Heechee Saga Series by Frederik Pohl, Frank Kelly Freas

Rich or dead. Those were the choices Gateway offered. Gateway opened on all the wealth of the Universe & on reaches of unimaginable horror. The humans who rode the alien Heechee spacecraft stored on the planetoid couldn't know whether the trip would make them millionaires or corpses. When Bob Broadhead came out to Gateway, he thought his problem was simple--wait till the mission felt right, then ship out... moreRich or dead. Those were the choices Gateway offered. Gateway opened on all the wealth of the Universe & on reaches of unimaginable horror. The humans who rode the alien Heechee spacecraft stored on the planetoid couldn't know whether the trip would make them millionaires or corpses. When Bob Broadhead came out to Gateway, he thought his problem was simple--wait till the mission felt right, then ship out. But watching returned prospectors scraped from the insides of their ships, falling in love, feeling his nerve dwindle--all these things changed him. Then, years later, Robinette Broadhead, a three-mission veteran, famous & permanently rich, has to face just what happened to him & what he is...in a journey into himself as perilous & even more horrifying than the nightmare trip thru the interstellar void he finally drove himself to take! less

In Book Two of the Heechee Saga, Robinette Broadhead is on his way to making a fortune by bankrolling an expedition to the Food Factory--a Heechee spaceship that can graze the cometary cloud and transfor the basic elements of the universe into untold quantities of food. But even as he gambles on the breakthrough technology, he is wracked with the guilt of losing his wife, poised forever at the "event horizon" of a black hole where Robin had abaondoned her... moreIn Book Two of the Heechee Saga, Robinette Broadhead is on his way to making a fortune by bankrolling an expedition to the Food Factory--a Heechee spaceship that can graze the cometary cloud and transfor the basic elements of the universe into untold quantities of food. But even as he gambles on the breakthrough technology, he is wracked with the guilt of losing his wife, poised forever at the "event horizon" of a black hole where Robin had abaondoned her. As more and more information comes back from the expedition, Robin grows ever hopeful that he can rescue his beloved Gelle-Klara Moynlin. After three and a years, the factory is discovered to work, and a human is found aboard. Robin's suffering may be just about over....THE HEECHEE SAGABook One: GatewayBook Two: Beyond the Blue Event HorizonBook Three: Heechee RendezvousBook Four: The Annals of the HeecheeFrom the Paperback edition. less

At last - the ultimate book in the renowned Heechee Saga!Advanced Heechee technology had enabled Robinette Broadhead to live after death as a machine-stored personality, enjoying his life by flitting along the wires from party to party with a host of other machine-people. But suddenly his decadent existence ends when an all powerful alien race intent on the utter destruction of all intelligent life reappears after eons of silence, and threatens the lives of all heechee and humans... moreAt last - the ultimate book in the renowned Heechee Saga!Advanced Heechee technology had enabled Robinette Broadhead to live after death as a machine-stored personality, enjoying his life by flitting along the wires from party to party with a host of other machine-people. But suddenly his decadent existence ends when an all powerful alien race intent on the utter destruction of all intelligent life reappears after eons of silence, and threatens the lives of all heechee and humans. Even Robin, virtually immortal and with unlimited access to millennia of accumulated data, cannot discover how to stop these aliens. It began to seem that only a face to face meeting could determine the future of the entire universe....THE HEECHEE SAGEBook One: GATEWAYBook Two: BEYOND THE BLUE EVENT HORIZONBook Three: HEECHEE RENDEZVOUSBook Four: THE ANNALS OF THE HEECHEEThe Gateway Trip: TALES AND VIGNETTES OF THE HEECHEE less

Deep inside a nearly solid ball of energy called the kugelblitz, just outside the halo of the Milky Way, lurked the would-be destroyers of the universe.Humans called them the Foe. Heechee called them the Assassins. No creature that had ever seen them had lived to tell the tale... moreDeep inside a nearly solid ball of energy called the kugelblitz, just outside the halo of the Milky Way, lurked the would-be destroyers of the universe.Humans called them the Foe. Heechee called them the Assassins. No creature that had ever seen them had lived to tell the tale. But ancient ruins scattered about the galaxy, and the shattered remnants of races such as the Sluggards and the Voodoo Pigs, were evidence of the Foe’s devastating power—and their cold-blooded determination to destroy all intelligent life. For eons now, the Foe had been strangely silent, but galactic history made clear that they could strike again at any time. So Heechee and human had joined in a constant vigil at the edge of the kugelblitz.Advanced Heechee technology had enabled Robinette Broadhead to live after death as a machine-stored personality. But even he, virtually immortal and with unlimited access to millennia of accumulated data, could not discover what the Foe were—or how to stop them.Now it looked as if the Foe had ventured out again. As humans and Heechee rallied their forces to defend against an alien race that had never met defeat, Robin Broadhead found himself the only one able to deal with the Foe face to face—a meeting which would determine the future of the entire universe… less

Here is a collection of short pieces about the many marvelous discoveries made by humankind using Heechee technology. Each piece includes illustrations by Kelly Freas.

A Triumphant New Gateway AdventureTwenty-five years after the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning bestseller Gateway, Frederik Pohl returns with a new Gateway novel. Filled with excitement and the sense of wonder that made Gateway a huge success, The Boy Who Would Live Forever is a memorable journey into the unknown... moreA Triumphant New Gateway AdventureTwenty-five years after the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning bestseller Gateway, Frederik Pohl returns with a new Gateway novel. Filled with excitement and the sense of wonder that made Gateway a huge success, The Boy Who Would Live Forever is a memorable journey into the unknown.Stan and Estrella, two young people from Earth, journey to the Gateway asteroid looking for adventure, and discover each other during a flight in one of the ships the alien Heechee left behind when they explored our Solar System. Stan and Estrella settle among the Heechee on a planet in the galactic core, never suspecting that the two of them may be the last, best hope to save the humans and Heechee in the core from destruction by a crazed madman.Wan Enrique Santos-Smith, a man full of loathing for the Heechee, will stop at nothing to destroy the Heechee and their human friends. But Stan and Estrella, with the help of a fabulously wealthy philanthropist and the unique machine mind Marc Antony, are determined to thwart Wan's terrible plan. At stake is nothing less than the fate of all life in the galaxy. less