The other nodded. "Dr. Garnett was most excited. So much so that he didn't have time to tell me what it was all about, except that they'd started to get some amazing results—and just this morning. So I hurried over. Good esp is apt to go poof, so it's best to get it when it's hot. I have a standing order with Garnett to call me over the moment anything starts to flash. For that matter, I have the same orders with practically every scientific laboratory in the area—though the others don't always call me. But—thank Thoth!—Garnett isn't in a field that's under the benign aegis of security and he isn't at all security minded himself. In fact, I'm not certain he's ever heard of the FBL. So you may get a real scoop, Mr...?"
"Gish. Phil Gish."
The oldster's thin hand pressed his with a feathery touch. "Morton Opperly."
Phil stared at him for several seconds, then gasped, "The—?"
The other assented with an apologetic shrug. Phil let it sink in. This was Morton Opperly who had worked on the Manhattan Project, whose name had appeared beside Einstein's on the Physicists' Covenant, who had tried unsuccessfully to get himself jailed for refusal to do research during World War III, who had become a legend. Phil had always vaguely assumed he'd died years ago.
He gazed at the renowned physicist in happy awe. The question that rose effortlessly to his lips was a testimony to Opperly's ability to create an atmosphere of unlimited free discussion unknown since 1940.
"Mr. Opperly, what are orthos?"
"Orthos? That could be short for any number of scientific terms, Phil, but I bet you mean the ones that shoot. Those are ortho-fissionables. Trouble with ordinary fissionables—or fissionables under ordinary circumstances—is that the fragments and neutrons shoot off in all directions and the critical mass is large. But if you get the fissionable atoms all lined up with their axis of spin pointing in the same direction, then they all split in the same place and every neutron hits the nucleus of the atom next to it. Because of that last fact, the neutrons are all used up and the critical mass becomes minute. Half the fragments fly in one direction, half in the other, making it a very nasty and convenient weapon, except it has to backfire."
"How do you get the atoms lined up?" Phil asked eagerly.
"Temperature near absolute zero and an electric field," Opperly said, touching a button beside the doorway. "Simplest thing in the world. The new insulators can hold a gun magazine at one degree Kelvin for weeks, and carry enough fissionable pellets to give rapid fire, with the effect of a steady beam, for more than a minute. Planning to make yourself an ortho in your home workshop, Phil? I'm afraid they don't sell that kit. Everything I've been telling you is top security, death penalty and all that. But I'm getting so senile I don't understand security regulations. I'm apt to babble anything. I keep telling Bobbie T. he'll have to have me orthocuted some day, but like everyone else he refuses to take me seriously. That's the trick they used on me in WW3 and they've never forgot it."