That was also where the real danger was, of course. Although even reruns have turned out bad often enough.

The thing about reruns is that you start out with the knowledge that somebody has already flown that trip and made it back, and, not only that, made a find that's worth following up on. Some of them are pretty rich. There's Peggy's World, where the heater coils and the fur come from. There's Eta Carina Seven, which is probably full of good stuff if you could only get at it. The trouble is, it has had an ice age since the Heechees were last on it. The storms are terrible. Out of five landers, one returned with a full crew, undamaged. One didn't return at all.

Generally speaking, Gateway doesn't particularly want you to do a rerun. They will make a cash offer instead of a percentage where the pickings are fairly easy, as on Peggy. What they pay for is not so much trade goods as maps. So you go out there and you spend your time making orbital runs, trying to find the geological anomalies that indicate Heechee digs may be present. You may not land at all. The pay is worth having, but not lavish. You'd have to make at least twenty runs to build up a lifetime stake, if you take the Corporation's one-pay deal. And if you decide to go on your own, prospecting, you have to pay a share of your profits to the discovery crew, and a cut on what's left of your share to the Corporation. You wind up with a fraction of what you might get…

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From Shikitei Bakin to Aritsune, His Honored Grandson

I am overwhelmed with joy to learn of the birth of your first child. Do not despair. The next will probably be a boy.

I apologize humbly for my failure to write sooner, but there is little to tell. I do my work and attempt to create beauty where I can. Perhaps some day I will go out again. It is not easy without legs.

To be sure, Aritsune, I could buy new legs. There was a close tissue match just a few months ago. But the cost! I might almost as well buy Full Medical. You are a loyal grandson to urge me to use my capital for this, but I must decide. I am sending you a half of my capital now to assist with my great-granddaughter's expenses. If I die here, you will receive all of it, for you and for the others who will be born to you and your good wife before long. This is what I want. Do not resist me.

My deepest love to all three of you. If you can, send me a holo of the cherry blossoms--they are in bloom soon, are they not? One loses sense of Home time here!

Lovingly,

Your Grandfather

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…on a virgin find, even if you don't have a colony already established on the scene to contend with.