CHAPTER VII THE EXPLOITERS AND THE EXPLOITED

The rails rose through the rocks to the oil derricks and the oil derricks rose to the sky. Dagny stood on the bridge, looking up at the crest of the hill where the sun hit a spot of metal on the top of the highest rigging.  It looked like a white torch lighted over the snow on the ridges of Wyatt Oil. By spring, she thought, the track would meet the line growing toward it from Cheyenne. She let her eyes follow the green-blue rails that started from the derricks, came down, went across the bridge and past her. She turned her head to follow them through the miles of clear air, as they went on in great curves hung on the sides of the mountains, far to the end of the new track, where a locomotive crane, like an arm of naked bones and nerves, moved tensely against the sky.  A tractor went past her, loaded with green-blue bolts. The sound of drills came as a steady shudder from far below, where men swung on metal cables, cutting the straight stone drop of the canyon wall to reinforce the abutments of the bridge. Down the track, she could see men working, their arms stiff with the tension of their muscles as they gripped the handles of electric tie tampers.  "Muscles, Miss Taggart," Ben Nealy, the contractor, had said to her, "muscles-that's all it takes to build anything in the world."  No contractor equal to McNamara seemed to exist anywhere. She had taken the best she could find. No engineer on the Taggart staff could be trusted to supervise the job; all of them were skeptical about the new metal. "Frankly, Miss Taggart," her chief engineer had said, "since it is an experiment that nobody has ever attempted before, I do not think it's fair that it should be my responsibility." 'It's mine," she had answered. He was a man in his forties, who still preserved the breezy manner of the college from which he had graduated. Once, Taggart Transcontinental had had a chief engineer, a silent, gray-haired, self educated man, who could not be matched on any railroad. He had resigned, five years ago.  She glanced down over the bridge. She was standing on a slender beam of steel above a gorge that had cracked the mountains to a depth of fifteen hundred feet. Far at the bottom, she could distinguish the dim outlines of a dry river bed, of piled boulders, of trees contorted by centuries. She wondered whether boulders, tree trunks and muscles could ever bridge that canyon. She wondered why she found herself thinking suddenly that cave-dwellers had lived naked on the bottom of that canyon for ages.  She looked up at the Wyatt oil fields. The track broke into sidings among the wells. She saw the small disks of switches dotted against the snow. They were metal switches, of the kind that were scattered in thousands, unnoticed, throughout the country-but these were sparkling in the sun and the sparks were greenish-blue. What they meant to her was hour upon hour of speaking quietly, evenly, patiently, trying to hit the center less target that was the person of Mr. Mowen, president of the Amalgamated Switch and Signal Company, Inc., of Connecticut. "But, Miss Taggart, my dear Miss Taggart! My company has served your company for generations, why, your grandfather was the first customer of my grandfather, so you cannot doubt our eagerness to do anything you ask, but-did you say switches made of Rearden Metal?"  "Yes."  "But, Miss Taggart! Consider what it would mean, having to work with that metal. Do you know that the stuff won't melt under less than four thousand degrees? . . . Great? Well, maybe that's great for motor manufacturers, but what I'm thinking of is that it means a new type of furnace, a new process entirely, men to be trained, schedules upset, work rules shot, everything balled up and then God only knows whether it will come out right or not! . . . How do you know, Miss Taggart? How can you know, when it's never been done before? . . . Well, I can't say that that metal is good and I can't say that it isn't. . . . Well, no, I can't tell whether it's a product of genius, as you say, or just another fraud as a great many people are saying, Miss Taggart, a great many. . . . Well, no, I can't say that it does matter one way or the other, because who am I to take a chance on a job of this kind?"  She had doubled the price of her order. Rearden had sent two metallurgists to train Mowen's men, to teach, to show, to explain every step of the process, and had paid the salaries of Mowen's men while they were being trained.  She looked at the spikes in the rail at her feet. They meant the night when she had heard that Summit Casting of Illinois, the only company willing to make spikes of Rearden Metal, had gone bankrupt, with half of her order undelivered. She had flown to Chicago, that night, she had got three lawyers, a judge and a state legislator out of bed, she had bribed two of them and threatened the others, she had obtained a paper that was an emergency permit of a legality no one would ever be able to untangle, she had had the padlocked doors of the Summit Casting plant unlocked and a random, half-dressed crew working at the smelters before the windows had turned gray with daylight. The crews had remained at work, under a Taggart engineer and a Rearden metallurgist. The rebuilding of the Rio Norte Line was not held up.  She listened to the sound of the drills. The work had been held up once, when the drilling for the bridge abutments was stepped. "I couldn't help it, Miss Taggart," Ben Nealy had said, offended. "You know how fast drill heads wear out. I had them on order, but Incorporated Tool ran into a little trouble, they couldn't help it either, Associated Steel was delayed in delivering the steel to them, so there's nothing we can do but wait. It's no use getting upset, Miss Taggart, I'm doing my best."  "I've hired you to do a job, not to do your best-whatever that is."  "That's a funny thing to say. That's an unpopular attitude, Miss Taggart, mighty unpopular."  "Forget Incorporated Tool. Forget the steel. Order the doll heads made of Rearden Metal."  "Not me. I've had enough trouble with the damn stuff in that rail of yours. I'm not going to mess up my own equipment."  "A drill head of Rearden Metal will outlast three of steel."  "Maybe."  "I said order them made."  "Who's going to pay for it?"  "I am."  "Who's going to find somebody to make them?"  She had telephoned Rearden. He had found an abandoned tool plant, long since out of business. Within an hour, he had purchased it from the relatives of its last owner. Within a day, the plant had been reopened. Within a week, drill heads of Rearden Metal lad been delivered to the bridge in Colorado.  She looked at the bridge. It represented a problem badly solved, but she had had to accept it. The bridge, twelve hundred feet of steel across the black gap, was built in the days of Nat Taggart's son. It was long past the stage of safety; it had been patched with stringers of steel, then of iron, then of wood; it was barely worth the patching.  She had thought of a new bridge of Rearden Metal. She had asked her chief engineer to submit a design and an estimate of the cost.  The design he had submitted was the scheme of a steel bridge badly scaled down to the greater strength of the new metal; the cost made the project impossible to consider.  "I beg your pardon, Miss Taggart," he had said, offended. "I don't know what you mean when you say that I haven't made use of the metal. This design is an adaptation of the best bridges on record. What else did you expect?"  "A new method of construction."  "What do you mean, a new method?"  "I mean that when men got structural steel, they did not use it to build steel copies of wooden bridges." She had added wearily, "Get me an estimate on what we'll need to make our old bridge last for another five years."  "Yes, Miss Taggart," he had said cheerfully. "If we reinforce it with steel-"  "We'll reinforce it with Rearden Metal."  "Yes, Miss Taggart," he had said coldly.  She looked at the snow-covered mountains. Her job had seemed hard at times, in New York. She had stopped for blank moments in the middle of her office, paralyzed by despair at the rigidity of time which she could not stretch any further-on a day when urgent appointments had succeeded one another, when she had discussed worn Diesels, rotting freight cars, failing signal systems, falling revenues, while thinking of the latest emergency on the Rio Norte construction; when she had talked, with the vision of two streaks of green-blue metal cutting across her mind; when she had interrupted the discussions, realizing suddenly why a certain news item had disturbed her, and seized the telephone receiver to call long-distance, to call her contractor, to say, "Where do you get the food from, for your men? . . . I thought so. Well, Barton and Jones of Denver went bankrupt yesterday. Better find another supplier at once, if you don't want to have a famine on your hands." She had been building the line from her desk in New York. It had seemed hard. But now she was looking at the track. It was growing. It would be done on time.  She heard sharp, hurried footsteps, and turned. A man was coming up the track. He was tall and young, his head of black hair was hatless in the cold wind, he wore a workman's leather jacket, but he did not look like a workman, there was too imperious an assurance in the way he walked. She could not recognize the face until he came closer. It was Ellis Wyatt. She had not seen him since that one interview in her office.  He approached, stopped, looked at her and smiled.  "Hello, Dagny," he said.  In a single shock of emotion, she knew everything the two words were intended to tell her. It was forgiveness, understanding, acknowledgment. It was a salute.  She laughed, like a child, in happiness that things should be as right as that.  "Hello," she said, extending her hand.  His hand held hers an instant longer than a greeting required. It was their signature under a score settled and understood.  "Tell Nealy to put up new snow fences for a mile and a half on Granada Pass," he said. "The old ones are rotted. They won't stand through another storm. Send him a rotary plow. What he's got is a piece of junk that wouldn't sweep a back yard. The big snows are coming any day now."  She considered him for a moment. "How often have you been doing this?" she asked, "What?"  "Coming to watch the work."  "Every now and then. When I have the time. Why?"  "Were you here the night when they had the rock slide?"  "Yes."  "I was surprised how quickly and well they cleared the track, when I got the reports about it. It made me think that Nealy was a better man than I had thought."  "He isn't."  "Was it you who organized the system of moving his day's supplies down to the line?"  "Sure. His men used to spend half their time hunting for things.  Tell him to watch his water tanks. They'll freeze on him one of these nights. See if you can get him a new ditcher. I don't like the looks of the one he's got. Check on his wiring system."  She looked at him for a moment. "Thanks, Ellis," she said.  He smiled and walked on. She watched him as he walked across the bridge, as he started up the long rise toward his derricks.  "He thinks he owns the place, doesn't he?"  She turned, startled. Ben Nealy had approached her; his thumb was pointing at Ellis Wyatt.  "What place?"  "The railroad, Miss Taggart. Your railroad. Or the whole world maybe. That's what he thinks."  Ben Nealy was a bulky man with a soft, sullen face. His eyes were stubborn and blank. In die bluish light of the snow, his skin had the tinge of butter.  "What does he keep hanging around here for?" he said. "As if nobody knew their business but him. The snooty show-off. Who does he think he is?"  "God damn you," said Dagny evenly, not raising her voice.  Nealy could never know what had made her say it. But some part of him, in some way of his own, knew it: the shocking thing to her was that he was not shocked. He said nothing.  "Let's go to your quarters," she said wearily, pointing to an old railway coach on a spur in the distance. "Have somebody there to take notes."  "Now about those crossties, Miss Taggart," he said hastily as they started. "Mr. Coleman of your office okayed them. He didn't say anything about too much bark. I don't see why you think they're-"  "I said you're going to replace them."  When she came out of the coach, exhausted by two hours of effort to be patient, to instruct, to explain-she saw an automobile parked on the torn dirt road below, a black two-seater, sparkling and new. A new car was an astonishing sight anywhere; one did not see them often.  She glanced around and gasped at the sight of the tall figure standing at the foot of the bridge. It was Hank Rearden; she had not expected to find him in Colorado. He seemed absorbed in calculations, pencil and notebook in hand. His clothes attracted attention, like his car and for the same reason; he wore a simple trenchcoat and a hat with a slanting brim, but they were of such good quality, so flagrantly expensive that they appeared ostentatious among the seedy garments of the crowds everywhere, the more ostentatious because worn so naturally.  She noticed suddenly that she was running toward him; she had lost all trace of exhaustion. Then she remembered that she had not seen him since the party. She stopped.  He saw her, he waved to her in a gesture of pleased, astonished greeting, and he walked forward to meet her. He was smiling.  "Hello," he said. "Your first trip to the job?"  "My fifth, in three months."  "I didn't know you were here. Nobody told me."  "I thought you'd break down some day."  "Break down?"  "Enough to come and see this. There's your Metal. How do you like it?"  He glanced around. "If you ever decide to quit the railroad business, let me know."  "You'd give me a job?"  "Any time."  She looked at him for a moment. "You're only half-kidding, Hank. I think you'd like it-having me ask you for a job. Having me for an employee instead of a customer. Giving me orders to obey."  "Yes. I would."  She said, her face hard, "Don't quit the steel business, I won't promise you a job on the railroad."  He laughed. "Don't try it."  "What?"  "To win any battle when I set the terms."  She did not answer. She was struck by what the words made her feel; it was not an emotion, but a physical sensation of pleasure, which she could not name or understand.  "Incidentally," he said, "this is not my first trip. I was here yesterday."  "You were? Why?"  "Oh, I came to Colorado on some business of my own, so I thought I'd take a look at this."  "What are you after?"  "Why do you assume that I'm after anything?"  "You wouldn't waste time coming here just to look. Not twice."  He laughed. "True." He pointed at the bridge. "I'm after that."  "What about it?"  "It's ready for the scrap heap."  "Do you suppose that I don't know it?"  "I saw the specifications of your order for Rearden Metal members for that bridge. You're wasting your money. The difference between what you're planning to spend on a makeshift that will last a couple of years, and the cost of a new Rearden Metal bridge, is comparatively so little that I don't see why you want to bother preserving this museum piece."  "I've thought of a new Rearden Metal bridge, I've had my engineers give me an estimate."  "What did they tell you?"  "Two million dollars."  "Good God!"  "What would you say?"  "Eight hundred thousand."  She looked at him. She knew that he never spoke idly. She asked, trying to sound calm, "How?"  "Like this."  He showed her his notebook. She saw the disjoined notations he had made, a great many figures, a few rough sketches. She understood his scheme before he had finished explaining it. She did not notice that they had sat down, that they were sitting on a pile of frozen lumber, that her legs were pressed to the rough planks and she could feel the cold through her thin stockings. They were bent together over a few scraps of paper which could make it possible for thousands of tons of freight to cross a cut of empty space. His voice sounded sharp and clear, while he explained thrusts, pulls, loads, wind pressures. The bridge was to be a single twelve-hundred-foot truss span. He had devised a new type of truss. It had never been made before and could not be made except with members that had the strength and the lightness of Rearden Metal.  "Hank," she asked, "did you invent this in two days?"  "Hell, no. I 'invented' it long before I had Rearden Metal. I figured it out while making steel for bridges. I wanted a metal with which one would be able to do this, among other things. I came here just to see your particular problem for myself."  He chuckled, when he saw the slow movement of her hand across her eyes and the line of bitterness in the set of her mouth, as if she were trying to wipe out the things against which she had fought such an exhausting, cheerless battle.  "This is only a rough scheme," he said, "but I believe you see what can be done?"  "I can't tell you all that I see, Hank."  "Don't bother. I know it."  "You're saving Taggart Transcontinental for the second time."  "You used to be a better psychologist than that."  "What do you mean?"  "Why should I give a damn about saving Taggart Transcontinental?  Don't you know that I want to have a bridge of Rearden Metal to show the country?"  "Yes, Hank. I know it."  "There are too many people yelping that rails of Rearden Metal are unsafe. So I thought I'd give them something real to yelp about. Let them see a bridge of Rearden Metal."  She looked at him and laughed aloud in simple delight.  "Now what's that?" he asked.  "Hank, I don't know anyone, not anyone in the world, who'd think of such an answer to people, in such circumstances-except you."  "What about you? Would you want to make the answer with me and face the same screaming?"  "You knew I would."  "Yes. I knew it."  He glanced at her, his eyes narrowed; he did not laugh as she had, but the glance was an equivalent.  She remembered suddenly their last meeting, at the party. The memory seemed incredible. Their ease with each other-the strange, light-headed feeling, which included the knowledge that it was the only sense of ease either of them found anywhere-made the thought of hostility impossible. Yet she knew that the party had taken place; he acted as if it had not.  They walked to the edge of the canyon. Together, they looked at the dark drop, at the rise of rock beyond it, at the sun high on the derricks of Wyatt Oil. She stood, her feet apart on the frozen stones, braced firmly against the wind. She could feel, without touching it, the line of his chest behind her shoulder. The wind beat her coat against his legs.  "Hank, do you think we can build it in time? There are only six months left."  "Sure. It will take less time and labor than any other type of bridge.  Let me have my engineers work out the basic scheme and submit it to you. No obligation on your part. Just take a look at it and see for yourself whether you'll be able to afford it. You will. Then you can let your college boys work out the details."  "What about the Metal?"  "I'll get the Metal rolled if I have to throw every other order out of the mills."  "You'll get it rolled on so short a notice?"  "Have I ever held you up on an order?"  "No. But the way things are going nowadays, you might not be able to help it."  "Who do you think you're talking to-Orren Boyle?"  She laughed. "All right. Let me have the drawings as soon as possible. I'll take a look and let you know within forty-eight hours. As to my college boys, they-" She stopped, frowning. "Hank, why is it so hard to find good men for any job nowadays?"  "I don't know . . ."  He looked at the lines of the mountains cut across the sky. A thin jet of smoke was rising from a distant valley.  "Have you seen the new towns of Colorado and the factories?" he asked.  "Yes."  "It's great, isn't it?-to see the kind of men they've gathered here from every corner of the country. All of them young, all of them starting on a shoestring and moving mountains."  "What mountain have you decided to move?"  "Why?"  "What are you doing in Colorado?"  He smiled. "Looking at a mining property."  "What sort?"  "Copper."  "Good God, don't you have enough to do?"  "I know it's a complicated job. But the supply of copper is becoming completely unreliable. There doesn't seem to be a single first-rate company left in the business in this country-and I don't want to deal with d'Anconia Copper. I don't trust that playboy."  "I don't blame you," she said, looking away.  "So if there's no competent person left to do it, I'll have to mine my own copper, as I mine my own iron ore. I can't take any chances on being held up by all those failures and shortages. I need a great deal of copper for Rearden Metal."  "Have you bought the mine?"  "Not yet. There are a few problems to solve. Getting the men, the equipment, the transportation."  "Oh . . . !" She chuckled. "Going to speak to me about building a branch line?"  "Might. There's no limit to what's possible in this state. Do you know that they have every kind of natural resource here, waiting, untouched? And the way their factories are growing! I feel ten years younger when I come here."  "I don't." She was looking east, past the mountains. "I think of the contrast, all over the rest of the Taggart system. There's less to carry, less tonnage produced each year. It's as if . . . Hank, what's wrong with the country?"  "I don't know."  "I keep thinking of what they told us in school about the sun losing energy, growing colder each year. I remember wondering, then, what it would be like in the last days of the world. I think it would be . . . like this. Growing colder and things stopping."  "I never believed that story. I thought by the time the sun was exhausted, men would find a substitute."  "You did? Funny. I thought that, too."  He pointed at the column of smoke. "There's your new sunrise. It's going to feed the rest."  "If it's not stopped."  "Do you think it can be stopped?"  She looked at the rail under her feet. "No," she said.  He smiled. He looked down at the rail, then let his eyes move along the track, up the sides of the mountains, to the distant crane. She saw two things, as if, for a moment, the two stood alone in her field of vision: the lines of his profile and the green-blue cord coiling through space.  "We've done it, haven't we?" he said.  In payment for every effort, for every sleepless night, for every silent thrust against despair, this moment was all she wanted. "Yes. We have."  She looked away, noticed an old crane on a siding, and thought that its cables were worn and would need replacing: This was the great clarity of being beyond emotion, after the reward of having felt everything one could feel. Their achievement, she thought, and one moment of acknowledging it, of possessing it together-what greater intimacy could one share? Now she was free for the simplest, most commonplace concerns of the moment, because nothing could be meaningless within her sight.  She wondered what made her certain that he felt as she did. He turned abruptly and started toward his car. She followed. They did not look at each other.  "I'm due to leave for the East in an hour," he said.  She pointed at the car. "Where did you get that?"  "Here. It's a Hammond. Hammond of Colorado-they're the only people who're still making a good car. I just bought it, on this trip."  "Wonderful job."  "Yes, isn't it?"  "Going to drive it back to New York?"  "No. Tm having it shipped. I flew my plane down here."  "Oh, you did? I drove down from Cheyenne-I had to see the line -but I'm anxious to get home as fast as possible. Would you take me along? Can I fly back with you?"  He did not answer at once. She noticed the empty moment of a pause. "I'm sorry," he said; she wondered whether she imagined the note of abruptness in his voice. "I'm not flying back to New York. I'm going to Minnesota."  "Oh well, then I'll try to get on an air liner, if I can find one today."  She watched his car vanish down the winding road. She drove to the airport an hour later. The place was a small field at the bottom of a break in the desolate chain of mountains. There were patches of snow on the hard, pitted earth. The pole of a beacon stood at one side, trailing wires to the ground; the other poles had been knocked down by a storm.  A lonely attendant came to meet her. "No, Miss Taggart," he said regretfully, "no planes till day after tomorrow. There's only one transcontinental liner every two days, you know, and the one that was due today has been grounded, down in Arizona. Engine trouble, as usual." He added, "It's a pity you didn't get here a bit sooner. Mr. Rearden took off for New York, in his private plane, just a little while ago."  "He wasn't flying to New York, was be?"  "Why, yes. He said so."  "Are you sure?"  "He said he had an appointment there tonight."  She looked at the sky to the east, blankly, without moving. She had no clue to any reason, nothing to give her a foothold, nothing with which to weigh this or fight it or understand.  "Damn these streets!" said James Taggart. "We're going to be late."  Dagny glanced ahead, past the back of the chauffeur. Through the circle made by a windshield wiper on the sleet-streaked glass, she saw black, worn, glistening car tops strung in a motionless line. Far ahead, the smear of a red lantern, low over the ground, marked a street excavation.  "There's something wrong on every other street," said Taggart irritably. "Why doesn't somebody fix them?"  She leaned back against the seat, tightening the collar of her wrap.  She felt exhausted at the end of a day she had started at her desk, in her office, at seven A.M.; a day she had broken off, uncompleted, to rush home and dress, because she had promised Jim to speak at the dinner of the New York Business Council "They want us to give them a talk about Rearden Metal," he had said. "You can do it so much better than I. It's very important that we present a good case. There's such a controversy about Rearden Metal."  Sitting beside him in his car, she regretted that she had agreed. She looked at the streets of New York and thought of the race between metal and time, between the rails of the Rio Norte Line and the passing days. She felt as if her nerves were being pulled tight by the stillness of the car, by the guilt of wasting an evening when she could not afford to waste an hour.  "With all those attacks on Rearden that one hears everywhere," said Taggart, "he might need a few friends."  She glanced at him incredulously. "You mean you want to stand by him?"  He did not answer at once; he asked, his voice bleak, "That report of the special committee of the National Council of Metal Industries-what do you think of it?"  "You know what I think of it."  "They said Rearden Metal is a threat to public safety. They said its chemical composition is unsound, it's brittle, it's decomposing molecularly, and it will crack suddenly, without warning . . ." He stopped, as if begging for an answer. She did not answer. He asked anxiously, "You haven't changed your mind about it, have you?"  "About what?"  "About that metal."  "No, Jim, I have not changed my mind."  "They're experts, though . . . the men on that committee. . . . Top experts . . . Chief metallurgists for the biggest corporations, with a string of degrees from universities all over the country . . ." He said it unhappily, as if he were begging her to make him doubt these men and their verdict.  She watched him, puzzled; this was not like him.  The car jerked forward. It moved slowly through a gap in a plank barrier, past the hole of a broken water main. She saw the new pipe stacked by the excavation; the pipe bore a trademark: Stockton Foundry, Colorado. She looked away; she wished she were not reminded of Colorado.  "I can't understand it . . ." said Taggart miserably. "The top experts of the National Council of Metal Industries . . ."  "Who's the president of the National Council of Metal Industries, Jim? Orren Boyle, isn't it?"  Taggart did not turn to her, but his jaw snapped open. "If that fat slob thinks he can-" he started, but stopped and did not finish.  She looked up at a street lamp on the corner. It was a globe of glass filled with light. It hung, secure from storm, lighting boarded windows and cracked sidewalks, as their only guardian. At the end of the street, across the river, against the glow of a factory, she saw the thin tracing of a power station. A truck went by, hiding her view. It was the kind of truck that fed the power station-a tank truck, its bright new paint impervious to sleet, green with white letters: Wyatt Oil, Colorado.  "Dagny, have you heard about that discussion at the structural steel workers' union meeting in Detroit?"  "No. What discussion?"  "It was in all the newspapers. They debated whether their members should or should not be permitted to work with Rearden Metal.  They didn't reach a decision, but that was enough for the contractor who was going to take a chance on Rearden Metal. He cancelled his order, but fast! . . . What if . . . what if everybody decides against it?"  "Let them."  A dot of light was rising in a straight line to the top of an invisible tower. It was the elevator of a great hotel. The car went past the building's alley. Men were moving a heavy, crated piece of equipment from a truck into the basement. She saw the name on the crate: Nielsen Motors, Colorado.  "I don't like that resolution passed by the convention of the grade school teachers of New Mexico," said Taggart.  "What resolution?"  "They resolved that it was their opinion that children should not be permitted to ride on the new Rio Norte Line of Taggart Transcontinental when it's completed, because it is unsafe. . . . They said it specifically, the new line of Taggart Transcontinental. It was in all the newspapers. It's terrible publicity for us. . . . Dagny, what do you think we should do to answer them?"  "Run the first train on the new Rio Norte Line."  He remained silent for a long time. He looked strangely dejected.  She could not understand it: he did not gloat, he did not use the opinions of his favorite authorities against her, he seemed to be pleading for reassurance.  A car flashed past them; she had a moment's glimpse of power-a smooth, confident motion and a shining body. She knew the make of the car: Hammond, Colorado.  "Dagny, are we . . . are we going to have that line built . . . on time?"  It was strange to hear a note of plain emotion in his voice, the uncomplicated sound of animal fear.  "God help this city, if we don't!" she answered.  The car turned a corner. Above the black roofs of the city, she saw the page of the calendar, hit by the white glare of a spotlight. It said: January 29.  "Dan Conway is a bastard!"  The words broke out suddenly, as if he could not hold them any longer.  She looked at him, bewildered. "Why?"  "He refused to sell us the Colorado track of the Phoenix-Durango."  "You didn't-" She had to stop. She started again, keeping her voice flat in order not to scream. "You haven't approached him about it?"  "Of course I have!"  "You didn't expect him . . . to sell it . . . to you?"  "Why not?" His hysterically belligerent manner was back, "I offered him more than anybody else did. We wouldn't have had the expense of tearing it up and carting it off, we could have used it as is. And it would have been wonderful publicity for us-that we're giving up the Rearden Metal track in deference to public opinion. It would have been worth every penny of it in good will! But the son of a bitch refused. He's actually declared that not a foot of rail would be sold to Taggart Transcontinental. He's selling it piecemeal to any stray comer, to one-horse railroads in Arkansas or North Dakota, selling it at a loss, way under what I offered him, the bastard! Doesn't even want to take a profit! And you should see those vultures flocking to him! They know they'd never have a chance to get rail anywhere else!"  She sat, her head bowed. She could not bear to look at him.  "I think it's contrary to the intent of the Anti-dog-cat-dog Rule," he said angrily. "I think it was the intent and purpose of the National Alliance of Railroads to protect the essential systems, not the jerkwaters of North Dakota. But I can't get the Alliance to vote on it now, because they're all down there, outbidding one another for that rail!"  She said slowly, as if she wished it were possible to wear gloves to handle the words, "I see why you want me to defend Rearden Metal."  "I don't know what you're-"  "Shut up, Jim," she said quietly.  He remained silent for a moment. Then he drew his head back and drawled defiantly, "You'd better do a good job of defending Rearden Metal, because Bertram Scudder can get pretty sarcastic."  "Bertram Scudder?"  "He's going to be one of the speakers tonight."  "One of the . . . You didn't tell me there were to be other speakers."  "Well . . . I . . . What difference does that make? You're not afraid of him, are you?"  "The New York Business Council . . . and you invite Bertram Scudder?"  "Why not? Don't you think it's smart? He doesn't have any hard feelings toward businessmen, not really. He's accepted the invitation.  We want to be broad-minded and hear all sides and maybe win him over. . . . Well, what are you staring at? You'll be able to beat him, won't you?"  ". . . to beat him?"  "On the air. It's going to be a radio broadcast. You're going to debate with him the question: 'Is Rearden Metal a lethal product of greed?' "  She leaned forward. She pulled open the glass partition of the front seat, ordering, "Stop the car!"  She did not hear what Taggart was saying. She noticed dimly that his voice rose to screams: "They're waiting! . . . Five hundred people at the dinner, and a national hook-up! . . . You can't do this to me!"  He seized her arm, screaming, "But why?"  "You goddamn fool, do you think I consider their question debatable?"  The car stopped, she leaped out and ran.  The first tiling she noticed after a while, was her slippers. She was walking slowly, normally, and it was strange to feel iced stone under the thin soles of black satin sandals. She pushed her hair back, off her forehead, and felt drops of sleet melting on her palm.  