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want. It might've taken days to get past all the secretaries if we'd gone through channels."
    She surprised him by laughing girlishly. "I've always suspected it worked that way, but I never had the courage to try it myself." The corridor seemed endless. "What is the Hill? That woman said the Associate Administrator was on the Hill."
    "That's Capitol Hill. He must be up there lobbying for more funds for NASA. He may be the big shot here, but up there he's standing with his hat in his hand, smiling at some bunch of political hacks he despises, trying to pry nickels loose for the space program. Department heads are just beggars like everybody else on the Hill." She was surprised by the real bitterness in his voice, and she suspected that it had nothing to do with the woes of NASA.
    The Discipline Scientist's office was a modest room with a fair view of Independence Avenue and the museum across the street. The man who greeted Them was in his forties, with thinning hair, turning gray and square glasses. "I'm Ken Bridges. I take it you're Dr. Tammsalu?" He shook hands with Laine, then with Sam.
    "Sam Taggart, from State," Sam said, bending the truth slightly for the sake of cooperation. People often clammed up at the mention of CIA. "Dr. Tammsalu is a refugee from Estonia, and she's come to us with a rather peculiar story. Since it involves your realm of expertise, we wondered if you'd be able to help us out." As always, he chose his words carefully while trying to seem spontaneous and casual. For some reason, most people reacted sympathetically to a "refugee" while a "defector" was often regarded with suspicion. One was a victim, the other a turncoat.
    "Of course," Bridges said, "I'll be happy to extend any help I can. What's the nature of the problem?"
    "I'll let Dr. Tammsalu explain," Sam said.
    Resignedly, Laine launched into her story yet another time. She found it a bit easier though, since Bridges' occasional interruptions with pertinent questions and comments displayed understanding and interest. He did not dismiss her story as too far-fetched. As her recitation ended, he leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers across an incipient paunch. He looked distinctly puzzled.
    "I'll confess," Bridges said at last, "that this has me stumped. We've known about the big Soviet push into exploration and exploitation of space for a long time, of course. We've been expecting them to announce a manned expedition to Mars, for instance. Mars makes sense. It could be colonized eventually, and it would be a massive propaganda coup. An exploratory mission to a passing comet makes sense, too. Even a manned expedition to a comet isn't out of the question, though it sounds awfully ambitious. But," he raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness, "why the cometary mission should be taken over and given top priority by the Deputy Premier I can't imagine. Current knowledge of comets is that they're just big, dirty snowballs. Most of them spend much of their time so far from us that Pluto's close by comparison. It would do no good to build a military base on one. An analysis of a comet's makeup would be of great scientific interest, naturally, but it could be done without a manned expedition, and it would be of no interest to the likes of Nekrasov, anyway. The expense would be enormous, too."
    "Then they must be expecting to find something pretty valuable out there," Sam said.
    "I can't imagine what," said Bridges. "Scientific value is one thing. Military or commercial value is another. Even the propaganda value isn't all that great. The typical layman doesn't even know what a comet is. Everybody knows about the Moon, or Mars." He thought a while. "Look, I'm not the best person to talk to on this subject. There's going to be a colloquium on comets sponsored by the International Astronomical Union week after next in Baltimore. It'll be at the Space Telescope Science Institute. I could try to organize a special evening session to have comet