"Wow," said Sheri, "they must've been pretty strong!"

We took turns trying with that one wheel -- Klara wouldn't let us touch any other that day -- and when it came my turn I was surprised to find that it took about as much muscle as I could bring to bear to make it move. It didn't feel rusted stuck; it felt as though it were meant to be hard to turn. And, when you think how much trouble you can get into if you turn a setting by accident in the middle of a flight, it probably was.

Of course, now I know more about that, too, than my teacher did then. Not that I'm so smart, but it has taken, and is still taking, a lot of people a hell of a long time to figure out what goes on just in setting up a target on the course director.

What it is is a vertical row of number generators. The lights that show up display numbers; that's not easy to see, because they don't look like numbers. They aren't positional, or decimal. (Apparently the Heechee expressed numbers as sums of primes and exponents, but all that's way over my head.) Only the check pilots and the course programmers working for the Corporation really have to be able to read the numbers, and they don't do it directly, only with a computing translator. The first five digits appear to express the position of the target in space, reading from bottom to top. (Dane Metchnikov says the prime ordering isn't from bottom to top but from front to back, which says something or other about the Heechee. They were three-D oriented, like primitive man, instead of two-D oriented, like us.) You would think that three numbers would be enough to describe any position anywhere in the universe, wouldn't you? I mean, if you make a three dimensional representation of the Galaxy you can express any point in it by means of a number for each of the three dimensions. But it took the Heechee five. Does that mean there were five dimensions that were perceptible to the Heechee? Metchnikov says not. . . .

Anyway. Once you get a lock on the first five numbers, the…

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GATEWAY'S SHIPS

The vessels available on Gateway are capable of interstellar flight at speeds greater than the velocity of light. The means of propulsion is not understood (see pilot manual). There is also a fairly conventional rocket propulsion system, using liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen for attitude control, and for propulsion of the landing craft which is docked into each interstellar vessel.

There are three major classifications, designated as Class 1, Class 3, and Class 5, according to the number of persons they can carry. Some of the vessels are of particularly heavy construction and are designated "armored." Most of the armored class are Fives.

Each vessel is programmed to navigate itself automatically to a number of destinations. Return is automatic, and is quite reliable in practice. Your course in ship-handling will adequately prepare you for all the necessary tasks in piloting your vessel safely; however, see pilot manual for safety regulations.