She was quiet now; the blinding anger was gone; she felt nothing but a gray weariness. Her head ached a little, she realized that she was hungry and remembered that she was to have had dinner at the Business Council. She walked on. She did not want to eat. She thought she would get a cup of coffee somewhere, then take a cab home.  She glanced around her. There were no cabs in sight. She did not know the neighborhood. It did not seem to be a good one. She saw an empty stretch of space across the street, an abandoned park encircled by a jagged line that began as distant skyscrapers and came down to factory chimneys; she saw a few lights in the windows of dilapidated houses, a few small, grimy shops closed for the night, and the fog of the East River two blocks away.  She started back toward the center of the city. The black shape of a ruin rose before her. It had been an office building, long ago; she saw the sky through the naked steel skeleton and the angular remnants of the bricks that had crumbled. In the shadow of the ruin, like a blade of grass fighting to live at the roots of a dead giant, there stood a small diner. Its windows were a bright band of glass and light. She went in.  There was a clean counter inside, with a shining strip of chromium at the edges. There was a bright metal boiler and the odor of coffee. A few derelicts sat at the counter, a husky, elderly man stood behind it, the sleeves of his clean white shirt rolled at the elbows. The warm air made her realize, in simple gratitude, that she had been cold. She pulled her black velvet cape tight about her and sat down at the counter.  "A cup of coffee, please," she said.  The men looked at her without curiosity. They did not seem astonished to see a woman in evening clothes enter a slum diner; nothing astonished anyone, these days. The owner turned impassively to fill her order; there was, in his stolid indifference, the kind of mercifulness that asks no questions.  She could not tell whether the four at the counter were beggars or working men; neither clothes nor manner showed the difference, these days. The owner placed a mug of coffee before her. She closed both hands about it, finding enjoyment in its warmth.  She glanced around her and thought, in habitual professional calculation, how wonderful it was that one could buy so much for a dime.  Her eyes moved from the stainless steel cylinder of the coffee boiler to the cast-iron griddle, to the glass shelves, to the enameled sink, to the chromium blades of a mixer. The owner was making toast. She found pleasure in watching the ingenuity of an open belt that moved slowly, carrying slices of bread past glowing electric coils. Then she saw the name stamped on the toaster: Marsh, Colorado.  Her head fell down on her arm on the counter.  "It's no use, lady," said the old bum beside her.  She had to raise her head. She had to smile in amusement, at him and at herself.  "It isn't?" she asked.  "No. Forget it. You're only fooling yourself."  "About what?"  "About anything being worth a damn. It's dust, lady, all of it, dust and blood. Don't believe the dreams they pump you full of, and you won't get hurt."  "What dreams?"  "The stories they tell you when you're young-about the human spirit. There isn't any human spirit. Man is just a low-grade animal, without intellect, without soul, without virtues or moral values. An animal with only two capacities: to eat and to reproduce."  His gaunt face, with staring eyes and shrunken features that had been delicate, still retained a trace of distinction. He looked like the hulk of an evangelist or a professor of esthetics who had spent years in contemplation in obscure museums. She wondered what had destroyed him, what error on the way could bring a man to this.  "You go through life looking for beauty, for greatness, for some sublime achievement," he said. "And what do you find? A lot of trick machinery for making upholstered cars or inner-spring mattresses."  "What's wrong with inner-spring mattresses?" said a man who looked like a truck driver. "Don't mind him, lady. He likes to hear himself talk. He don't mean no harm."  "Man's only talent is an ignoble cunning for satisfying the needs of his body," said the old bum. "No intelligence is required for that. Don't believe the stories about man's mind, his spirit, his ideals, his sense of unlimited ambition."  "I don't," said a young boy who sat at the end of the counter. He wore a coat ripped across one shoulder; his square-shaped mouth seemed formed by the bitterness of a lifetime.  "Spirit?" said the old bum. "There's no spirit involved in manufacturing or in sex. Yet these are man's only concerns. Matter-that's all men know or care about. As witness our great industries-the only accomplishment of our alleged civilization-built by vulgar materialists with the aims, the interests and the moral sense of hogs. It doesn't take any morality to turn out a ten-ton truck on an assembly line."  "What is morality?" she asked.  "Judgment to distinguish right and wrong, vision to see the truth, courage to act upon it, dedication to that which is good, integrity to stand by the good at any price. But where does one find it?"  The young boy made a sound that was half-chuckle, half-sneer: "Who is John Galt?"  She drank the coffee, concerned with nothing but the pleasure of feeling as if the hot liquid were reviving the arteries of her body.  "I can tell you," said a small, shriveled tramp who wore a cap pulled low over his eyes. "I know."  Nobody heard him or paid any attention. The young boy was watching Dagny with a kind of fierce, purposeless intensity.  "You're not afraid," he said to her suddenly, without explanation, a fiat statement in a brusque, lifeless voice that had a note of wonder.  She looked at him. "No," she said, "I'm not."  "I know who is John Galt," said the tramp. "It's a secret, but I know it."  "Who?" she asked without interest.  "An explorer," said the tramp. "The greatest explorer that ever lived. The man who found the fountain of youth."  "Give me another cup. Black," said the old bum, pushing his cup across the counter.  "John Galt spent years looking for it. He crossed oceans, and he crossed deserts, and he went down into forgotten mines, miles under the earth. But he found it on the top of a mountain. It took him ten years to climb that mountain. It broke every bone in his body, it tore the skin off his hands, it made him lose his home, his name, his love.  But he climbed it. He found the fountain of youth, which he wanted to bring down to men. Only he never came back."  "Why didn't he?" she asked.  "Because he found that it couldn't be brought down."  The man who sat in front of Rearden's desk had vague features and a manner devoid of all emphasis, so that one could form no specific image of his face nor detect the driving motive of his person. His only mark of distinction seemed to be a bulbous nose, a bit too large for the rest of him; his manner was meek, but it conveyed a preposterous hint, the hint of a threat deliberately kept furtive, yet intended to be recognized. Rearden could not understand the purpose of his visit. He was Dr. Potter, who held some undefined position with the State Science Institute.  "What do you want?" Rearden asked for the third time.  "It is the social aspect that I am asking you to consider, Mr. Rearden," the man said softly, "I urge you to take note of the age we're living in. Our economy is not ready for it."  "For what?"  "Our economy is in a state of extremely precarious equilibrium. We all have to pool our efforts to save it from collapse."  "Well, what is it you want me to do?"  "These are the considerations which I was asked to call to your attention. I am from the State Science Institute, Mr. Rearden."  "You've said so before. But what did you wish to see me about?"  "The State Science Institute does not hold a favorable opinion of Rearden Metal."  "You've said that, too."  "Isn't that a factor which you must take into consideration?"  "No."  The light was growing dim in the broad windows of the office. The days were short. Rearden saw the irregular shadow of the nose on the man's cheek, and the pale eyes watching him; the glance was vague, but its direction purposeful.  "The State Science Institute represents the best brains of the country, Mr. Rearden."  "So I'm told."  "Surely you do not want to pit your own judgment against theirs?"  "I do."  The man looked at Rearden as if pleading for help, as if Rearden had broken an unwritten code which demanded that he should have understood long ago. Rearden offered no help.  "Is this all you wanted to know?" he asked.  "It's only a question of time, Mr. Rearden," the man said placatingly. "Just a temporary delay. Just to give our economy a chance to get stabilized. If you'd only wait for a couple of years-"  Rearden chuckled, gaily, contemptuously. "So that's what you're after? Want me to take Rearden Metal off the market? Why?"  "Only for a few years, Mr. Rearden. Only until-"  "Look," said Rearden. "Now I'll ask you a question: did your scientists decide that Rearden Metal is not what I claim it is?"  "We have not committed ourselves as to that."  "Did they decide it's no good?"  "It is the social impact of a product that must be considered. We are thinking in terms of the country as a whole, we are concerned with the public welfare and the terrible crisis of the present moment, which-"  "Is Rearden Metal good or not?"  "If we view the picture from the angle of the alarming growth of unemployment, which at present-"  "Is Rearden Metal good?"  "At a time of desperate steel shortage, we cannot afford to permit the expansion of a steel company which produces too much, because it might throw out of business the companies which produce too little, thus creating an unbalanced economy which-"  "Are you going to answer my question?"  The man shrugged. "Questions of value are relative. If Rearden Metal is not good, it's a physical danger to the public. If it is good-it's a social danger."  "If you have anything to say to me about the physical danger of Rearden Metal, say it. drop the rest of it. Fast. I don't speak that language."  "But surely questions of social welfare-"  "drop it."  The man looked bewildered and lost, as if the ground had been cut from under his feet. In a moment, he asked helplessly, "But what, then, is your chief concern?"  "The market."  "How do you mean?"  "There's a market for Rearden Metal and I intend to take full advantage of it."  "Isn't the market somewhat hypothetical? The public response to your metal has not been encouraging. Except for the order from Taggart Transcontinental, you haven't obtained any major-"  "Well, then, if you think the public won't go for it, what are you worrying about?"  "If the public doesn't go for it, you will take a heavy loss, Mr. Rearden."  "That's my worry, not yours."  "Whereas, if you adopt a more co-operative attitude and agree to wait for a few years-"  "Why should I wait?"  "But I believe I have made it clear that the State Science Institute does not approve of the appearance of Rearden Metal on the metallurgical scene at the present time."  "Why should I give a damn about that?"  The man sighed. "You are a very difficult man, Mr. Rearden."  The sky of the late afternoon was growing heavy, as if thickening against the glass of the windowpanes. The outlines of the man's figure seemed to dissolve into a blob among the sharp, straight planes of the furniture.  "I gave you this appointment," said Rearden, "because you told me that you wished to discuss something of extreme importance. If this is all you had to say, you will please excuse me now. I am very busy."  The man settled back in his chair. "I believe you have spent ten years of research on Rearden Metal," he said. "How much has it cost you?"  Rearden glanced up: he could not understand the drift of the question, yet there was an undisguised purposefulness in the man's voice; the voice had hardened.  "One and a half million dollars," said Rearden.  "How much will you take for it?"  Rearden had to let a moment pass. He could not believe it. "For what?" he asked, his voice low.  "For all rights to Rearden Metal."  "I think you had better get out of here,"' said Rearden.  "There is no call for such an attitude. You are a businessman. I am offering you a business proposition. You may name your own price."  "The rights to Rearden Metal are not for sale."  "I am in a position to speak of large sums of money. Government money."  Rearden sat without moving, the muscles of his cheeks pulled tight; but his glance was indifferent, focused only by the faint pull of morbid curiosity.  "You are a businessman, Mr. Rearden. This is a proposition which you cannot afford to ignore. On the one hand, you are gambling against great odds, you are bucking an unfavorable public opinion, you run a good chance of losing every penny you put into Rearden Metal. On the other hand, we can relieve you of the risk and the responsibility, at an impressive profit, an immediate profit, much larger than you could hope to realize from the sale of the metal for the next twenty years."  "The State Science Institute is a scientific establishment, not a commercial one," said Rearden. "What is it that they're so afraid of?"  "You are using ugly, unnecessary words, Mr. Rearden. I am endeavoring to suggest that we keep the discussion on a friendly plane. The matter is serious."  "I am beginning to see that."  "We are offering you a blank check on what is, as you realize, an unlimited account. What else can you want? Name your price."  "The sale of the rights to Rearden Metal is not open to discussion. If you have anything else to say, please say it and leave."  The man leaned back, looked at Rearden incredulously and asked, "What are you after?"  "I? What do you mean?"  "You're in business to make money, aren't you?"  "I am."  "You want to make as big a profit as possible, don't you?"  "I do."  "Then why do you want to struggle for years, squeezing out your gains in the form of pennies per ton-rather than accept a fortune for Rearden Metal? Why?"  "Because it's mine. Do you understand the word?"  The man sighed and rose to his feet. "I hope you will not have cause to regret your decision, Mr. Rearden," he said; the tone of his voice was suggesting the opposite.  "Good day," said Rearden.  "I think I must tell you that the State Science Institute may issue an official statement condemning Rearden Metal."  'That is their privilege."  "Such a statement would make things more difficult for you."  "Undoubtedly."  "As to further consequences . . ." The man shrugged. "This is not the day for people who refuse to co-operate. In this age, one needs friends. You are not a popular man, Mr. Rearden."  "What are you trying to say?"  "Surely, you understand."  "I don't."  "Society is a complex structure. There are so many different issues awaiting decision, hanging by a thin thread. We can never tell when one such issue may he decided and what may be the decisive factor in a delicate balance. Do I make myself clear?"  "No."  The red flame of poured steel shot through the twilight. An orange glow, the color of deep gold, hit the wall behind Rearden's desk.  The glow moved gently across his forehead. His face had an unmoving serenity.  "The State Science Institute is a government organization, Mr. Rearden. There are certain bills pending in the Legislature, which may be passed at any moment. Businessmen are peculiarly vulnerable these days. I am sure you understand me."  Rearden rose to his feet. He was smiling. He looked as if all tension had left him.  "No, Dr. Potter," he said, "I don't understand. If I did, I'd have to kill you."  The man walked to the door, then stopped and looked at Rearden in a way which, for once, was simple human curiosity. Rearden stood motionless against the moving glow on the wall; he stood casually, his hands in his pockets.  "Would you tell me," the man asked, "just between us, it's only my personal curiosity-why are you doing this?"  Rearden answered quietly, "I'll tell you. You won't understand. You see, it's because Rearden Metal is good."  Dagny could not understand Mr. Mowen's motive. The Amalgamated Switch and Signal Company had suddenly given notice that they would not complete her order. Nothing had happened, she could find no cause for it and they would give no explanation.  She had hurried to Connecticut, to see Mr. Mowen in person, but the sole result of the interview was a heavier, grayer weight of bewilderment in her mind. Mr. Mowen stated that he would not continue to make switches of Rearden Metal. For sole explanation, he said, avoiding her eyes, "Too many people don't like it."  "What? Rearden Metal or your making the switches?"  "Both, I guess . . . People don't like it . . . I don't want any trouble."  "What kind of trouble?"  "Any kind."  "Have you heard a single thing against Rearden Metal that's true?"  "Aw, who knows what's true? . . . That resolution of the National Council of Metal Industries said-"  "Look, you've worked with metals all your life. For the last four months, you've worked with Rearden Metal. Don't you know that it's the greatest thing you've ever handled?" He did not answer. "Don't you know it?" He looked away. "Don't you know what's true?"  "Hell, Miss Taggart, I'm in business, I'm only a little guy. I just want to make money."  "How do you think one makes it?"  But she knew that it was useless. Looking at Mr. Mowen's face, at the eyes which she could not catch, she felt as she had felt once on a lonely section of track, when a storm blew down the telephone wires: that communications were cut and that words had become sounds which transmitted nothing.  It was useless to argue, she thought, and to wonder about people who would neither refute an argument nor accept it. Sitting restlessly in the train, on her way back to New York, she told herself that Mr. Mowen did not matter, that nothing mattered now, except finding somebody else to manufacture the switches. She was wrestling with a list of names in her mind, wondering who would be easiest to convince, to beg or to bribe.  She knew, the moment she entered the anteroom of her office, that something had happened. She saw the unnatural stillness, with the faces of her staff turned to her as if her entrance were the moment they had all waited for, hoped for and dreaded.  Eddie Willers rose to his feet and started toward the door of her office, as if knowing that she would understand and follow. She had seen his face. No matter what it was, she thought, she wished it had not hurt him quite so badly.  "The State Science Institute," he said quietly, when they were alone in her office, "has issued a statement warning people against the use of Rearden Metal." He added, "It was on the radio. It's in the afternoon papers."  "What did they say?"  "Dagny, they didn't say it! . . . They haven't really said it, yet it's there-and it isn't. That's what's monstrous about it."  His effort was focused on keeping his voice quiet; he could not control his words. The words were forced out of him by the unbelieving bewildered indignation of a child screaming in denial at his first encounter with evil.  "What did they say, Eddie?"  "They . . . You'd have to read it." He pointed to the newspaper he had left on her desk. "They haven't said that Rearden Metal is bad.  They haven't said that it's unsafe. What they've done is . . ." His hands spread and dropped in a gesture of futility.  She saw at a glance what they had done. She saw the sentences: "It may be possible that after a period of heavy usage, a sudden fissure may appear, though the length of this period cannot be predicted. . . . The possibility of a molecular reaction, at present unknown, cannot be entirely discounted. . . . Although the tensile strength of the metal is obviously demonstrable, certain questions in regard to its behavior under unusual stress are not to be ruled out.  . . . Although there is no evidence to support the contention that the use of the metal should be prohibited, a further study of its properties would be of value."  "We can't fight it. It can't be answered," Eddie was saying slowly.  "We can't demand a retraction. We can't show them our tests or prove anything. They've said nothing. They haven't said a thing that could be refuted and embarrass them professionally. It's the job of a coward.  You'd expect it from some con-man or blackmailer. But, Dagny! It's the State Science Institute!"  She nodded silently. She stood, her eyes fixed on some point beyond the window. At the end of a dark street, the bulbs of an electric sign kept going on and off, as if winking at her maliciously.  Eddie gathered his strength and said in the tone of a military report, "Taggart stock has crashed. Ben Nealy quit. The National Brotherhood of Road and Track Workers has forbidden its members to work on the Rio Norte Line. Jim has left town."  She took her hat and coat off, walked across the room and slowly, very deliberately sat down at her desk.  She noticed a large brown envelope lying before her; it bore the letterhead of Rearden Steel.  "That came by special messenger, right after you left," said Eddie.  She put her hand on the envelope, but did not open it. She knew what it was: the drawings of the bridge.  After a while, she asked, "Who issued that statement?"  Eddie glanced at her and smiled briefly, bitterly, shaking his head.  "No," he said. "I thought of that, too. I called the Institute long distance and asked them. No, it was issued by the office of Dr. Floyd Ferris, their co-ordinator."  She said nothing.  "But still! Dr. Stadler is the head of that Institute. He is the Institute. He must have known about it. He permitted it. If it's done, it's done in his name . . . Dr. Robert Stadler . . . Do you remember . . . when we were in college . . . how we used to talk about the great names in the world . . . the men of pure intellect . . . and we always chose his name as one of them, and-" He stopped. "I'm sorry, Dagny. I know it's no use saying anything. Only-"  She sat, her hand pressed to the brown envelope.  "Dagny," he asked, his voice low, "what is happening to people?  Why did that statement succeed? It's such an obvious smear-job, so obvious and so rotten. You'd think a decent person would throw it in the gutter. How could"-his voice was breaking in gentle, desperate, rebellious anger-"how could they accept it? Didn't they read it?  Didn't they see? Don't they think? Dagny! What is it in people that lets them do this-and how can we live with it?"  "Quiet, Eddie," she said, "quiet. Don't be afraid."  The building of the State Science Institute stood over a river of New Hampshire, on a lonely hillside, halfway between the river and the sky. From a distance, it looked like a solitary monument in a virgin forest. The trees were carefully planted, the roads were laid out as a park, the roof tops of a small town could be seen in a valley some miles away. But nothing had been allowed to come too close and detract from the building's austerity.  The white marble of the walls gave it a classical grandeur; the composition of its rectangular masses gave it the cleanliness and beauty of a modern plant. It was an inspired structure. From across the river, people looked at it with reverence and thought of it as a monument to a living man whose character had the nobility of the building's lines.  Over the entrance, a dedication was cut into the marble: "To the fearless mind. To the inviolate truth." In a quiet aisle, in a bare corridor, a small brass plate, such as dozens of other name plates on other doors, said: Dr. Robert Stadler.  At the age of twenty-seven, Dr. Robert Stadler had written a treatise on cosmic rays, which demolished most of the theories held by the scientists who preceded him. Those who followed, found his achievement somewhere at the base of any line of inquiry they undertook.  At the age of thirty, he was recognized as the greatest physicist of his time. At thirty-two, he became head of the Department of Physics of the Patrick Henry University, in the days when the great University still deserved its glory. It was of Dr. Robert Stadler that a writer had said: "Perhaps, among the phenomena of the universe which he is studying, none is so miraculous as the brain of Dr. Robert Stadler himself." It was Dr. Robert Stadler who had once corrected a student: "Free scientific inquiry? The first adjective is redundant."  At the age of forty, Dr. Robert Stadler addressed the nation, endorsing the establishment of a State Science Institute. "Set science free of the rule of the dollar," he pleaded. The issue had hung in the balance; an obscure group of scientists had quietly forced a bill through its long way to the floor of the Legislature; there had been some public hesitation about the bill, some doubt, an uneasiness no one could define. The name of Dr. Robert Stadler acted upon the country like the cosmic rays he studied: it pierced any barrier. The nation built the white marble edifice as a personal present to one of its greatest men.  Dr. Stadler's office at the Institute was a small room that looked like the office of the bookkeeper of an unsuccessful firm. There was a cheap desk of ugly yellow oak, a filing cabinet, two chairs, and a blackboard chalked with mathematical formulas. Sitting on one of the chairs against a blank wall, Dagny thought that the office had an air of ostentation and elegance, together: ostentation, because it seemed intended to suggest that the owner was great enough to permit himself such a setting; elegance, because he truly needed nothing else.  She had met Dr. Stadler on a few occasions, at banquets given by leading businessmen or great engineering societies, in honor of some solemn cause or another. She had attended the occasions as reluctantly as he did, and had found that he liked to talk to her.  "Miss Taggart," he had said to her once, "I never expect to encounter intelligence. That I should find it here is such an astonishing relief!" She had come to his office, remembering that sentence. She sat, watching him in the manner of a scientist: assuming nothing, discarding emotion, seeking only to observe and to understand.  "Miss Taggart," he said gaily, "I'm curious about you, I'm curious whenever anything upsets a precedent. As a rule, visitors are a painful duty to me. I'm frankly astonished that I should feel such a simple pleasure in seeing you here. Do you know what it's like to feel suddenly that one can talk without the strain of trying to force some sort of understanding out of a vacuum?"  He sat on the edge of his desk, his manner gaily informal. He was not tall, and his slenderness gave him an air of youthful energy, almost of boyish zest. His thin face was ageless; it was a homely face, but the great forehead and the large gray eyes held such an arresting intelligence that one could notice nothing else. There were wrinkles of humor in the corners of the eyes, and faint lines of bitterness in the corners of the mouth. He did not look like a man in his early fifties; the slightly graying hair was his only sign of age.  "Tell me more about yourself," he said. "I always meant to ask you what you're doing in such an unlikely career as heavy industry and how you can stand those people."  "I cannot take too much of your time, Dr. Stadler." She spoke with polite, impersonal precision. "And the matter I came to discuss is extremely important."  He laughed. "There's a sign of the businessman-wanting to come to the point at once. Well, by all means. But don't worry about my time-it's yours. Now, what was it you said you wanted to discuss? Oh yes. Rearden Metal. Not exactly one of the subjects on which I'm best informed, but if there's anything I can do for you-" His hand moved in a gesture of invitation.  "Do you know the statement issued by this Institute in regard to Rearden Metal?"  He frowned slightly. "Yes, I've heard about it."  "Have you read it?"  "No."  "It was intended to prevent the use of Rearden Metal."  "Yes, yes, I gathered that much."  "Could you tell me why?"  He spread his hands; they were attractive hands-long and bony, beautiful in their suggestion of nervous energy and strength. "I really wouldn't know. That is the province of Dr. Ferris. I'm sure he had his reasons. Would you like to speak to Dr. Ferris?"  "No. Are you familiar with the metallurgical nature of Rearden Metal, Dr. Stadler?"  "Why, yes, a little. But tell me, why are you concerned about it?"  A flicker of astonishment rose and died in her eyes; she answered without change in the impersonal tone of her voice, "I am building a branch line with rails of Rearden Metal, which-"  "Oh, but of course! I did hear something about it. You must forgive me, I don't read the newspapers as regularly as I should. It's your railroad that's building that new branch, isn't it?"  "The existence of my railroad depends upon the completion of that branch-and, I think," eventually, the existence of this country will depend on it as well."  The wrinkles of amusement deepened about his eyes. "Can you make such a statement with positive assurance, Miss Taggart? I couldn't."  "In this case?"  "In any case. Nobody can tell what the course of a country's future may be. It is not a matter of calculable trends, but a chaos subject to the rule of the moment, in which anything is possible."  "Do you think that production is necessary to the existence of a country, Dr. Stadler?"  "Why, yes, yes, of course."  "The building of our branch line has been stopped by the statement of this Institute."  He did not smile and he did not answer.  "Does that statement represent your conclusion about the nature of Rearden Metal?" she asked.  "I have said that I have not read it." There was an edge of sharpness in his voice.  She opened her bag, took out a newspaper clipping and extended it to him. "Would you read it and tell me whether this is a language which science may properly speak?"  He glanced through the clipping, smiled contemptuously and tossed it aside with a gesture of distaste. "Disgusting, isn't it?" he said. "But what can you do when you deal with people?"  She looked at him, not understanding. "You do not approve of that statement?"  He shrugged. "My approval or disapproval would be irrelevant."  "Have you formed a conclusion of your own about Rearden Metal?"  "Well, metallurgy is not exactly-what shall we say?-my specialty."  "Have you examined any data on Rearden Metal?"  "Miss Taggart, I don't see the point of your questions." His voice sounded faintly impatient.  "I would like to know your personal verdict on Rearden Metal,"  "For what purpose?"  "So that I may give it to the press."  He got up. "That is quite impossible."  She said, her voice strained with the effort of trying to force understanding, "I will submit to you all the information necessary to form a conclusive judgment."  "I cannot issue any public statements about it."  "Why not?"  "The situation is much too complex to explain in a casual discussion."  "But if you should find that Rearden Metal is, in fact, an extremely valuable product which-"  "That is beside the point."  "The value of Rearden Metal is beside the point?"  "There are other issues involved, besides questions of fact."  She asked, not quite believing that she had heard him right, "What other issues is science concerned with, besides questions of fact?"  The bitter lines of his mouth sharpened into the suggestion of a smile. "Miss Taggart, you do not understand the problems of scientists."  She said slowly, as if she were seeing it suddenly in time with her words, "I believe that you do know what Rearden Metal really is."  He shrugged. "Yes. I know. From such information as I've seen, it appears to be a remarkable thing. Quite a brilliant achievement-as far as technology is concerned." He was pacing impatiently across the office. "In fact, I should like, some day, to order a special laboratory motor that would stand just such high temperatures as Rearden Metal can take. It would be very valuable in connection with certain phenomena I should like to observe. I have found that when particles are accelerated to a speed approaching the speed of light, they-"  "Dr. Stadler," she asked slowly, "you know the truth, yet you will not state it publicly?"  "Miss Taggart, you are using an abstract term, when we are dealing with a matter of practical reality."  "We are dealing with a matter of science."  "Science? Aren't you confusing the standards involved? It is only in the realm of pure science that truth is an absolute criterion. When we deal with applied science, with technology-we deal with people.  And when we deal with people, considerations other than truth enter the question."  "What considerations?"  "I am not a technologist, Miss Taggart. I have no talent or taste for dealing with people. I cannot become involved in so-called practical matters."  "That statement was issued in your name."  "I had nothing to do with it!"  "The name of this Institute is your responsibility."  "That's a perfectly unwarranted assumption."  "People think that the honor of your name is the guarantee behind any action of this Institute."  "I can't help what people think-if they think at all!"  "They accepted your statement. It was a lie."  "How can one deal in truth when one deals with the public?"  "I don't understand you," she said very quietly.  "Questions of truth do not enter into social issues. No principles have ever had any effect on society."  "What, then, directs men's actions?"  He shrugged. "The expediency of the moment."  "Dr. Stadler," she said, "I think I must tell you the meaning and the consequences of the fact that the construction of my branch line is being stopped. I am stopped, in the name of public safety, because I am using the best rail ever produced. In six months, if I do not complete that line, the best industrial section of the country will be left without transportation. It will be destroyed, because it was the best and there were men who thought it expedient to seize a share of its wealth."  "Well, that may be vicious, unjust, calamitous-but such is life in society. Somebody is always sacrificed, as a rule unjustly; there is no other way to live among men. What can any one person do?"  "You can state the truth about Rearden Metal."  He did not answer.  "I could beg you to do it in order to save me. I could beg you to do it in order to avert a national disaster. But I won't. These may not be valid reasons. There is only one reason; you must say it, because it is true."  "I was not consulted about that statement!" The cry broke out involuntarily. "I wouldn't have allowed it! I don't like it any better than you do! But I can't issue a public denial!"  "You were not consulted? Then shouldn't you want to find out the reasons behind that statement?"  "I can't destroy the Institute now!"  "Shouldn't you want to find out the reasons?"  "I know the reasons! They won't tell me, but I know. And I can't say that I blame them, either."  "Would you tell me?"  "I'll tell you, if you wish. It's the truth that you want, isn't it? Dr. Ferris cannot help it, if the morons who vote the funds for this Institute insist on what they call results. They are incapable of conceiving of such a thing as abstract science. They can judge it only in terms of the latest gadget it has produced for them. I do not know how Dr. Ferris has managed to keep this Institute in existence, I can only marvel at his practical ability. I don't believe he ever was a first-rate scientist-but what a priceless valet of science! I know that he has been facing a grave problem lately. He's kept me out of it, he spares me all that, but I do hear rumors. People have been criticizing the Institute, because, they say, we have not produced enough. The public has been demanding economy. In times like these, when their fat little comforts are threatened, you may be sure that science is the first thing men will sacrifice. This is the only establishment left. There are practically no private research foundations any longer. Look at the greedy ruffians who run our industries. You cannot expect them to support science."  "Who is supporting you now?" she asked, her voice low.  He shrugged. "Society."  She said, with effort, "You were going to tell me the reasons behind that statement."  "I wouldn't think you'd find them hard to deduce. If you consider that for thirteen years this Institute has had a department of metallurgical research, which has cost over twenty million dollars and has produced nothing but a new silver polish and a new anti-corrosive preparation, which, I believe, is not so good as the old ones-you can imagine what the public reaction will be if some private individual comes out with a product that revolutionizes the entire science of metallurgy and proves to be sensationally successful!"  Her head dropped. She said nothing.  "I don't blame our metallurgical department!" he said angrily. "I know that results of this kind are not a matter of any predictable time.  But the public won't understand it. What, then, should we sacrifice? An excellent piece of smelting-or the last center of science left on earth, and the whole future of human knowledge? That is the alternative."  She sat, her head down. After a while, she said, "All right, Dr. Stadler. I won't argue."  He saw her groping for her bag, as if she were trying to remember the automatic motions necessary to get up.  "Miss Taggart," he said quietly. It was almost a plea. She looked up.  Her face was composed and empty.  He came closer; he leaned with one hand against the wall above her head, almost as if he wished to hold her in the circle of his arm.  "Miss Taggart," he said, a tone of gentle, bitter persuasiveness in his voice, "I am older than you. Believe me, there is no other way to live on earth, Men are not open to truth or reason. They cannot be reached by a rational argument. The mind is powerless against them. Yet we have to deal with them. If we want to accomplish anything, we have to deceive them into letting us accomplish it. Or force them. They understand nothing else. We cannot expect their support for any endeavor of the intellect, for any goal of the spirit. They are nothing but vicious animals. They are greedy, self-indulgent, predatory dollar-chasers who-"  "I am one of the dollar-chasers, Dr. Stadler," she said, her voice low.  "You are an unusual, brilliant child who has not seen enough of life to grasp the full measure of human stupidity. I've fought it all my life. I'm very tired. . . ." The sincerity of his voice was genuine. He walked slowly away from her. "There was a time when I looked at the tragic mess they've made of this earth, and I wanted to cry out, to beg them to listen-I could teach them to live so much better than they did-but there was nobody to hear me, they had nothing to hear me with. . . . Intelligence? It is such a rare, precarious spark that flashes for a moment somewhere among men, and vanishes. One cannot tell its nature, or its future . . . or its death. . . ."  She made a movement to rise.  "Don't go, Miss Taggart. I'd like you to understand."  She raised her face to him, in obedient indifference. Her face was not pale, but its planes stood out with strangely naked precision, as if its skin had lost the shadings of color.  "You're young," he said. "At your age, I had the same faith in the unlimited power of reason. The same brilliant vision of man as a rational being. I have seen so much, since. I have been disillusioned so often. . . . I'd like to tell you just one story."  He stood at the window of his office. It had grown dark outside. The darkness seemed to rise from the black cut of the river, far below. A few lights trembled in the water, from among the hills of the other shore. The sky was still the intense blue of evening. A lonely star, low over the earth, seemed unnaturally large and made the sky look darker.  "When I was at the Patrick Henry University," he said, "I had three pupils. I have had many bright students in the past, but these three were- the kind of reward a teacher prays for. If ever you could wish to receive the gift of the human mind at its best, young and delivered into your hands for guidance, they were this gift. Theirs was the kind of intelligence one expects to see, in the future, changing the course of the world. They came from very different backgrounds, but they were inseparable friends. They made a strange choice of studies. They majored in two subjects-mine and Hugh Akston's. Physics and philosophy. It is not a combination of interests one encounters nowadays. Hugh Akston was a distinguished man, a great mind . . . unlike the incredible creature whom that University has now put in his place. . . . Akston and I were a little jealous of each other over these three students. It was a kind of contest between us, a friendly contest, because we understood each other, I heard Akston saying one day that he regarded them as his sons. I resented it a little . . . because I thought of them as mine. . . ."  He turned and looked at her. The bitter lines of age were visible now, cutting across his cheeks. He said, "When I endorsed the establishment of this Institute, one of these three damned me. I have not seen him since. It used to disturb me, in the first few years. I wondered, once in a while, whether he had been right. . . . It has ceased to disturb me, long ago."  He smiled. There was nothing but bitterness now, in his smile and his face.  'These three men, these three who held all the hope which the gift of intelligence ever proffered, these three from whom we expected such a magnificent future-one of them was Francisco d'Anconia, who became a depraved playboy. Another was Ragnar Danneskjold, who became a plain bandit. So much for the promise of the human mind."  "Who was the third one?" she asked, He shrugged. "The third one did not achieve even that sort of notorious distinction. He vanished without a trace-into the great unknown of mediocrity. He is probably a second assistant bookkeeper somewhere."  "It's a lie! I didn't run away!" cried James Taggart. "I came here because I happened to be sick. Ask Dr. Wilson. It's a form of flu. He'll prove it. And how did you know that I was here?"  Dagny stood in the middle of the room; there were melting snowflakes on her coat collar, on the brim of her hat. She glanced around, feeling an emotion that would have been sadness, had she had time to acknowledge it.  It was a room in the house of the old Taggart estate on the Hudson.  Jim had inherited the place, but he seldom came here. In their childhood, this had been their father's study. Now it had the desolate air of a room which is used, yet uninhabited. There were slipcovers on all but two chairs, a cold fireplace and the dismal warmth of an electric heater with a cord twisting across the floor, a desk, its glass surface empty.  Jim lay on the couch, with a towel wrapped for a scarf around his neck. She saw a stale, filled ashtray on a chair beside him, a bottle of whisky, a wilted paper cup, and two-day-old newspapers scattered about the floor. A portrait of their grandfather hung over the fireplace, full figure, with a railroad bridge in the fading background.  "I have no time for arguments, Jim."  "It was your idea! I hope you'll admit to the Board that it was your idea. That's what your goddamn Rearden Metal has done to us! If we had waited for Orren Boyle . . ." His unshaved face was pulled by a twisted scramble of emotions: panic, hatred, a touch of triumph, the relief of screaming at a victim-and the faint, cautious, begging look that sees a hope of help.  He had stopped tentatively, but she did not answer. She stood watching him, her hands in the pockets of her coat.  "There's nothing we can do now!" he moaned. "I tried to call Washington, to get them to seize the Phoenix-Durango and turn it over to us, on the ground of emergency, but they won't even discuss it! Too many people objecting, they say, afraid of some fool precedent or another! . . . I got the National Alliance of Railroads to suspend the deadline and permit Dan Conway to operate his road for another year -that would have given us time-but he's refused to do it! I tried to get Ellis Wyatt and his bunch of friends in Colorado to demand that Washington order Conway to continue operations-but all of them, Wyatt and all the rest of those bastards, refused! It's their skin, worse than ours, they're sure to go down the drain-but they've refused!"  She smiled briefly, but made no comment.  "Now there's nothing left for us to do! We're caught. We can't give up that branch and we can't complete it. We can't stop or go on. We have no money. Nobody will touch us with a ten-foot pole! What have we got left without the Rio Norte Line? But we can't finish it. We'd be boycotted. We'd be blacklisted. That union of track workers would sue us. They would, there's a law about it. We can't complete that Line! Christ! What are we going to do?"  She waited. "Through, Jim?" she asked coldly. "If you are, I'll tell you what we're going to do."  He kept silent, looking up at her from under his heavy eyelids.  "This is not a proposal, Jim. It's an ultimatum. Just listen and accept. I am going to complete the construction of the Rio Norte Line. I personally, not Taggart Transcontinental. I will take a leave of absence from the job of Vice-President. I will form a company in my own name. Your Board will turn the Rio None Line over to me. I will act as my own contractor. I will get my own financing. I will take full charge and sole responsibility. I will complete the Line on time. After you have seen how the Rearden Metal rails can take it, I will transfer the Line back to Taggart Transcontinental and I'll return to my job. That is all."  He was looking at her silently, dangling a bedroom slipper on the tip of his foot. She had never supposed that hope could look ugly in a man's face, but it did: it was mixed with cunning. She turned her eyes away from him, wondering how it was possible that a man's first thought in such a moment could be a search for something to put over on her.  Then, preposterously, the first thing he said, his voice anxious, was, "But who will run Taggart Transcontinental in the meantime?"  She chuckled; the sound astonished her, it seemed old in its bitterness.  She said, "Eddie Willers."  "Oh no! He couldn't!"  She laughed, in the same brusque, mirthless way. "I thought you were smarter than I about things of this kind. Eddie will assume the title of Acting Vice-President. He will occupy my office and sit at my desk. But who do you suppose will run Taggart Transcontinental?"  "But I don't see how-"  "I will commute by plane between Eddie's office and Colorado. Also, there are long-distance phones available. I will do just what I have been doing. Nothing will change, except the kind of show you will put on for your friends . . . and the fact that it will be a little harder for me."  "What show?"  "You understand me, Jim. I have no idea what sort of games you're tangled in, you and your Board of Directors. I don't know how many ends you're all playing against the middle and against one another, or how many pretenses you have to keep up in how many opposite directions. I don't know or care. You can all hide behind me. If you're all afraid, because you've made deals with friends who're threatened by Rearden Metal-well, here's your chance to go through the motions of assuring them that you're not involved, that you're not doing this-I am. You can help them to curse me and denounce me. You can all stay home, take no risks and make no enemies. Just keep out of my way."  "Well . . ." he said slowly, "of course, the problems involved in the policy of a great railroad system are complex . . . while a small, independent company, in the name of one person, could afford to-"  "Yes, Jim, yes, I know all that. The moment you announce that you're turning the Rio Norte Line over to me, the Taggart stock will rise. The bedbugs will stop crawling from out of unlikely corners, since they won't have the incentive of a big company to bite. Before they decide what to do about me, I will have the Line finished. And as for me, I don't want to have you and your Board to account to, to argue with, to beg permissions from. There isn't any time for that, if I am to do the kind of job that has to be done. So I'm going to do it alone."  "And . . . if you fail?"  "If I fail, I'll go down alone."  "You understand that in such case Taggart Transcontinental will not be able to help you in any way?"  "I understand."  "You will not count on us?"  "No."  "You will cut all official connection with us, so that your activities will not reflect upon our reputation?"  "Yes."  "I think we should agree that in case of failure or public scandal . . . your leave of absence will become permanent . . . that is, you will not expect to return to the post of Vice-President."  She closed her eyes for a moment. "All right, Jim. In such case, I will not return."  "Before we transfer the Rio Norte Line to you, we must have a written agreement that you will transfer it back to us, along with your controlling interest at cost, in case the Line becomes successful. Otherwise you might try to squeeze us for a windfall profit, since we need that Line."  There was only a brief stab of shock in her eyes, then she said indifferently, the words sounding as if she were tossing alms, "By all means, Jim. Have that stated in writing."  "Now as to your temporary successor . . ."  "Yes?"  "You don't really want it to be Eddie Willers, do you?"  "Yes. I do."  "But he couldn't even act like a vice-president! He doesn't have the presence, the manner, the-"  "He knows his work and mine. He knows what I want. I trust him. I'll be able to work with him."  "Don't you think it would be better to pick one of our more distinguished young men, somebody from a good family, with more social poise and-"  "It's going to be Eddie Willers, Jim."  He sighed. "All right. Only . . . only we must be careful about it. . . . We don't want people to suspect that it's you who're still running Taggart Transcontinental. Nobody must know it."  "Everybody will know it, Jim. But since nobody will admit it openly, everybody will be satisfied."  "But we must preserve appearances."  "Oh, certainly! You don't have to recognize me on the street, if you don't want to. You can say you've never seen me before and I'll say I've never heard of Taggart Transcontinental."  He remained silent, trying to think, staring down at the floor.  She turned to look at the grounds beyond the window. The sky had the even, gray-white pallor of winter. Far below, on the shore of the Hudson, she saw the road she used to watch for Francisco's car-she saw the cliff over the river, where they climbed to look for the towers of New York-and somewhere beyond the woods were the trails that led to Rockdale Station. The earth was snow-covered now, and what remained was like the skeleton of the countryside she remembered-a thin design of bare branches rising from the snow to the sky.  It was gray and white, like a photograph, a dead photograph which one keeps hopefully for remembrance, but which has no power to bring back anything.  "What are you going to call it?"  She turned, startled. "What?"  "What are you going to call your company?"  "Oh . . . Why, the Dagny Taggart Line, I guess."  "But . . . Do you think that's wise? It might be misunderstood.  The Taggart might be taken as-"  "Well, what do you want me to call it?" she snapped, worn down to anger. "The Miss Nobody? The Madam X? The John Galt?" She stopped. She smiled suddenly, a cold, bright, dangerous smile. 