The senator reached for his drink and sipped it thoughtfully. He was beginning to see Roger's gang's misadventure in a new light. But it was an unfamiliar light, one that would take him a while to become accustomed to.
"Perhaps the most startling case of all," Ambly went on, "concerns the Nuclear Fission Society of Urania, Nevada. It is not a well publicized fact that this quasi-academic group of adolescent physicists was exposed in the act of assembling an elementary but workable atomic bomb. Many of the elders in this fast-growing little community are engaged, as you no doubt know, in atomic development of one sort or another. It seemed that this interest had trickled down to their offspring, who showed an impressive amount of ingenuity in getting the necessary materials. Fortunately, one youngster asked his father entirely too many questions concerning the actual fabrication of fission weapons. The man investigated and—"
"Now, wait a minute," Duran interrupted, wondering momentarily if the whole tale might not have been a hoax. "How much of this am I really expected to believe?"
"It's all fact, Vance," Governor Gorton responded solemnly. "Fritz has a couple of scrapbooks I'd like you to look at some time. Each case is pretty well authenticated. But the important thing is the pattern. It's really sort of frightening in a way."
"Many similar incidents have no doubt occurred of which I have no record," said Ambly. "I'd estimate that ninety percent of such cases are suppressed, either in the interest of national security or because the children's parents are sufficiently influential to have the story squelched."
"Just as we'd have sat on this one," added Gorton, "if the dang thing hadn't actually been shot off."
Duran smiled inwardly at the picture evoked by the Governor's metaphor. However, he had to admit that the press would in all probability not have learned about the rocket at all, had it been discovered prior to being launched.
"Still," he remarked, "it's odd that the papers haven't shown more of an interest in it."
"I wrote an article on the subject some time ago," Ambly told him, "but was never able to get it published. It seems that people, for the most part, are more interested in the traditional sordid-sensational type of juvenile delinquency.
"Whereas, this is something different, something unique. It isn't the result of poverty or broken homes, ignorance or twisted personalities—this is a mixture of genius, knowledge, restlessness, and something else I don't think we understand."