Gateway Read Online Free PDF

under this contract. If it does so, it agrees to assign to me 50% (fifty percent) of all revenues arising from such sale, lease, or disposal, up to the costs of the exploration trip itself (including my own costs in coming to Gateway and my subsequent costs of living while there), and 10% (ten percent) of all subsequent revenues once the aforesaid costs have been repaid. I accept this assignment as payment in full for any obligations arising to me from the Gateway Authority of whatever kind, and specifically undertake not to lay any claim for additional payment for any reason at any time. 3. I irrevocably grant to Gateway Authority the full power and authority to make decisions of all kinds relating to the exploitation, sale, or lease of rights in any such discoveries, including the right, at Gateway Authority's sole discretion, to pool my discoveries or other things of value arising under this contract with those of others for purpose of exploitation, lease, or sale, in which case my share shall be whatever proportion of such earnings Gateway Authority may deem proper; and I further grant to Gateway Authority the right to refrain from exploiting any or all such discoveries or things of value in any way, at its own sole discretion. 4. I release Gateway Authority from any and all claims by me or on my behalf arising from any injury, accident, or loss of any kind to me in connection with my activities under this contract. 5. In the event of any disagreement arising from this Memorandum of Agreement, I agree that the terms shall be interpreted according to the laws and precedents of Gateway itself, and that no laws or precedents of any other jurisdiction shall be considered relevant in any degree. ----------------------------------------
    "Oh, hell, man! It's in that packet of stuff they gave you." I opened the lockers at random until I found where I had put the envelope. Inside it were my copy of the articles of agreement, a booklet entitled Welcome to Gateway, my room assignment, my health questionnaire that I would have to fill out before 0800 the next morning. . . and a folded sheet that, opened up, looked like a wiring diagram with names on it. "That's it. Can you locate where you are? Remember your room number: Level Babe, Quadrant East, Tunnel Eight, Room Fifty-one. Write it down." "It's already written here, Dane, on my room assignment." "Well, don't lose it." Dane reached behind his neck and unhooked himself, let himself fall gently to the floor. "So why don't you look around by yourself for a while. I'll meet you here. Anything else you need to know right now?" I thought, while he looked impatient. "Well -- mind if I ask you a question about you, Dane? Have you been out yet?" "Six trips. All right, I'll see you at twenty-two hundred." Then he pushed the flexible door open, slipped out into the jungly green of the corridor and was gone. I let myself flop -- so gently, so slowly -- into my one real chair and tried to make myself understand that I was on the doorstep of the universe.
    I don't know if I can make you feel it, how the universe looked to me from Gateway: like being young with Full Medical. Like a menu in the best restaurant in the world, when somebody else is going to pick up the check. Like a girl you've just met who likes you. Like an unopened gift. The things that hit you first on Gateway are the tininess of the tunnels, feeling tinier even than they are because they're lined with windowboxy things of plants; the vertigo from the low gravity, and the stink. You get Gateway a little bit at a time. There's no way of seeing it all in one glance; it is nothing but a maze of tunnels in the rock. I'm not even sure they've all been explored yet. Certainly there are miles of them that nobody ever goes into, or not very often. That's the way the Heechees were. They grabbed the asteroid, plated it over with wall metal, drove tunnels into it, filled them with whatever sort of possessions they had -- most were empty by