'That's what I'm going to call it: the John Galt Line."  "Good God, no!"  "Yes."  "But it's . . . if s just a cheap piece of slang!"  "You can't make a joke out of such a serious project! . . . You can't be so vulgar and . . . and undignified!"  "Can't I?"  "But for God's sake, why?"  "Because it's going to shock all the rest of them just as it shocked you."  "I've never seen you playing for effects."  "I am, this time."  "But . . ." His voice dropped to an almost superstitious sound: "Look, Dagny, you know, it's . . . it's bad luck. . . . What it stands for is . . ." He stopped.  "What does it stand for?"  "I don't know . . . But the way people use it, they always seem to say it out of-"  "Fear? Despair? Futility?"  "Yes . . . yes, that's what it is."  "That's what I want to throw in their faces!"  The bright, sparkling anger in her eyes, her first look of enjoyment, made him understand that he had to keep still.  "Draw up all the papers and all the red tape in the name of the John Galt Line," she said.  He sighed. "Well, it's your Line."  "You bet it is!"  He glanced at her, astonished. She had dropped the manners and style of a vice-president; she seemed to be relaxing happily to the level of yard crews and construction gangs.  "As to the papers and the legal side of it," he said, "there might be some difficulties. We would have to apply for the permission of-"  She whirled to face him. Something of the bright, violent look still remained in her face. But it was not gay and she was not smiling. The look now had an odd, primitive quality. When he saw it, he hoped he would never have to see it again.  "Listen, Jim," she said; he had never heard that tone in any human voice. "There is one thing you can do as your part of the deal and you'd better do it: keep your Washington boys off. See to it that they give me all the permissions, authorizations, charters and other waste paper that their laws require. Don't let them try to stop me. If they try . . . Jim, people say that our ancestor, Nat Taggart, killed a politician who tried to refuse him a permission he should never have had to ask. I don't know whether Nat Taggart did it or not. But I'll tell you this: I know how he felt, if he did. If he didn't-I might do the job for him, to complete the family legend. I mean it, Jim."  Francisco d'Anconia sat in front of her desk. His face was blank. It had remained blank while Dagny explained to him, in the clear, impersonal tone of a business interview, the formation and purpose of her own railroad company. He had listened. He had not pronounced a word.  She had never seen his face wear that look of drained passivity.  There was no mockery, no amusement, no antagonism; it was as if he did not belong in these particular moments of existence and could not be reached. Yet his eyes looked at her attentively; they seemed to see more than she could suspect; they made her think of one-way glass: they let all light rays in, but none out.  "Francisco, I asked you to come here, because I wanted you to see me in my office. You've never seen it. It would have meant something to you, once."  His eyes moved slowly to look at the office. Its walls were bare, except for three things: a map of Taggart Transcontinental-the original drawing of Nat Taggart, that had served as model for his statue -and a large railroad calendar, in cheerfully crude colors, the kind that was distributed each year, with a change of its picture, to every station along the Taggart track, the kind that had hung once in her first work place at Rockdale.  He got up. He said quietly, "Dagny, for your own sake, and"-it was a barely perceptible hesitation-"and in the name of any pity you might feel for me, don't request what you're going to request. Don't. Let me go now."  This was not like him and like nothing she could ever have expected to hear from him. After a moment, she asked, "Why?"  "I can't answer you. I can't answer any questions. That is one of the reasons why it's best not to discuss it."  "You know what I am going to request?"  "Yes." The way she looked at him was such an eloquent, desperate question, that he had to add, "I know that I am going to refuse."  "Why?"  He smiled mirthlessly, spreading his hands out, as if to show her that this was what he had predicted and had wanted to avoid.  She said quietly, "I have to try, Francisco. I have to make the request. That's my part. What you'll do about it is yours. But I'll know that I've tried everything."  He remained standing, but he inclined his head a little, in assent, and said, "I will listen, if that will help you."  "I need fifteen million dollars to complete the Rio Norte Line, I have obtained seven million against the Taggart stock I own free and clear. I can raise nothing else. I will issue bonds in the name of my new company, in the amount of eight million dollars. I called you here to ask you to buy these bonds."  He did not answer.  "I am simply a beggar, Francisco, and I am begging you for money. I had always thought that one did not beg in business. I thought that one stood on the merit of what one had to offer, and gave value for value. This is not so any more, though I don't understand how we can act on any other rule and continue to exist. Judging by every objective fact, the Rio Norte Line is to be the best railroad in the country. Judging by every known standard, it is the best investment possible. And that is what damns me. I cannot raise money by offering people a good business venture: the fact that it's good, makes people reject it. There is no bank that would buy the bonds of my company. So I can't plead merit. I can only plead."  Her voice was pronouncing the words with impersonal precision. She stopped, waiting for his answer. He remained silent.  "I know that I have nothing to offer you," she said. "I can't speak to you in terms of investment. You don't care to make money. Industrial projects have ceased to concern you long ago. So I won't pretend that it's a fair exchange. It's just begging." She drew her breath and said, "Give me that money as alms, because it means nothing to you."  "Don't," he said, his voice low. She could not tell whether the strange sound of it was pain or anger; his eyes were lowered.  "Will you do it, Francisco?"  "No."  After a moment, she said, "I called you, not because I thought you would agree, but because you were the only one who could understand what I am saying. So I had to try it." Her voice was dropping lower, as if she hoped it would make emotion harder to detect. "You see, I can't believe that you're really gone . . . because I know that you're still able to hear me. The way you live is depraved. But the way you act is not. Even the way you speak of it, is not. . . . I had to try . . . But I can't struggle to understand you any longer."  "I'll give you a hint. Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong."  "Francisco," she whispered, "why don't you tell me what it was that happened to you?"  "Because, at this moment, the answer would hurt you more than the doubt."  "Is it as terrible as that?"  "It is an answer which you must reach by yourself."  She shook her head. "I don't know what to offer you. I don't know what is of value to you any longer. Don't you see that even a beggar has to give value in return, has to offer some reason why you might want to help him? . . . Well, I thought . . . at one time, it meant a great deal to you-success. Industrial success. Remember how we used to talk about it? You were very severe. You expected a lot from me. You told me I'd better live up to it. I have. You wondered how far I'd rise with Taggart Transcontinental." She moved her hand, pointing at the office. "This is how far I've risen. . . . So I thought . . . if the memory of what had been your values still has some meaning for you, if only as amusement, or a moment's sadness, or just like . . . like putting flowers on a grave . . . you might want to give me the money . . . in the name of that."  "No."  She said, with effort, "That money would mean nothing to you-you've wasted that much on senseless parties-you've wasted much more on the San Sebastian Mines-"  He glanced up. He looked straight at her and she saw the first spark of a living response in his eyes, a look that was bright, pitiless and, incredibly, proud: as if this were an accusation that gave him strength.  "Oh, yes," she said slowly, as if answering his thought, "I realize that. I've damned you for those mines, I've denounced you, I've thrown my contempt at you in every way possible, and now I come back to you-for money. Like Jim, like any moocher you've ever met. I know it's a triumph for you, I know that you can laugh at me and despise me with full justice. Well-perhaps I can offer you that. If it's amusement that you want, if you enjoyed seeing Jim and the Mexican planners crawl-wouldn't it amuse you to break me? Wouldn't it give you pleasure? Don't you want to hear me acknowledge that I'm beaten by you? Don't you want to see me crawling before you? Tell me what form of it you'd like and I'll submit."  He moved so swiftly that she could not notice how he started; it only seemed to her that his first movement was a shudder. He came around the desk, he took her hand and raised it to his lips. It began as a gesture of the gravest respect, as if its purpose were to give her strength; but as he held his lips, then his face, pressed to her hand, she knew that he was seeking strength from it himself.  He dropped her hand, he looked down at her face, at the frightened stillness of her eyes, he smiled, not trying to hide that his smile held suffering, anger and tenderness.  "Dagny, you want to crawl? You don't know what the word means and never will. One doesn't crawl by acknowledging it as honestly as that. Don't you suppose I know that your begging me was the bravest thing you could do? But . . . Don't ask me, Dagny."  "In the name of anything I ever meant to you . . ." she whispered, "anything left within you . . ."  In the moment when she thought that she had seen this look before, that this was the way he had looked against the night glow of the city, when he lay in bed by her side for the last time-she heard his cry, the kind of cry she had never torn from him before: "My love, I can't!"  Then, as they looked at each other, both shocked into silence by astonishment, she saw the change in his face. It was as crudely abrupt as if he had thrown a switch. He laughed, he moved away from her and said, his voice jarringly offensive by being completely casual: "Please excuse the mixture in styles of expression. I've been supposed to say that to so many women, but on somewhat different occasions."  Her head dropped, she sat huddled tight together, not caring that he saw it.  When she raised her head, she looked at him indifferently. "All right, Francisco. It was a good act. I did believe it. If that was your own way of having the kind of fun I was offering you, you succeeded. I won't ask you for anything."  "I warned you."  "I didn't know which side you belonged on. It didn't seem possible -but it's the side of Orren Boyle and Bertram Scudder and your old teacher."  "My old teacher?" he asked sharply.  "Dr. Robert Stadler."  He chuckled, relieved. "Oh, that one? He's the looter who thinks that his end justifies his seizure of my means." He added, "You know, Dagny, I'd like you to remember which side you said I'm on. Some day, I'll remind you of it and ask you whether you'll want to repeat it."  "You won't have to remind me."  He turned to go. He tossed his hand in a casual salute and said, "If it could be built, I'd wish good luck to the Rio Norte Line."  "It's going to be built. And it's going to be called the John Galt Line."  "What?!"  It was an actual scream; she chuckled derisively. "The John Galt Line."  "Dagny, in heaven's name, why?"  "Don't you like it?"  "How did you happen to choose that?"  "It sounds better than Mr. Nemo or Mr. Zero, doesn't it?"  "Dagny, why that?"  "Because it frightens you."  "What do you think it stands for?"  "The impossible. The unattainable. And you're all afraid of my Line just as you're afraid of that name."  He started laughing. He laughed, not looking at her, and she felt strangely certain that he had forgotten her, that he was far away, that he was laughing-in furious gaiety and bitterness-at something in which she had no part.  When he turned to her, he said earnestly, "Dagny, I wouldn't, if I were you."  She shrugged. "Jim didn't like it, either."  "What do you like about it?"  "I hate it! I hate the doom you're all waiting for, the giving up, and that senseless question that always sounds like a cry for help. I'm sick of hearing pleas for John Galt. I'm going to fight him."  He said quietly, "You are."  "I'm going to build a railroad line for him. Let him come and claim it!"  He smiled sadly and nodded: "He will."  The glow of poured steel streamed across the ceiling and broke against one wall. Rearden sat at his desk, in the light of a single lamp. Beyond its circle, the darkness of the office blended with the darkness outside. He felt as if it were empty space where the rays of the furnaces moved at will; as if the desk were a raft hanging in mid-air, holding two persons imprisoned in privacy. Dagny sat in front of his desk.  She had thrown her coat off, and she sat outlined against it, a slim, tense body in a gray suit, leaning diagonally across the wide armchair.  Only her hand lay in the light, on the edge of the desk; beyond it, he saw the pale suggestion of her face, the white of a blouse, the triangle of an open collar.  "All right, Hank," she said, "we're going ahead with a new Rearden Metal bridge. This is the official order of the official owner of the John Galt Line."  He smiled, looking down at the drawings of the bridge spread in the light on his desk. "Have you had a chance to examine the scheme we submitted?"  "Yes. You don't need my comments or compliments. The order says it."  "Very well. Thank you. I'll start rolling the Metal."  "Don't you want to ask whether the John Galt Line is in a position to place orders or to function?"  "I don't need to. Your coming here says it."  She smiled. "True. It's all set, Hank. I came to tell you that and to discuss the details of the bridge in person."  "All right, I am curious: who are the bondholders of the John Galt Line?"  "I don't think any of them could afford it. All of them have growing enterprises. All of them needed their money for their own concerns.  But they needed the Line and they did not ask anyone for help." She took a paper out of her bag. "Here's John Galt, Inc.," she said, handing it across the desk.  He knew most of the names on the list: "Ellis.. Wyatt, Wyatt Oil, Colorado. Ted Nielsen, Nielsen Motors, Colorado. Lawrence Hammond, Hammond Cars, Colorado. Andrew Stockton, Stockton Foundry, Colorado." There were a few from other states; he noticed the name: "Kenneth Danagger, Danagger Coal, Pennsylvania." The amounts of their subscriptions varied, from sums in five figures to six.  He reached for his fountain pen, wrote at the bottom of the list "Henry Rearden, Rearden Steel, Pennsylvania-$1,000,000" and tossed the list back to her.  "Hank," she said quietly, "I didn't want you- in on this. You've invested so much in Rearden Metal that it's worse for you than for any of us. You can't afford another risk."  "I never accept favors." he answered coldly.  "What do you mean?"  "I don't ask people to take greater chances on my ventures than I take myself. If it's a gamble, I'll match anybody's gambling. Didn't you say that that track was my first showcase?"  She inclined her head and said gravely, "All right. Thank you."  "Incidentally, I don't expect to lose this money. I am aware of the conditions under which these bonds can be converted into stock at my option. I therefore expect to make an inordinate profit-and you're going to earn it for me."  She laughed. "God, Hank, I've spoken to so many yellow fools that they've almost infected me into thinking of the Line as of a hopeless loss! Thanks for reminding me. Yes, I think I'll earn your inordinate profit for you."  "If it weren't for the yellow fools, there wouldn't be any risk in it at all. But we have to beat them. We will." He reached for two telegrams from among the papers on his desk. "There are still a few men in existence." He extended the telegrams. "I think you'd like to see these."  One of them read: "I had intended to undertake it in two years, but the statement of the State Science Institute compels me to proceed at once. Consider this a commitment for the construction of a 12inch pipe line of Rearden Metal, 600 miles, Colorado to Kansas City. Details follow. Ellis Wyatt."  The other read: "Re our discussion of my order. Go ahead. Ken Danagger."  He added, in explanation, "He wasn't prepared to proceed at once, either. It's eight thousand tons of Rearden Metal. Structural metal. For coal mines."  They glanced at each other and smiled. They needed no further comment.  