Beyond the Blue Event Horizon is a science fiction novel by the American writer Frederik Pohl, a sequel to his 1977 novel Gateway and the second book in the Heechee series.

[4] The novel tells the story of Robin Broadhead, who, after he makes a fortune on his one successful trip in an advanced alien Heechee spaceship, lives very comfortably.

He finances an expedition to a Heechee "food factory" in distant solar orbit, hoping that the family of four explorers can help the starving millions of Earth.

Earth struggles with overpopulation and starvation, and even though humans have gained access to the mysterious Heechee technology, including their faster-than-light spaceships, this has not done much to mitigate these issues.

A "food factory" spaceship, long abandoned by the Heechee, is found deep in the Oort cloud, and an expedition funded by Robin Broadhead, a millionaire former Gateway prospector, is sent to investigate.

The Old Ones are gentle and intelligent, possessing language and rudimentary culture, but are relatively dimwitted compared to men, and live in fear of the mechanical Oldest One, who they consider a god.

Payter, on board the food factory, quickly goes mad, realizing the severity of his situation: alone on a small space station years away from rescue.

The Oldest One, unsure of what to do about the chaos set into motion by the intruders, has launched Heechee Heaven on a course seemingly to the black hole at the center of the galaxy, desiring the advice of his unknown creators.

When the Heechee discovered this, they went into hiding, using gravitational manipulation technology to create a black hole around a large cluster of captive stars and planets.

He hopes that one day these project races will develop intelligence and travel the stars, not for any intellectual or cultural pleasure, but rather to act as buffer states between the Heechee and those mysterious others.