ng across the room toward Taggert, gestured
with one hand. "I know! I know! Give me _some_ credit for
intelligence! But we _do_ have one suspect, don't we? What about
_him_?"

Taggert chuckled through a wreath of smoke. "Calm down, John. Or are
you trying to give me your impression of Mrs. Jesser in a conversation
with a saucerite?"

The senator laughed and sat down in a nearby chair. "All right. Sorry.
But this whole thing is lousing up our entire space program. First
off, we nearly lose Dr. Ch'ien, and, with him gone, the interstellar
drive project would've been shot. Now, if this sabotage keeps up, the
Redford project _will_ be shot, and that means we might have to stick
to the old-fashioned rocket to get off-planet. Brian, we _need_
antigravity, and, so far, Nordred's theory is our only clue."

"Agreed," said Taggert.

"Well, we're never going to get it if equipment keeps mysteriously
burning itself out, breaking down, and just generally goofing up. This
morning, the primary exciter on the new ultracosmotron went haywire,
and the beam of sodium nuclei burned through part of the accelerator
tube wall. It'll take a month to get it back in working order."

Taggert took his pipe out of his mouth and tapped the dottle into a
nearby ash disposal unit. "And you want to pick up our pet spy?"

Senator Gonzales scowled. "Well, I'd certainly call him our prime
suspect." But there was a certain lack of conviction in his manner.

Brian Taggert didn't flatly contradict the senator. "Maybe. But you
know, John, there's one thing that bothers me about these accidents."

"What's that?"

"The fact that we have not one shred of evidence that points to
sabotage."

* * * * *

In a room on the fifth floor, directly below Brian Taggert's office, a
young man was half sitting, half reclining in a thickly upholstered
adjustable chair. He had dropped the back of the chair to a forty-five
degree angle and lifted up the footrest; now he was leaning back in
lazy comfort, his ankles crossed, his right hand holding a slowly
smoldering cigarette, his eyes contemplating the ceiling. Or, rather,
they seemed to be contemplating something _beyond_ the ceiling.

It was pure coincidence that the focus of his thoughts happened to be
located in about the same volume of space that his eyes seemed to be
focused on. If Brian Taggert and Senator Gonzales had been in the room
below, his eyes would still be looking at