He glanced down, as she handed the telegrams back to him. The skin of her hand looked transparent in the light, on the edge of his desk, a young girl's hand with long, thin fingers, relaxed for a moment, defenseless.  "The Stockton Foundry in Colorado," she said, "is going to finish that order for me-the one that the Amalgamated Switch and Signal Company ran out on. They're going to get in touch with you about the Metal."  "They have already. What have you done about the construction crews?"  "Nealy's engineers are staying on, the best ones, those I need. And most of the foremen, too. It won't be too hard to keep them going. Nealy wasn't of much use, anyway."  "What about labor?"  "More applicants than I can hire. I don't think the union is going to interfere. Most of the applicants are giving phony names. They're union members. They need the work desperately. I'll have a few guards on the Line, but I don't expect any trouble."  "What about your brother Jim's Board of Directors?"  "They're all scrambling to get statements into the newspapers to the effect that they have no connection whatever with the John Galt Line and how reprehensible an undertaking they think it is. They agreed to everything I asked."  The line of her shoulders looked taut, yet thrown back easily, as if poised for flight. Tension seemed natural to her, not a sign of anxiety, but a sign of enjoyment; the tension of her whole body, under the gray suit, half-visible in the darkness, "Eddie Willers has taken over the office of Operating Vice-President," she said. "If you need anything, get in touch with him. I'm leaving for Colorado tonight."  "Tonight?"  "Yes. We have to make up time. We've lost a week."  "Flying your own plane?"  "Yes. I'll be back in about ten days, I intend to be in New York once or twice a month."  "Where will you live out there?"  "On the site. In my own railway car-that is, Eddie's car, which I'm borrowing."  "Will you be safe?"  "Safe from what?" Then she laughed, startled. "Why, Hank, it's the first time you've ever thought that I wasn't a man. Of coarse I'll be safe."  He was not looking at her; he was looking at a sheet of figures on his desk. "I've had my engineers prepare a breakdown of the cost of the bridge," he said, "and an approximate schedule of the construction time required. That is what I wanted to discuss with you." He extended the papers. She settled back to read them.  A wedge of light fell across her face. He saw the firm, sensual mouth in sharp outline. Then she leaned back a little, and he saw only a suggestion of its shape and the dark lines of her lowered lashes.  Haven't I?-he thought. Haven't I thought of it since the first time I saw you? Haven't I thought of nothing else for two years? . . . He sat motionless, looking at her. He heard the words he had never allowed himself to form, the words he had felt, known, yet had not faced, had hoped to destroy by never letting them be said within his own mind. Now it was as sudden and shocking as if he were saying it to her. . . . Since the first time I saw you . . . Nothing but your body, that mouth of yours, and the way your eyes would look at me, if . . . Through every sentence I ever said to you, through every conference you thought so safe, through the importance of all the issues we discussed . . . You trusted me, didn't you? To recognize your greatness? To think of you as you deserved-as if you were a man? . . . Don't you suppose I know how much I've betrayed? The only bright encounter of my life-the only person I respected-the best businessman I know-my ally-my partner in a desperate battle . . .  The lowest of all desires-as my answer to the highest I've met . . .  Do you know what I am? I thought of it, because it should have been unthinkable. For that degrading need, which should never touch you, I have never wanted anyone but you . . . I hadn't known what it was like, to want it, until I saw you for the first time. I had thought: Not I, I couldn't be broken by it . . . Since then . . . for two years . . . with not a moment's respite . . . Do you know what it's like, to want it? Would you wish to hear what I thought when I looked at you . . . when I lay awake at night . . . when I heard your voice over a telephone wire . . . when I worked, but could not drive it away?  . . . To bring you down to things you can't conceive-and to know that it's I who have done it. To reduce you to a body, to teach you an animal's pleasure, to see you need it, to see you asking me for it, to see your wonderful spirit dependent upon the obscenity of your need. To watch you as you are, as you face the world with your clean, proud strength-then to see you, in my bed, submitting to any infamous whim I may devise, to any act which I'll perform for the sole purpose of watching your dishonor and to which you'll submit for the sake of an unspeakable sensation . . . I want you-and may I be damned for it! . . .  She was reading the papers, leaning back in the darkness-he saw the reflection of the fire touching her hair, moving to her shoulder, down her arm, to the naked skin of her wrist.  . . . Do you know what I'm thinking now, in this moment? . . .  Your gray suit and your open collar . . . you look so young, so austere, so sure of yourself . . . What would you be like if I knocked your head back, if I threw you down in that formal suit of yours, if I raised your skirt-  She glanced up at him. He looked down at the papers on his desk.  In a moment, he said, "The actual cost of the bridge is less than our original estimate. You will note that the strength of the bridge allows for the eventual addition of a second track, which, I think, that section of the country will justify in a very few years. If you spread the cost over a period of-"  He spoke, and she looked at his face in the lamplight, against the black emptiness of the office. The lamp was outside her field of vision, and she felt as if it were his face that illuminated the papers on the desk. His face, she thought, and the cold, radiant clarity of his voice, of his mind, of his drive to  a single purpose. The face was like his words-as if the line of a single theme ran from the steady glance of the eyes, through the gaunt muscles of the cheeks, to the faintly scornful, downward curve of the mouth-the line of a ruthless asceticism.  The day began with the news of a disaster: a freight train of the Atlantic Southern had crashed head-on into a passenger train, in New Mexico, on a sharp curve in the mountains, scattering freight cars all over the slopes. The cars carried five thousand tons of copper, bound from a mine in Arizona to the Rearden mills, Rearden telephoned the general manager of the Atlantic Southern, but the answer he received was: "Oh God, Mr. Rearden, how can we tell? How can anybody tell how long it will take to clear that wreck?  One of the worst we've ever had . . . I don't know, Mr. Rearden.  There are no other lines anywhere in that section. The track is torn for twelve hundred feet. There's been a rockslide. Our wrecking train can't get through. I don't know how we'll ever get those freight cars back on rails, or when. Can't expect it sooner than two weeks . . .  Three days? Impossible, Mr. Rearden! . . . But we can't help it! . . . But surely you can tell your customers that it's an act of God! What if you do hold them up? Nobody can blame you in a case of this kind!"  In the next two hours, with the assistance of his secretary, two young engineers from his shipping department, a road map, and the long-distance telephone, Rearden arranged for a fleet of trucks to proceed to the scene of the wreck, and for a chain of hopper cars to meet them at the nearest station of the Atlantic Southern. The hopper cars had been borrowed from Taggart Transcontinental. The trucks had been recruited from all over New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado. Rearden's engineers had hunted by telephone for private truck owners and had offered payments that cut all arguments short.  It was the third of three shipments of copper that Rearden. had expected; two orders had not been delivered: one company had gone out of business, the other was still pleading delays that it could not help.  He had attended to the matter without breaking his chain of appointments, without raising his voice, without sign of strain, uncertainty or apprehension; he had acted with the swift precision of a military commander under sudden fire-and Gwen Ives, his secretary, had acted as his calmest lieutenant. She was a girl in her late twenties, whose quietly harmonious, impenetrable face had a quality matching the best designed office equipment; she was one of his most ruthlessly competent employees; her manner of performing her duties suggested the kind of rational cleanliness that would consider any element of emotion, while at work, as an unpardonable immorality.  When the emergency was over, her sole comment was, "Mr. Rearden, I think we should ask all our suppliers to ship via Taggart Transcontinental." "I'm thinking that, too," he answered; then added, "Wire Fleming in Colorado. Tell him I'm taking an option on that copper mine property."  He was back at his desk, speaking to his superintendent on one phone and to his purchasing manager on another, checking every date and ton of ore on hand-he could not leave to chance or to another person the possibility of a single hour's delay in the flow of a furnace: it was the last of the rail for the John Galt Line that was being poured-when the buzzer rang and Miss Ives' voice announced that his mother was outside, demanding to see him.  He had asked his family never to come to the mills without appointment. He had been glad that they hated the place and seldom appeared in his office. What he now felt was a violent impulse to order his mother off the premises. Instead, with a greater effort than the problem of the train wreck had required of him, he said quietly, "All right. Ask her to come in."  His mother came in with an air of belligerent defensiveness. She looked at his office as if she knew what it meant to him and as if she were declaring her resentment against anything being of greater importance to him than her own person. She took a long time settling down in an armchair, arranging and rearranging her bag, her gloves, the folds of her dress, while droning, "It's a fine thing when a mother has to wait in an anteroom and ask permission of a stenographer before she's allowed to see her own son who-"  "Mother, is it anything important? I am very rushed today."  "You're not the only one who's got problems. Of course, it's important. Do you think I'd go to the trouble of driving way out here, if it wasn't important?"  "What is it?"  "It's about Philip."  "Yes?"  "Philip is unhappy."  "Well?"  "He feels it's not right that he should have to depend on your charity and live on handouts and never be able to count on a single dollar of his own."  "Well!" he said with a startled smile. "I've been waiting for him to realize that."  "It isn't right for a sensitive man to be in such a position."  "It certainly isn't."  "I'm glad you agree with me. So what you have to do is give him a job."  "A . . . what?"  "You must give him a job, here, at the mills-but a nice, clean job, of course, with a desk and an office and a decent salary, where he wouldn't have to be among your day laborers and your smelly furnaces."  He knew that he was hearing it; he could not make himself believe it. "Mother, you're not serious."  "I certainly am. I happen to know that that's what he wants, only 's too proud to ask you for it But if you offer it to him and make it look like it's you who're asking him a favor-why, I know he'd be happy to take it. That's why I had to come here to talk to you-so he wouldn't guess that I put you up to it."  It was not in the nature of his consciousness to understand the nature of the things he was hearing. A single thought cut through his mind like a spotlight, making him unable to conceive how any eyes could miss it. The thought broke out of him as a cry of bewilderment: "But he knows nothing about the steel business!"  "What has that got to do with it? He needs a job."  "But he couldn't do the work."  "He needs to gain self-confidence and to feel important."  "But he wouldn't be any good whatever."  "He needs to feel that he's wanted."  "Here? What could I want him for?"  "You hire plenty of strangers."  "I hire men who produce. What has he got to offer?"  "He's your brother, isn't he?"  "What has that got to do with it?"  She stared incredulously, in turn, silenced by shock. For a moment, they sat looking at each other, as if across an interplanetary distance.  "He's your brother," she said, her voice like a phonograph record repeating a magic formula she could not permit herself to doubt. "He needs a position in the world. He needs a salary, so that he'd feel that he's got money coming to him as his due, not as alms."  "As his due? But he wouldn't be worth a nickel to me."  "Is that what you think of first? Your profit? I'm asking you to help your brother, and you're figuring how to make a nickel on him, and you won't help him unless there's money in it for you-is that it?"  She saw the expression of his eyes, and she looked away, but spoke hastily, her voice rising. "Yes, sure, you're helping him-like you'd help any stray beggar. Material help-that's all you know or understand. Have you thought about his spiritual needs and what his position is doing to his self-respect? He doesn't want to live like a beggar. He wants to be independent of you."  "By means of getting from me a salary he can't earn for work he can't do?"  "You'd never miss it. You've got enough people here who're making money for you."  "Are you asking me to help him stage a fraud of that kind?"  "You don't have to put it that way."  "Is it a fraud-or isn't it?"  "That's why I can't talk to you-because you're not human. You have no pity, no feeling for your brother, no compassion for his feelings."  "Is it a fraud or not?"  "You have no mercy for anybody."  "Do you think that a fraud of this kind would be just?"  "You're the most immoral man living-you think of nothing but justice! You don't feel any love at all!"  He got up, his movement abrupt and stressed, the movement of ending an interview and ordering a visitor out of his office. "Mother, I'm running a steel plant-not a whorehouse."  "Henry!" The gasp of indignation was at his choice of language, nothing more.  "Don't ever speak to me again about a job for Philip. I would not give him the job of a cinder sweeper. I would not allow him inside my mills. I want you to understand that, once and for all. You may try to help him in any way you wish, but don't ever let me see you thinking of my mills as a means to that end."  The wrinkles of her soft chin trickled into a shape resembling a sneer. "What are they, your mills-a holy temple of some kind?"  "Why . . . yes," he said softly, astonished at the thought.  "Don't you ever think of people and of your moral duties?"  "I don't know what it is that you choose to call morality. No, I don't think of people-except that if I gave a job to Philip, I wouldn't be able to face any competent man who needed work and deserved it."  She got up. Her head was drawn into her shoulders, and the righteous bitterness of her voice seemed to push the words upward at his tall, straight figure: "That's your cruelty, that's what's mean and selfish about you. If you loved your brother, you'd give him a job he didn't deserve, precisely because he didn't deserve it-that would be true love and kindness and brotherhood. Else what's love for? If a man deserves a job, there's no virtue in giving it to him. Virtue is the giving of the undeserved."  He was looking at her like a child at an unfamiliar nightmare, incredulity preventing it from becoming horror. "Mother," he said slowly, "you don't know what you're saying. I'm not able ever to despise you enough to believe that you mean it."  The look on her face astonished him more than all the rest: it was a look of defeat and yet of an odd, sly, cynical cunning, as if, for a moment, she held some worldly wisdom that mocked his innocence.  The memory of that look remained in his mind, like a warning signal telling him that he had glimpsed an issue which he had to understand.  But he could not grapple with it, he could not force his mind to accept it as worthy of thought, he could find no clue except his dim uneasiness and his revulsion-and he had no time to give it, he could not think of it now, he was facing his next caller seated in front of his desk-he was listening to a man who pleaded for his life.  The man did not state it in such terms, but Rearden knew that that was the essence of the case. What the man put into words was only a plea for five hundred tons of steel.  He was Mr. Ward, of the Ward Harvester Company of Minnesota.  It was an unpretentious company with an unblemished reputation, the kind of business concern that seldom grows large, but never fails. Mr. Ward represented the fourth generation of a family that had owned the plant and had given it the conscientious best of such ability as they possessed.  