DAMNED IF YOU DON'T
By RANDALL GARRETT
Illustrated by van Dongen
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding ScienceFiction May 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
You will and you won't.
You'll be damn'd if you do;
You'll be damn'd if you don't.
"Definition of Calvinism"
We've all heard of the wonderful invention that the Big Corporation orthe Utilities suppressed...? Usually, that Wonderful Invention won'twork, actually. But there's another possibility, too....
The workshop-laboratory was a mess.Sam Bending looked it over silently; his jaw muscles were hard andtense, and his eyes were the same.
To repeat what Sam Bending thought when he saw the junk that had beenmade of thousands of dollars worth of equipment would not beinadmissible in a family magazine, because Bending was not particularlyaddicted to four-letter vulgarities. But he was a religious man—in alax sort of way—so repeating what ran through his mind that gray Mondayin February of 1981 would be unfair to the memory of Samson FrancisBending.
Sam Bending folded his hands over his chest. It was not an attitude ofprayer; it was an attempt to keep those big, gorillalike hands fromsmashing something. The fingers intertwined, and the hands tried tocrush each other, which was a good way to keep them from actuallycrushing anything else.
He stood there at the door for a full minute—just looking.
The lab—as has been said—was a mess. It would have looked better ifsomeone had simply tossed a grenade in it and had done with it. At leastthe results would have been random and more evenly dispersed.
But whoever had gone about the wrecking of the lab had gone about it ina workmanlike way. Whoever had done the job was no amateur. The vandalhad known his way about in a laboratory, that was obvious. Leads hadbeen cut carefully; equipment had been shoved aside without care as towhat happened to it, but with great care that the shover should not bedamaged by the shoving; the invader had known exactly what he was after,and exactly how to get to it.
And he—whoever he was—had gotten his hands on what he wanted.
The Converter was gone.
Sam Bending took his time in regaining his temper. He had to. A man whostands six feet three, weighs three hundred pounds, and wears aforty-eight size jacket can't afford to lose his temper very often orhe'll end up on the wrong end of a homicide charge. That three hundredpounds was composed of too much muscle and too little fa