"The gamble is the same for every Gateway prospector. You strap yourself into an alien starship whose destination was programmed 500,000 years ago by a race called the Heechee. You may return with a motherlode of technology that will make you rich. More likely, you will die... But when scientists discover the terrible secret behind the vanished Heechee civilization, you enter a desperate battle against an evil race so ruthless and deadly that they are known simply as The Assassins."