Free Act of God by John Maddox Roberts, Eric Kotani

consideration of the cost and risk involved.
    Roger Marais, the Belgian astronomer with a serious interest in celestial mechanics, remarked, "The whole idea seems absurd. Even for a comet with a small eccentricity, an orbital inclination closely matching that of the Earth, and a favorable perihelion point, the fuel required for the safe return of the cosmonauts will be prohibitive. Unless, that is, Nekrasov plans to send his political opposition on a one-way trip, thus putting them on ice permanently, so to speak." The audience chuckled politely at his witticism.
    When the comments were exhausted, Ehlers closed the meeting, asking the participants to get in touch with Dr. Tammsalu through the good offices of Ken Bridges at NASA, should they come up with new ideas concerning the subject matter, and to be discreet about the special meeting as it would not do to raise unwarranted publicity concerning the whole affair. Sam had little faith in this last point. The cat was out of the bag as of now, and he had little doubt that, within days, Nekrasov would know that questions were being asked in America about his pet project. No help for it, though. The only way to find out was by consulting with the experts.
    "Sorry you weren't able to get more response," Bridges said as the meeting broke up.
    "Well, maybe some of them will come up with something when they've had a chance to mull it over," Sam said.
    Ehlers came over and shook hands. With deliberate Teutonic emphasis he said, "Cheer up, it could have been much worse. But, thank Gott, Ciano did not want to speak."
    They left the room a little discouraged, but they had really expected no startling revelations from the colloquium. In the hallway outside the room, they found Ciano waiting for them.
    "Dr. Tammsalu," Ciano said, managing a courtly bow despite his diminutive physique, "Mr. Government Man, allow me to introduce myself. I'm Ugo Ciano, and if you wanna know why this creep Nekrasov's taking over Tarkovsky's project, you've come to the right man."
    "I know who you are," Sam said, "and we didn't come to you, you've come to us."
    "Amounts to the same thing. Fact is, I'm the guy with the answers. I didn't wanna say anything in there, because some of my esteemed colleagues would've given you a lot of bullshit, excuse me, Ma'am, about everything I said. So to save us all a lot of time I figured I'd talk to you after everybody else left. Buy me a drink and I'll tell you every thing you need to know."
    Sam considered it. Did he really want to waste time talking to this bizarre homunculus, considered as a crackpot by his own colleagues? On the other hand, maybe this was just what was needed: someone whose mind didn't work along accepted academic channels and was agile enough to make the intuitive leaps denied to the more ploddingly conventional. Besides, Sam was bored with scientists and bureaucrats and this little clown seemed to be entertaining, at least.
    "There's a bar near here I know of. The jukebox is quiet enough for conversation without having to yell. Do you have transportation?"
    "Are you kidding? On my budget? I'm staying In the cheapest flophouse in town and using the bus."
    "Come on, then. My car's outside."
    Laine smiled fetchingly at Ciano. "Now I remember! I read your paper on an alternative to the quantized Big Bang. I read it in translation, of course, including your name. Please forgive me for not recognizing you at once, but the Cyrillic transliteration of your name is very inadequate. It is a brilliant paper. Dr. Tarkovsky commented on it in a symposium he held for us while we were waiting for construction to be completed at the Tsiolkovsky Center."
    Amazingly, Ciano blushed absolutely purple under the flattery. "Christ, you mean somebody actually read that? Everybody here gave it the dead fish treatment. Tarkovsky, though, he'd get my drift." He smiled up at Sam. "Superior minds understand one another."
    "That's what I've always said," Sam assured him.
    "You