Gateway Chapter 20: Love That Hurts and Hope That Returns
This is the longest chapter in the book so far. And it covers everything. Love. Fighting. Death. Science. Hope. Pohl packs more into this single chapter than some authors put into entire novels.
Let me try to walk through it without getting lost. Because there is a lot happening here.
Coming Home Broken
Rob and Klara return to Gateway from their mission. They are filthy. They are exhausted. They are alive, which on Gateway counts as a major success. But being alive and being okay are two very different things.
Their relationship survived the mission physically. They are still together. They still share space. But emotionally, things are cracking. The kind of cracks you do not notice at first. The kind that start small and get bigger every day.
They fight about stupid things. Money. Smells. Whether they are compatible. The fights are petty and meaningless on the surface. But underneath each one is something bigger. Something neither of them wants to name.
This is what stress does to relationships. You survive the big thing together, and then the small things tear you apart. You can handle an alien spaceship hurtling through unknown space. But you cannot handle the way your partner chews their food when you get back.
Nasal Surgery and Other Distractions
Rob gets nasal surgery. His nose has been bothering him, probably from the recycled air and cramped conditions on the ship. It is a small detail, but Pohl includes it because real life does not pause for drama. Even on a space station full of alien technology, people still need to fix their noses.
Klara starts seeing a therapist. Not Sigfrid, but someone, for her indecision. She cannot decide what to do next. Stay on Gateway? Leave? Launch again? The paralysis is familiar. We saw it in Rob before his first mission. Now Klara has it too. The station freezes people. It gives them so many terrifying options that they end up choosing none.
Rob moves back to his own room. Not a breakup exactly. More like a slow separation. Two people drifting apart while still orbiting the same station.
Sam Kahane
Here is a gut punch that Pohl drops almost casually.
Sam Kahane is dead. Suicide.
Remember, Gateway is a place where people come to gamble with their lives for a chance at wealth. The pressure is enormous. The fear is constant. And for Sam, it became too much.
Pohl does not make a big scene out of it. There is no dramatic revelation. Just the fact, stated plainly. Sam killed himself. The station moves on. People die on Gateway all the time, in space and on the ground. It is just that some deaths are quieter than others.
This is the background radiation of Gateway. The constant low hum of despair that sits underneath all the excitement and discovery. People break here. And when they break, they do not always survive it.
Metchnikov Cracks the Code
Now here is the part that changes everything.
Dane Metchnikov, the guy who has been quietly studying the Heechee ships while everyone else was panicking, has figured something out. Something big.
The Heechee course selector, the device that determines where a ship goes, has spectral patterns. Color bands. And Metchnikov discovered that these color bands correlate with how dangerous and profitable a mission will be.
One or two color bands? Safe. The ship goes somewhere manageable and comes back. You might not find anything amazing, but you will probably survive.
Six or more color bands? Nobody comes back.
Think about what this means. For the entire time Gateway has been operating, people have been launching blind. Pressing buttons on alien technology and hoping for the best. The Corporation knew some missions were safer than others, but nobody understood the pattern.
And now Metchnikov has cracked it. He found the key. The color code is basically a danger meter that was sitting right in front of everyone the whole time.
The Corporation acts fast. They release twenty launches that fall in the safe range. One or two color bands. High probability of survival and profit. Suddenly, Gateway is not a casino anymore. It is still risky, but now you can read the cards before you bet.
This is huge. This changes everything for the prospectors, for the Corporation, for the entire economy of Gateway.
The Five That Hit Big
While all of this is happening, a Five comes back. A five-person ship. And they hit the jackpot.
The crew found a Heechee installation. Not just artifacts or scraps. An actual installation. The kind of discovery that sets you up for life. The haul is massive, and the crew comes back rich.
This is proof that Metchnikov’s theory works. Safe launches with high profit expectations. The color code is real. And now everyone on Gateway knows it.
The mood shifts. For the first time, there is optimism that is not just blind hope. There is actual data. Actual science. A reason to believe you might survive the next launch and come back with something worth having.
Rob and Klara, Continued
Through all of this, Rob and Klara keep navigating their messy relationship. They go to the casino together. They visit the museum’s surround room, which is basically a sensory experience that lets you feel like you are somewhere else. They talk to friends. They argue. They make up in bed.
It is messy and real and familiar. Two people who care about each other but cannot figure out how to make it work. Two people who have been through something intense together and now do not know what to do with the quiet moments.
Klara is dealing with her own paralysis. Rob is dealing with his guilt and his fear. They are both stuck, and being stuck together is not the same as being together.
Their relationship is like Gateway itself. Full of potential. Full of risk. And nobody knows where it is going.
Sheri Returns
And then, right at the end of the chapter, hope walks through the door.
Sheri’s ship appears. The ship that left a long time ago and never came back. The ship everyone assumed was lost. The ship that was supposed to be another addition to the long list of Gateway casualties.
It is back. And Sheri is alive.
She is exhausted. Worn out. But she is breathing. And she brought something extraordinary with her. The cargo is significant, though the details are still unclear.
This is the kind of ending that makes you turn the page immediately. After all the fighting and sadness and death in this chapter, after Sam Kahane and the petty arguments and the nasal surgery and the slow collapse of Rob and Klara’s relationship, Pohl gives us this. A ship that comes home. A person who was lost and is now found.
It does not fix anything. Rob and Klara are still a mess. Sam is still dead. The station is still a place where people break. But for one moment, the universe gives something back instead of taking it away.
And on Gateway, that is enough to keep going.
Book: Gateway by Frederik Pohl (1977) | Hugo Award, Nebula Award, John W. Campbell Memorial Award Winner
Previous: Chapter 19 - Hacking Sigfrid