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 demon_.

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 prove