Getting Even is a mystery short story by Isaac Asimov.
Part of the Union Club series, it was first published in the August 1980 issue of Gallery magazine. Later it was collected in the Science fiction anthology, published 1987, Tales from the Spaceport Bar.
Summary[]
At the Union Club, a man named Griswold tells three companions a story. He explains that he is an inventor who, lacking capital, entered into an agreement with a promoter named Felix Hammock. Hammock provided ten thousand dollars to develop an idea and, through the promotion and marketing, made millions from it. Griswold received only the initial ten thousand. A lawyer informed Griswold that while Hammock's actions were legally sound, a lawsuit would be long and costly with little chance of success.
Griswold met with Hammock at his heavily secured, mansion-like home, which was filled with valuable art and artifacts. Hammock defended his position, arguing that he bore all the financial risk on many ventures and that the rewards were the just product of his own brain and initiative, not Griswold's. He refused to give Griswold any additional money.
Determined to get revenge by matching his own ingenuity against Hammock's, Griswold worked to scientifically extend his original invention. He succeeded in creating a device that opened a minuscule doorway to another dimension, summoning a small, lavender-colored, telepathic spirit. The spirit explained that due to the inefficiency of the device and the laws of conservation of energy in its world, it could only withdraw a maximum of two grams of matter from Griswold's world.
Griswold had to devise a way to cause Hammock a financial loss of over ten million dollars by having the spirit remove less than two grams of a specific substance. He conceived of a plan and later wangled another visit to Hammock's home. There, he observed that all of Hammock's valuable paintings, the Picassos, Chagalls, and others, were missing their signatures. The spirit had removed minuscule flakes of paint constituting the artists' signatures from every painting, instantly destroying their provenance and the vast majority of their value. Griswold achieved his revenge.
Characters[]
- Griswold
- Club Member (the narrator)
- Felix Hammock
- The Spirit
- The Lawyer
- The Bodyguards
- Baranov
- Jennings
- Club fellow (the Listener)