Gateway is the name of a space station built by the Heechee in our solar system over 500,000 years ago. They left it with a complement of 1000 spaceships. For some reason, the Gateway contained information on the location of the Vertex. It was possibly abandoned with the Heechee withdrew to the Core.
The Gateway was discovered by humans around 2077 or later by Sylvester Macklin by discovering and using one such ship in Venus. Without any means of escape, food or water, Macklin caused an explosion so that his location would be detectable by NASA.
The discovery of the station was a tremendous event in the history of humanity which almost caused wars. Eventually the political matter resolved with the creation of the Gateway Enterprises which would exploit the technology found there.
The station was dubbed as Gateway because it provided the Heechee ships, the only means of traveling to remote locations of the outer space. The FTL technology could not be reversed or copied by human technology, so Gateway and its ancient ships remained the only way for exploration.
Exploration relied on volunteers dubbed "Prospectors" who hoped to discover planets with Heechee remnants so that they would contribute to the exploitation of the alien technology by humanity.
Structure[]
Human installations transformed it into an operations center; offices, hangars and staterooms and even entertainment centers and shops ere built on Gateway.
Level Dog[]
The physical center of the station and also administrative center. The large cavern was dubbed Heecheetown and houses the Corporation Administrative Section, the barracks and the Blue Hell bar.
Corridor D4 leads to Central Park and Corridor D6 to the Gateway Museum. A dropshaft leads to Level Tanya or Level Babe.
Level Tanya[]
Corridor T6 leads to the Conference Room T20 with session every day at 15:00; and to Corridor T5 to the north, which leads to the armory.
To the south is Corridor T7 with entrances to Conference Room T52 where daily briefings for the Orion Program are given at 9:00; and the ship hangars, accessed only by blue badges.
Level Babe[]
Level Babe is little exploited. The human construction gives way to the strange, almost melted look of glowing blue Heechee metal with uniform walls. The walls house some unexplored Heechee rooms.
Trivia[]
In Frederick Pohl's novels, Gateway is a hollow asteroid. Also, there are zero-gravity conditions.