"Police Department," said a laconic voice from the speaker. At the same
time, the blue-clad image of a police officer appeared on the screen. He
looked polite, but he also looked as though he expected nothing more
than a routine call.
Bending gave the cop's sleeve a quick glance and said: "Sergeant, my
name is Samson Bending. Bending Consultants, 3991 Marden--you'll find it
in the phone book. Someone broke into my place over the weekend, and
I'd appreciate it if you'd send someone around."
The sergeant's face showed that he still thought it was routine.
"Anything missing, sir?"
"I'm not sure," said Bending carefully. "I'll have to make a check. I
haven't touched anything. I thought I'd leave that for the detectives.
But you can see for yourself what's happened."
He stepped back from the screen and the Leinster cameras automatically
adjusted for the greater distance to the background.
"Looks like you had a visitor, all right," said the police officer.
"What is that? A lab of some kind you've got there?"
"That's right," Bending said. "You can check it with the Register."
"Will do, Mr. Bending," agreed the sergeant. "We'll send the Technical
Squad around in any case." He paused, and Sam could see that he'd
pressed an alarm button. There was more interest in his manner, too.
"Any signs that it might be kids?" he asked.
Sam shrugged. "Hard to tell. Might be. Might not." He knew good and well
that it wasn't a JD gang that had invaded his lab. He grinned
ingratiatingly. "I figure you guys can tell me more about that than I
could tell you."
The sergeant nodded. "Sure. O.K., Mr. Bending; you just hold on. Don't
touch anything; we'll have a copter out there as soon as we can. O.K.?"
"O.K.," Sam agreed. He cut off as the cop's image began to collapse.
* * * * *
Sam Bending didn't obey the cop's order to touch nothing. He couldn't
afford to--not at this stage of the game. He looked over everything--the
smashed oscilloscopes, the overturned computer, the ripped-out
meters--everything. He lifted a couple of instruments that had been
toppled to the floor, raising them carefully with a big screwdriver,
used as a lever. When he was through, he was convinced that he knew
exactly who the culprit was.
Oh, he didn't know the name of the man, or men, who had actually
committed the crime. Those things were, for the moment, relatively
unimportant. The police might find them, but that could wait. The thing
that _was_ important was that Bending was certain within his own mind
who had paid to have the lab robbed.
Not that he could make any accusations to the police, of course. That
wouldn't do at all. But _he_ knew. He was quite certain.
He left the lab itself and went into the outer rooms, the three rooms
that constituted the clients' waiting room, his own office, and the
smaller office of Nita Walder, the girl who took care of his files and
correspondence.
A quick look told him that nothing in the offices had been disturbed. He
shrugged his huge shoulders and sat down on the long couch in the
waiting room.
_Much good it may do them_, he thought pleasantly. _The Converter won't
be worth the stuff it's made of if they try to open it._
He looked at the clock on the wall and frowned. It was off by five
hours. Then he grinned and looked at his wrist watch. Of course the wall
clock was Off. It had stopped when the power had been cut off. When the
burglars had cut the leads to the Converter, everything in the lab had
stopped.
It was eight seventeen. Sam Bending lit a cigarette and leaned back to
wait for the cops. United States Power Utilities, Monopolated, had
overstepped themselves this time.
* * * * *
_Bending Consultants_, as a title for a business, was a little
misleading because of the plural ending of the last word. There was only
one consultant, and that was Samson Francis Bending. His speciality was
the engineering design of atomic power plants--both the old fashioned
heavy-metal kind and the newer, more elegant, stellarators, which
produced power by hydrogen-to-helium conversion.
Bending made good money at it. He wasn't a millionaire by any means, but
he had enough money to live comfortably on and enough extra to
experiment around on his own. And, primarily, it had always been the
experimentation that had been the purpose of Bending Consultants; the
consulting end of the business had always been a monetary prop for the
lab itself. His employees--mostly junior engineers and engineering
draftsmen--worked in the two-story building next door to the lab. Their
job was to make money for the company under Bending's direction while
Bending himself spent as much time as he could fussing around with
things that interested him.
The word "genius" has several connotations, depending on how one defines
a genius. Leaving aside the Greek, Roman and Arabic definitions, a
careful observer will find that there are two general classes of genius:
the "partial" genius, and the "general" genius. Actually, such a narrow
definition doesn't do either kind justice, but defining a human being is
an almost impossible job, anyway, so we'll have to do the best we can
with the tools we have to work with.
The "partial" genius follows the classic definition. "A genius is a man
with a one-track mind; an idiot has one track less." He's a real wowser
at one class of knowledge, and doesn't know spit about the others.
The "general" genius doesn't specialize. He's capable of original
thought in any field he works in.
