"Well, Sig agreed it was the only thing to do, after I told him you'd be leaving for Washington again tomorrow," the Governor said.
Duran grinned wryly. It had been a guess, but a good one. And Loeffler's having passed the interview off as a personal favor put their relationship back in its proper perspective.
"Well, what's to be done about the boys? They're all under eighteen, I suppose."
"That's right," Gorton said. "It's entirely a matter for the juvenile authority. At least we're going to try to keep it there. But there's more to it than that. Which is why Fritz is here. He has something on his mind which he thinks is pretty important. I do too."
"You see, Senator," said Ambly, coming in promptly on his cue, "it's this way. If the case were an isolated one, it would be easy enough for us to deal with. But it's part of a pattern which few people have yet noticed. Let me cite several other similar incidents.
"Perhaps you read about the group of fifty teen-aged copter jockeys who decided to hold a transcontinental scavenger hunt. Ignoring all air-traffic regulations, they managed to run up the magnificent total of seventeen collisions and thirty-two casualties."
"Hear about that one, Vance?" the Governor asked, his earlier festiveness gone.
"Yes, I think I saw something about it," Duran said. "It was pretty unfortunate, but—"
"And then there was the case of the promising young New England biologist who was discovered to have evolved a particularly deadly strain of bacteria, which he had been toting around with him in an aspirin bottle," Ambly went on, his thin hands clasped tightly in front of him. "Of course, at the age of sixteen, one perhaps can't be expected to foresee all of the possible consequences.
"So let us consider the two seventeen-year-olds who caused something of a sensation in Florida when they used the Branski-Baker method of genetic exchange to breed a quite fabulous species of winged alligator. Several of these so called 'alli-bats' escaped into the everglades, but it is doubted that they will be able to reproduce themselves. At least there is some doubt."