Damned If You Don't Read online

and enough extra toexperiment around on his own. And, primarily, it had always been theexperimentation that had been the purpose of Bending Consultants; theconsulting end of the business had always been a monetary prop for thelab itself. His employees--mostly junior engineers and engineeringdraftsmen--worked in the two-story building next door to the lab. Theirjob was to make money for the company under Bending's direction whileBending himself spent as much time as he could fussing around withthings that interested him.

  The word "genius" has several connotations, depending on how one definesa genius. Leaving aside the Greek, Roman and Arabic definitions, acareful observer will find that there are two general classes of genius:the "partial" genius, and the "general" genius. Actually, such a narrowdefinition doesn't do either kind justice, but defining a human being isan almost impossible job, anyway, so we'll have to do the best we canwith the tools we have to work with.

  The "partial" genius follows the classic definition. "A genius is a manwith a one-track mind; an idiot has one track less." He's a real wowserat one class of knowledge, and doesn't know spit about the others.

  The "general" genius doesn't specialize. He's capable of originalthought in any field he works in.

  The trouble is that, because of the greater concentration involved, thepartial genius usually gets more recognition than the general--that is,if he gets any recognition at all. Thus, the mathematical and opticalwork of Sir Isaac Newton show true genius; his theological and politicalideas weren't worth the paper he wrote them on. Similar accusationsmight be leveled against Albert Einstein--and many others.

  The general genius isn't so well known because he spreads his abilitiesover a broad area. Some--like Leonardo da Vinci--have made a name forthemselves, but, in general, they have remained in the background.

  Someone once defined a specialist as "a man who learns more and moreabout less and less until he finally knows everything about nothing."And there is the converse, the general practitioner, who knows "less andless about more and more until he finally knows nothing abouteverything."

  Both types can produce geniuses, and there is, of course, a broadspectrum in between. Da Vinci, for instance, became famous for hispaintings; he concentrated on that field because he knew perfectly wellthat his designs for such things as airplanes were impracticable at thetime, 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 nuclearphysics was far and away beyond that of any other scientist of his day;his ability to handle political and economic relationships was ratherfeeble.

  As he sat in his waiting room on that chill day of February, 1981, hismind was centered on nuclear physics, not general economics. Not thatBending was oblivious to the power of the Great God Ammon; Bending wasvery fond of money and appreciated the things it could achieve. Hesimply didn't appreciate the over-all power of Ammon. At the moment, hewas brooding darkly over the very fact of existence of Power Utilities,and trying to figure out a suitable rejoinder to their _coup de demon_.

  And then he heard the whir of helicopter blades over the building. Thepolice had come.

  He opened the door of the lab building as they came up the steps. Therewere two plainclothes men--the Technical Squad, Bending knew--and fouruniformed officers.

  * * * * *

  The plainclothesman in the lead, a tall, rather thin man, with darkstraight hair and a small mustache, said: "Mr. Bending? I'm SergeantKetzel. Mind if the boys take a look at the scene? And I'd like to ask afew questions?"

  "Fine," said Sam Bending. "Come on in."

  He showed the officers to the lab, and telling them nothing, left themto their work. Then he went into his office, followed by SergeantKetzel. The detective took down all the pertinent data that Bendingchose 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 theyentered. "Pretty easy to see what happened," he said. "Come on over andtake a look." He led them over to the wall where the Converter had beenhidden.

  "See," he said, "here's your main power line coming in here. It's beenburned off. They shut off the power to cut off the burglar alarm tothat safe over there."

  Ketzel shook his head slowly, but said nothing for the moment. He lookedat Bending. "Has the safe been robbed?"

  "I don't know," Bending admitted. "I didn't touch it after I saw allthis wreckage."

  Ketzel told a couple of the uniformed men to go over the safe forevidence. While they waited, Bending looked again at the hole in thewall where the Converter had been. And it suddenly struck him that, evenif he had reported the loss of the Converter to the police, it would behard to prove. The thief had taken care to burn off the ends of the oldleads that had originally come into the building. Bending himself hadcut them a week before to install the Converter. Had they been left asthey were, Bending could have proved by the oxidation of the surfacethat they had been cut a long time before the leads on this side of theConverter. But both had been carefully fused by a torch.

  "Nothing on the safe," said one of the officers. "No prints, at anyrate. 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. Inthe certainty that it was only the Converter that the burglars had beenafter, he hadn't even thought about the safe.

  Bending touched the handle, turned it a trifle, and the door swung openeasily in his hand. "It wasn't even locked," Bending said, almost tohimself.

  He looked inside. The safe had been thoroughly gone through, but as faras Bending could see, there were no papers missing.

  "Don't touch anything in there, Mr. Bending," said Ketzel, "Just tell usas much as you can by looking at it."

  "The papers have been disturbed," Bending said carefully, "but I don'tthink anything is missing, except the petty cash box."

  "Uh-huh," Ketzel grunted significantly. "Petty cash box. About how muchwas in it, Mr. Bending?"

  "Three or four thousand, I imagine: you'll have to ask Jim Luckman, mybusiness manager. He keeps track of things like that."

  "Three or four _thousand_ in petty cash?" Ketzel asked, as though he'dprefer Bending to correct the figure to "two or three hundred."

  "About that. Sometimes we have to order equipment of one kind or anotherin 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 itwas. Even the most respectable businessmen were doing occasionalbusiness with the black market in technological devices. But he didn'tsay anything to Bending.

  "What did the cash box look like?" he asked.

  Bending held out his hands to measure off a distance. "About solong--ten inches, I guess; maybe six inches wide and four deep. Thinsheet steel, with a gray crackle finish. There was a lock on it, but itwasn't much of one; since it was kept in the safe, there was no need fora strong lock."

  Sergeant Ketzel nodded. "In other words, an ordinary office cash box. Nodistinguishing 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 pettycash box in the main office."

  "I see. Do you know anything about the denominations of the bills? Werethey 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 makesense. Why should they go to all that trouble just to shut off a burglaralarm?" He shook his head and went over to where the others wereworki
ng.

  It was hours before the police left, and long before they were gone SamBending had begun to wish fervently that he had never called them. Hefelt that he should have kept his mouth shut and fought Power Utilitieson the ground they had chosen. They had known about the Converter onlytwo weeks, and they had already struck. He tried to remember exactly howthe 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 andtook out the recording for Friday, 30 January 1981. He threaded itthrough the sound