The trouble is that, because of the greater concentration involved, the
partial genius usually gets more recognition than the general--that is,
if he gets any recognition at all. Thus, the mathematical and optical
work of Sir Isaac Newton show true genius; his theological and political
ideas weren't worth the paper he wrote them on. Similar accusations
might be leveled against Albert Einstein--and many others.
The general genius isn't so well known because he spreads his abilities
over a broad area. Some--like Leonardo da Vinci--have made a name for
themselves, but, in general, they have remained in the background.
Someone once defined a specialist as "a man who learns more and more
about less and less until he finally knows everything about nothing."
And there is the converse, the general practitioner, who knows "less and
less about more and more until he finally knows nothing about
everything."
Both types can produce geniuses, and there is, of course, a broad
spectrum in between. Da Vinci, for instance, became famous for his
paintings; he concentrated on that field because he knew perfectly well
that his designs for such things as airplanes were impracticable at the
time, whereas the Church would pay for art.
Samson Bending was a genius, granted; but he was more toward the
"special" than the "general" side of the spectrum. His grasp of nuclear
physics was far and away beyond that of any other scientist of his day;
his ability to handle political and economic relationships was rather
feeble.
As he sat in his waiting room on that chill day of February, 1981, his
mind was centered on nuclear physics, not general economics. Not that
Bending was oblivious to the power of the Great God Ammon; Bending was
very fond of money and appreciated the things it could achieve. He
simply didn't appreciate the over-all power of Ammon. At the moment, he
was brooding darkly over the very fact of existence of Power Utilities,
and trying to figure out a suitable rejoinder to their _coup de démon_.
And then he heard the whir of helicopter blades over the building. The
police had come.
He opened the door of the lab building as they came up the steps. There
were two plainclothes men--the Technical Squad, Bending knew--and four
uniformed officers.
* * * * *
The plainclothesman in the lead, a tall, rather thin man, with dark
straight hair and a small mustache, said: "Mr. Bending? I'm Sergeant
Ketzel. Mind if the boys take a look at the scene? And I'd like to ask a
few questions?"
"Fine," said Sam Bending. "Come on in."
He showed the officers to the lab, and telling them nothing, left them
to their work. Then he went into his office, followed by Sergeant
Ketzel. The detective took down all the pertinent data that Bending
chose to give him, and then asked Bending to go with him to the lab.
The other plainclothesman came up to Sergeant Ketzel and Bending as they
entered. "Pretty easy to see what happened," he said. "Come on over and
take a look." He led them over to the wall where the Converter had been
hidden.
"See," he said, "here's your main power line coming in here. It's been
burned off. They shut off the power to cut off the burglar alarm to
that safe over there."
Ketzel shook his head slowly, but said nothing for the moment. He looked
at Bending. "Has the safe been robbed?"
"I don't know," Bending admitted. "I didn't touch it after I saw all
this wreckage."
Ketzel told a couple of the uniformed men to go over the safe for
evidence. While they waited, Bending looked again at the hole in the
wall where the Converter had been. And it suddenly struck him that, even
if he had reported the loss of the Converter to the police, it would be
hard to prove. The thief had taken care to burn off the ends of the old
leads that had originally come into the building. Bending himself had
cut them a week before to install the Converter. Had they been left as
they were, Bending could have proved by the oxidation of the surface
that they had been cut a long time before the leads on this side of the
Converter. But both had been carefully fused by a torch.
"Nothing on the safe," said one of the officers. "No prints, at any
rate. Micros might show glove or cloth traces, but--" He shrugged.
"Would you mind opening the safe, Mr. Bending?" Sergeant Ketzel asked.
"Certainly," Bending said. He wondered if the safe _had_ been robbed. In
the certainty that it was only the Converter that the burglars had been
after, he hadn't even thought about the safe.
Bending touched the handle, turned it a trifle, and the door swung open
easily in his hand. "It wasn't even locked," Bending said, almost to
himself.
He looked inside. The safe had been thoroughly gone through, but as far
as Bending could see, there were no papers missing.
"Don't touch anything in there, Mr. Bending," said Ketzel, "Just tell us
as much as you can by looking at it."
"The papers have been disturbed," Bending said carefully, "but I don't
think anything is missing, except the petty cash box."
"Uh-huh," Ketzel grunted significantly. "Petty cash box. About how much
was in it, Mr. Bending?"
"Three or four thousand, I imagine: you'll have to ask Jim Luckman, my
business manager. He keeps track of things like that."
"Three or four _thousand_ in petty cash?" Ketzel asked, as though he'd
prefer Bending to correct the figure to "two or three hundred."
"About that. Sometimes we have to order equipment of one kind or another
in a hurry, and we can usually expedite matters if we can promise cash.
You know how it is."
