When the human race moved out into the Solar System in a serious way, they found that someone had been there ahead of them—an alien someone who had a technology centuries, even millennia ahead of anything that humans had developed, and they had left bits and pieces of it scattered all over the planets, including a way station, called “Gateway” by humans, with faster-than-light ships, each of which would only go to one unknown preset destination. The great puzzle was what had happened to the aliens, whom the humans called the “Heechee.” As it turned out, the Heechee had learned that there was another alien race, even more advanced over the Heechee than the Heechee were advanced over humans—and they didn’t seem to be the sort who’d make good neighbors. So the Heechee had been hiding . . . until they learned that the humans, blundering around the galaxy, were liable to attract the attention of those very powerful aliens and bring down their wrath on human and Heechee alike.

A novel in the best-selling, award-winning Heechee series.