. Who can see inside the program that is trying to see inside Rob.
Rob says there are “interesting possibilities” with her. He does not explain what that means. But you can feel him thinking. If she understands Sigfrid, maybe she can help him work the system. Maybe she can give him an edge in therapy. Or maybe, just maybe, she can help him understand himself without the machine.
Or maybe he just wants another person to buy things for. Another person to keep at a distance with fur coats and champagne.
Wealth as a Wall
What Pohl is doing in this chapter is showing us wealth as a defense mechanism. Rob is not rich and happy. He is rich and hiding.
Every purchase is a wall. Every gift is a way to keep someone close enough to touch but far enough that they cannot see him. Real him. The him that screams and kicks the foam mat in Sigfrid’s office.
The eighteen thousand dollar apartment is not a home. It is a bunker. Full Medical is not about health. It is about buying time he does not know what to do with.
This is a guy who went to space, risked his life, came back rich, and still cannot figure out how to be a person. The money did not solve anything. It just gave him more expensive ways to avoid his problems.
Why This Chapter Matters
Chapter 9 is maybe three or four pages. It could be easy to skip past it. But do not.
Because this chapter is the clearest picture we get of present-day Rob. Not the kid on Gateway who was scared. Not the young prospector trying to survive. This is the man who survived. This is what winning looks like when you lost something along the way that money cannot replace.
And the Lavorovna detail is not random. Pohl does not waste words. If Rob has met a woman who understands AI psychiatry, that is going to matter later. We do not know how yet. But Pohl is planting a seed here, and he expects us to notice.
The other thing this chapter does is make us question Rob’s therapy. Is it working? He has been seeing Sigfrid for years. He is still buying love. He is still avoiding real connection. He still cannot talk about Klara without falling apart.
Maybe Sigfrid is doing his best. Maybe the machine is limited. Or maybe Rob is just that good at running away, and no amount of processing power can catch him.
Either way, the bill is eighteen thousand a month. And the apartment is still empty.
Book: Gateway by Frederik Pohl (1977) | Hugo Award, Nebula Award, John W. Campbell Memorial Award Winner
Previous: Chapter 8 - Training and Death