Sergeant Ketzel nodded sourly. He evidently knew only too well how it
was. Even the most respectable businessmen were doing occasional
business with the black market in technological devices. But he didn't
say anything to Bending.
"What did the cash box look like?" he asked.
Bending held out his hands to measure off a distance. "About so
long--ten inches, I guess; maybe six inches wide and four deep. Thin
sheet steel, with a gray crackle finish. There was a lock on it, but it
wasn't much of one; since it was kept in the safe, there was no need for
a strong lock."
Sergeant Ketzel nodded. "In other words, an ordinary office cash box. No
distinguishing marks at all?"
"It had 'Bending Consultants' on the top. And underneath that, the word
'Lab'. In black paint. That 'Lab' was to distinguish it from the petty
cash box in the main office."
"I see. Do you know anything about the denominations of the bills? Were
they marked in any way?"
Bending frowned. "I don't know. You'd have to ask Luckman about that,
too."
"Where is he now?"
"Home, I imagine. He isn't due to report for work until ten."
"O.K. Will you leave word that we want to talk to him when he comes in?
It'll take us a while to get all the information we can from the lab,
here." He looked back at the hole in the wall. "It still doesn't make
sense. Why should they go to all that trouble just to shut off a burglar
alarm?" He shook his head and went over to where the others were
working.
It was hours before the police left, and long before they were gone Sam
Bending had begun to wish fervently that he had never called them. He
felt that he should have kept his mouth shut and fought Power Utilities
on the ground they had chosen. They had known about the Converter only
two weeks, and they had already struck. He tried to remember exactly how
the Utilities representative had worded what he'd said, and couldn't.
Well, there was an easy way to find out. He went over to his files and
took out the recording for Friday, 30 January 1981. He threaded it
through the sound player--he had no particular desire to look at the
man's face again--and turned on the machine. The first sentence brought
the whole scene back to mind.
* * * * *
"Thank you for your time, Mr. Bending," the man whose card had announced
him as Richard Olcott. He was a rather average-sized man, with a
fiftyish face, graying hair that was beginning to thin, and an
expression like that of a friendly poker player--pleasant, but
inscrutable.
"I always have time to see a representative of Power Utilities, Mr.
Olcott," Bending said. "Though I must admit that I'm more used to
dealing with various engineers who work for your subsidiaries."
"Not subsidiaries, please," Olcott admonished in a friendly tone. "Like
the Bell Telephone Company, Power Utilities is actually a group of
independent but mutually co-operative companies organized under a parent
company."
Bending grinned. "I stand corrected. What did you have on your mind, Mr.
Olcott?"
Olcott's hesitation was of half-second duration, but it was perceptible.
"Mr. Bending," he began, "I understand that you have been ... ah ...
working on a new and ... ah ... radically different method of power
generation. Er ... is that substantially correct?"
Bending looked at the man, his blocky, big-jawed face expressionless.
"I've been doing experimenting with power generators, yes," he said
after a moment. "That's my business."
"Oh, quite, quite. I understand that," Olcott said hurriedly.
"I ... ah ... took the trouble to look up your record before I came.
I'm well aware of the invaluable work you've done in the power field."
"Thank you," Bending said agreeably. He waited to see what the other
would say next. It was his move.
"However," Olcott said, "that's not the sort of thing I was referring
to." He leaned forward in his chair, and his bright gray eyes seemed to
take on a new life; his manner seemed to alter subtly.
"Let me put my ... _our_ cards on the table, Mr. Bending. We understand
that you have designed, and are experimenting with, an amazingly compact
power source. We understand that little remains but to get the bugs out
of your pilot model.
"Naturally, we are interested. Our business is supplying the nation with
power. Anything from a new type solar battery on up is of interest to
us." He stopped, waiting for Bending to speak.
Bending obliged. "I see Petternek let the cat out of the bag
prematurely," he said with a smile. "I hadn't intended to spring it
until it was a polished work of engineering art. It's been more of a
hobby than anything else, you see."
Olcott smiled disarmingly. "I'm not acquainted with Mr. Petternek; to be
quite honest, I have no idea where our engineers picked up the
information."
"He's an engineer," Bending said. "Friends of mine. He probably got a
little enthusiastic in a conversation with one of your boys. He seemed
quite impressed by my Converter."
"Possibly that is the explanation." Olcott paused. "Converter, you say?
That's what you call it?"
"That's right. I couldn't think up any fancier name for it. Oh, I
suppose I could have, but I didn't want anything too descriptive."
"And the word 'converter' isn't descriptive?"
"Hardly," said Bending with a short laugh. "Every power supply is a
converter of some kind. A nickel-cadmium battery converts chemical
energy into electrical energy. A solar battery converts radiation into
electrical current. The old-fashioned, oil- or coal-burning power plants
converted chemical energy into heat energy, converted that into kinetic
energy, and that, in turn was converted into electrical energy. The
heavy-metal atomic plant does almost the same thing, except that it uses
nuclear reactions instead of chemical reactions to produce the heat. The
stellarator is a converter, too.
