Isso soa muito como a série de livros de Frederik Pohl envolvendo o Heechee . Houve alguns livros publicados, a maioria no final dos anos 1970 até o início dos anos 80, embora o que você esteja procurando soe mais como Gateway .
- Gateway (1977)
- Além do Blue Event Horizon (1980)
- Heechee Rendezvous (1984)
- Anais do Heechee (1987)
- O garoto que viveria para sempre: um romance de gateway (2004)
Teaser for Gateway da Amazon :
Gateway opened on all the wealth of the Universe...and on reaches of unimaginable horror. When prospector Bob Broadhead went out to Gateway on the Heechee spacecraft, he decided he would know which was the right mission to make him his fortune. Three missions later, now famous and permanently rich, Robinette Broadhead has to face what happened to him and what he is...in a journey into himself as perilous and even more horrifying than the nightmare trip through the interstellar void that he drove himself to take!
Da Wikipedia sobre o Heechee:
The Heechee's appearance is described as smaller than humans, bow-legged with skeletal frames, and possessed of dark, plastic-smooth skin with patches and curlicues of bright gold and scarlet. Each Heechee carries a microwave emitter in a storage pod between his or her legs. The pod is a trapezohedron shaped device and is also used for carrying equipment. The pods also explain why the seats on the ship have V-shaped indentations to accommodate the devices. The Heechee's home planet evolved near a naturally occurring microwave source, making the background radiation a necessary requirement for an ambient environment; the extended absence of the radiation will cause illness and death.