"About the only exception I can think of is the electrostatic condenser,
and you could say that it converts static electricity into a current
flow if you wanted to stretch a point. On the other hand, a condenser
isn't usually considered as a power supply."
Olcott chuckled. "I see your point. Could you give me a rough idea of
the principle on which your Converter operates?"
Bending allowed himself a thoughtful frown. "I'd rather not, just now,
Mr. Olcott. As I said, I want to sort of spring this full-blown on the
world." He grinned. He looked like a small boy who had just discovered
that people liked him; but it was a calculated expression, not an
automatic one.
Olcott looked into Bending's eyes without seeing them. He ran his tongue
carefully over the inside of his teeth before he spoke. "Mr. Bending."
Pause. "Mr. Bending, we--and by 'we', I mean, of course, Power
Utilities,--have heard a great deal about this ... this Converter." His
chocolate-brown eyes bored deep into the gray eyes of Samson Bending.
"Frankly," he continued, "we are inclined to discount ninety per cent of
the rumors that come to us. Most of them are based on purely crackpot
ideas. None the less, we investigate them. If someone _does_ discover a
new process of producing power, we can't afford to be blind to new ideas
just because they happen to come from ... ah ... unorthodox sources.
"You, Mr. Bending, are an unusual case. Any rumor concerning your work,
no matter how fantastic, is worth looking into on your reputation alone,
even though the claims may be utterly absurd."
"I have made no claims," Bending interposed.
Olcott raised a lean hand. "I understand that, Mr. Bending. None the
less, others--who may or may not know what they are talking about--have
made this claim _for_ you." Olcott settled back in his chair and folded
his hands across his slight paunch. "You've worked with us before, Mr.
Bending; you know that we can--and _do_--pay well for advances in the
power field which are contributed by our engineers. As you know, our
contract is the standard one--any discovery made by an engineer while in
our employ is automatically ours. None the less, we give such men a
handsome royalty." He paused, opened his brief case, and pulled out a
notebook. After referring to it, he looked up at Bending and said:
"You, yourself have benefitted by this policy. According to our records,
you are drawing royalties from three patented improvements in the
stellarator which were discovered at times when you were employed by
us--or, rather, by one of our associative corporations--in an advisory
capacity. Those discoveries were, by contract, ours. By law, we could
use them as we saw fit without recompense to you, other than our regular
fee. None the less, we chose to pay you a royalty because that is our
normal policy with all our engineers and scientific research men. We
find it more expedient to operate thus."
Bending was getting a little tired of Olcott's "none the less," but he
didn't show it. "Are you trying to say that my Converter was invented
during my employ with your company, Mr. Olcott?"
Olcott cleared his throat and shook his head. "No. Not necessarily. It
is true that we might have a case on those grounds, but, under the
circumstances, we feel it inexpedient to pursue such a course."
_Which means_, Bending thought, _that you don't have a case at all_.
"Then just what are you driving at, Mr. Olcott?" he asked aloud.
"I'll put my cards on the table, Mr. Bending," Olcott said.
_You've already said that_, Bending thought, _and I've seen no evidence
of it_. "Go ahead," he said.
"Thank you." He cleared his throat again. "If your invention
is ... ah ... worth while, we are prepared to negotiate with you for
use and/or purchase of it."
Bending had always disliked people who said or wrote "and/or," but he
had no desire to antagonize the Power Utilities representative by
showing personal pique. "Let me understand you clearly," he said. "Power
Utilities wants to buy my rights to the Converter. Right?"
Olcott cleared his throat a third time. "In a word, yes. Provided, of
course, that it is actually worth our while. Remember, we know almost
nothing about it; the claims made for it by our ... ah ... anonymous
informer are ... well, ah ... rather fantastic. But your
reputation--" He let the sentence hang.
Bending was not at all immune to flattery. He grinned. "Do you mean that
you came to me to talk about buying an invention you weren't even sure
existed--just because of my reputation?"
"Frankly, yes," said Olcott. "Your reputation is ... ah ... shall we
say, a good one in power engineering circles."
"Are you an engineer?" Bending asked suddenly.
Olcott blinked. "Why, no. No, I am not. I'm a lawyer. I thought you
understood that."
"Sorry," Bending said. "I didn't. Most of the financial work around here
is done through my Mr. Luckman. I'm not acquainted with the monetary end
of the business."
Olcott smiled. "Quite all right. Evidently I am not as well known to you
as you are to me. Not that it matters. Why did you ask?"
Bending stood up. "I'm going to show you something, Mr. Olcott," he
said. "Would you care to come with me to the lab?"