He was a man in his fifties, with a square, stolid face. Looking at him, one knew that he would consider it as indecent to let his face show suffering as to remove his clothes in public. He spoke in a dry, businesslike manner. He explained that he had always dealt, as his father had, with one of the small steel companies now taken over by Orren Boyle's Associated Steel. He had waited for his last order of steel for a year. He had spent the last month struggling to obtain a personal interview with Rearden.  "I know that your mills are running at capacity, Mr. Rearden," he said, "and I know that you are not in a position to take care of new orders, what with your biggest, oldest customers having to wait their turn, you being the only decent-I mean, reliable-steel manufacturer left in the country. I don't know what reason to offer you as to why you should want to make an exception in my case. But there was nothing else for me to do, except close the doors of my plant for good, and I"- there was a slight break in his voice-"I can't quite see my way to closing the doors . . . as yet . . . so I thought I'd speak to you, even if I didn't have much chance . . . still, I had to try everything possible."  This was language that Rearden could understand, "I wish I could help you out," he said, "but this is the worst possible time for me, because of a very large, very special order that has to take precedence over everything."  "I know. But would you just give me a hearing, Mr. Rearden?"  "Sure."  "If it's a question of money, I'll pay anything you ask. If I could make it worth your while that way, why, charge me any extra you please, charge me double the regular price, only let me have the steel. I wouldn't care if I had to sell the harvester at a loss this year, just so I could keep the doors open. I've got enough, personally, to run at a loss for a couple of years, if necessary, just to hold out-because, I figure, things can't go on this way much longer, conditions are bound to improve, they've got to or else we'll-" He did not finish. He said firmly, "They've got to."  "They will," said Rearden.  The thought of the John Galt Line ran through his mind like a harmony under the confident sound of his words. The John Galt Line was moving forward. The attacks on his Metal had ceased. He felt as if, miles apart across the country, he and Dagny Taggart now stood in empty space, their way cleared, free to finish the job. They'll leave us alone to do it, he thought. The words were like a battle hymn in his mind: They'll leave us alone.  "Our plant capacity is one thousand harvesters per year," said Mr. Ward. "Last year, we put out three hundred. I scraped the steel together from bankruptcy sales, and begging a few tons here and there from big companies, and just going around like a scavenger to all sorts of unlikely places-well, I won't bore you with that, only I never thought I'd live to see the time when I'd have to do business that way. And all the while Mr. Orren Boyle was swearing to me that he was going to deliver the steel next week. But whatever he managed to pour, it went to new customers of his, for some reason nobody would mention, only I heard it whispered that they were men with some sort of political pull. And now I can't even get to Mr. Boyle at all. He's in Washington, been there for over a month. And all his office tells me is just that they can't help it, because they can't get the ore."  "Don't waste your time on them," said Rearden. "You'll never get anything from that outfit."  "You know, Mr. Rearden," he said in the tone of a discovery which he could not quite bring himself to believe, "I think there's something phony about the way Mr. Boyle runs his business. I can't understand what he's after. They've got half their furnaces idle, but last month there were all those big stories about Associated Steel in all the newspapers. About their output? Why, no-about the wonderful housing project that Mr. Boyle's just built for his workers. Last week, it was colored movies that Mr. Boyle sent to all the high schools, showing how steel is made and what great service it performs for everybody. Now Mr. Boyle's got a radio program, they give talks about the importance of the steel industry to the country and they keep saying that we must preserve the steel industry as a whole. I don't understand what he means by it as a whole."  "I do. Forget it. He won't get away with it."  "You know, Mr. Rearden, I don't like people who talk too much about how everything they do is just for the sake of others. It's not true, and I don't think it would be right if it ever were true. So I'll say that what I need the steel for is to save my own business. Because it's mine. Because if I had to close it . . . oh well, nobody understands that nowadays."  "I do."  "Yes . . . Yes, I think you would. . . . So, you see, that's my first concern. But still, there are my customers, too. They've dealt with me for years. They're counting on me. It's just about impossible to get any sort of machinery anywhere. Do you know what it's getting to be like, out in Minnesota, when the farmers can't get tools, when machine break down in the middle of the harvest season and there are no parts, no replacements . . . nothing but Mr. Orren Boyle's colored movies about . . . Oh well . . . And then there are my workers, too. Some of them have been with us since my father's time. They've got no other place to go. Not now."  It was impossible, thought Rearden, to squeeze more steel out of mills where every furnace, every hour and every ton were scheduled in advance for urgent orders, for the next six months. But . . . The John Galt Line, he thought. If he could do that, he could do anything.  - . . He felt as if he wished to undertake ten new problems at once.  He felt as if this were a world where nothing was impossible to him.  "Look," he said, reaching for the telephone, "let me check with my superintendent and see just what we're pouring in the next few weeks.  Maybe I'll find a way to borrow a few tons from some of the orders and-"  Mr. Ward looked quickly away from him, but Rearden had caught a glimpse of his face. It's so much for him, thought Rearden, and so little for me!  He lifted the telephone receiver, but he had to drop it, because the door of his office flew open and Gwen Ives rushed in.  It seemed impossible that Miss Ives should permit herself a breach of that kind, or that the calm of her face should look like an unnatural distortion, or that her eyes should seem blinded, or that her steps should sound a shred of discipline away from staggering. She said, "Excuse me for interrupting, Mr. Rearden," but he knew that she did not see the office, did not see Mr. Ward, saw nothing but him. "I thought I must tell you that the Legislature has just passed the Equalization of Opportunity Bill."  It was the stolid Mr. Ward who screamed, "Oh God, no! Oh, no!"- staring at Rearden.  Rearden had leaped to his feet. He stood unnaturally bent, one shoulder drooping forward. It was only an instant. Then he looked around him, as if regaining eyesight, said, "Excuse me," his glance including both Miss Ives and Mr. Ward, and sat down again.  "We were not informed that the Bill had been brought to the floor, were we?" he asked, his voice controlled and dry.  "No, Mr. Rearden. Apparently, it was a surprise move and it took them just forty-five minutes."  "Have you heard from Mouch?"  "No, Mr. Rearden." She stressed the no. "It was the office boy from the fifth floor who came running in to tell me that he'd just heard it on the radio. I called the newspapers to verify it. I tried to reach Mr. Mouch in Washington. His office does not answer."  "When did we hear from him last?"  "Ten days ago, Mr. Rearden."  "All right. Thank you, Gwen. Keep trying to get his office."  "Yes, Mr. Rearden."  She walked out. Mr. Ward was on his feet, hat in hand. He muttered, "I guess I'd better-"  "Sit down!" Rearden snapped fiercely.  Mr. Ward obeyed, staring at him.  "We had business to transact, didn't we?" said Rearden. Mr. Ward could not define the emotion that contorted Rearden's mouth as he spoke. "Mr. Ward, what is it that the foulest bastards on earth denounce us for, among other things? Oh yes, for our motto of 'Business as usual.' Well-business as usual, Mr. Ward!"  He picked up the telephone receiver and asked for his superintendent. "Say, Pete . . . What? . . . Yes, I've heard. Can it. We'll talk about that later. What I want to know is, could you let me have five hundred tons of steel, extra, above schedule, in the next few weeks?  . . . Yes, I know . . . I know it's tough. . . . Give me the dates and the figures." He listened, rapidly jotting notes down on a sheet of paper. Then he said, "Right. Thank you," and hung up.  He studied the figures for a few moments, marking some brief calculations on the margin of the sheet. Then he raised his head.  "All right, Mr. Ward," he said. "You will have your steel in ten days."  When Mr. Ward had gone, Rearden came out into the anteroom.  He said to Miss Ives, his voice normal, "Wire Fleming in Colorado. He'll know why I have to cancel that option." She inclined her head, in the manner of a nod signifying obedience. She did not look at him.  He turned to his next caller and said, with a gesture of invitation toward his office, "How do you do. Come in."  He would think of it later, he thought; one moves step by step and one must keep moving. For the moment, with an unnatural clarity, with a brutal simplification that made it almost easy, his consciousness contained nothing but one thought: It must not stop me. The sentence hung alone, with no past and no future. He did not think of what it was that must not stop him, or why this sentence was such a crucial absolute. It held him and he obeyed. He went step by step. He completed his schedule of appointments, as scheduled.  It was late when his last caller departed and he came out of his office. The rest of his staff had gone home. Miss Ives sat alone at her desk in an empty room. She sat straight and stiff, her hands clasped tightly together in her lap. Her head was not lowered, but held rigidly level, and her face seemed frozen. Tears were running down her cheeks, with no sound, with no facial movement, against her resistance, beyond control.  She saw him and said dryly, guiltily, in apology, "I'm sorry, Mr. Rearden," not attempting the futile pretense of hiding her face.  He approached her. "Thank you," he said gently.  She looked up at him, astonished.  He smiled. "But don't you think you're underestimating me, Gwen? Isn't it too soon to cry over me?"  "I could have taken the rest of it," she whispered, "but they"-she pointed at the newspapers on her desk-"they're calling it a victory for anti-greed."  He laughed aloud. "I can see where such a distortion of the English language would make you furious," he said. "But what else?"  As she looked at him, her mouth relaxed a little. The victim whom she could not protect was her only point of reassurance in a world dissolving around her.  He moved his hand gently across her forehead; it was an unusual break of formality for him, and a silent acknowledgment of the things at which he had not laughed. "Go home, Gwen. I won't need you tonight. I'm going home myself in just a little while. No, I don't want you to wait."  It was past midnight, when, still sitting at his desk, bent over blueprints of the bridge for the John Galt Line, he stopped his work abruptly, because emotion reached him in a sudden stab, not to be escaped any longer, as if a curtain of anesthesia had broken, He slumped down, halfway, still holding onto some shred of resistance, and sat, his chest pressed to the edge of the desk to stop him, his head hanging down, as if the only achievement still possible to him was not to let his head drop down on the desk. He sat that way for a few moments, conscious of nothing but pain, a screaming pain without content or limit-he sat, not knowing whether it was in his mind or his body, reduced to the terrible ugliness of pain that stopped thought.  In a few moments, it was over. He raised his head and sat up straight, quietly, leaning back against his chair. Now he saw that in postponing this moment for hours, he had not been guilty of evasion: he had not thought of it, because there was nothing to think.  Thought-he told himself quietly-is a weapon one uses in order to act. No action was possible. Thought is the tool by which one makes a choice. No choice was left to him. Thought sets one's purpose and the way to reach it. In the matter of his life being torn piece by piece out of him, he was to have no voice, no purpose, no way, no defense.  He thought of this in astonishment. He saw for the first time that he had never known fear because, against any disaster, he had held the omnipotent cure of being able to act. No, he thought, not an assurance of victory-who can ever have that?-only the chance to act, which is all one needs. Now he was contemplating, impersonally and for the first time, the real heart of terror: being delivered to destruction with one's hands tied behind one's back.  Well, then, go on with your hands tied, he thought. Go on in chains.  Go on. It must not stop you. . . . But another voice was telling him things he did not want to hear, while he fought back, crying through and against it: There's no point in thinking of that . . . there's no use . . . what for? . . . leave it alone!  He could not choke it off. He sat still, over the drawings of the bridge for the John Galt Line, and heard the things released by a voice that was part-sound, part-sight: They decided it without him. . . . They did not call for him, they did not ask, they did not let him speak. . . . They were not bound even by the duty to let him know- to let him know that they had slashed part of his life away and that he had to be ready to walk on as a cripple. . . . Of all those concerned, whoever they were, for whichever reason, for whatever need, he was the one they had not had to consider.  The sign at the end of a long road said: Rearden Ore. It hung over black tiers of metal . . . and over years and nights . . . over a clock ticking drops of his blood away . . . the blood he had given gladly, exultantly in payment for a distant day and a sign over a road . . paid for with his effort, his strength, his mind, his hope.  Destroyed at the whim of some men who sat and voted . . . Who knows by what minds? . . . Who knows whose will had placed them in power?- what motive moved them?-what was their knowledge?-which one of them, unaided, could bring a chunk of ore out of the earth? . . . Destroyed at the whim of men whom he had never seen and who had never seen those tiers of metal . . . Destroyed, because they so decided. By what right?  He shook his head. There are things one must not contemplate, he thought. There is an obscenity of evil which contaminates the observer. There is a limit to what it is proper for a man to see. He must not think of this, or look within it, or try to learn the nature of its roots.  Feeling quiet and empty, he told himself that he would be all right tomorrow. He would forgive himself the weakness of this night, it was like the tears one is permitted at a funeral, and then one learns how to live with an open wound or with a crippled factory.  He got up and walked to the window. The mills seemed deserted and still; he saw feeble snatches of red above black funnels, long coils of steam, the webbed diagonals of cranes and bridges.  He felt a desolate loneliness, of a kind he had never known before.  He thought that Gwen Ives and Mr. Ward could look to him for hope, for relief, for renewal of courage. To whom could he look for it? He, too, needed it, for once. He wished he had a friend who could be permitted to see him suffer, without pretense or protection, on whom he could lean for a moment, just to say, "I'm very tired," and find a moment's rest. Of all the men he knew, was there one he wished he had beside him now? He heard the answer in his mind, immediate and shocking: Francisco d'Anconia.  His chuckle of anger brought him back. The absurdity of the longing jolted him into calm. That's what you get, he thought, when you indulge yourself in weakness.  He stood at the window, trying not to think. But he kept hearing words in his mind: Rearden Ore . . . Rearden Coal . . . Rearden Steel . . . Rearden Metal . . . What was the use? Why had he done it? Why should he ever want to do anything again? . . .  His first day on the ledges of the ore mines . . . The day when he stood in the wind, looking down at the ruins of a steel plant . . . The day when he stood here, in this office, at this window, and thought that a bridge could be made to carry incredible loads on just a few bars of metal, if one combined a truss with an arch, if one built diagonal bracing with the top members curved to-  He stopped and stood still. He had not thought of combining a truss with an arch, that day.  In the next moment, he was at his desk, bending over it, with one knee on the seat of the chair, with no time to think of sitting down, he was drawing lines, curves, triangles, columns of calculations, indiscriminately on the blueprints, on the desk blotter, on somebody's letters.  And an hour later, he was calling for a long-distance line, he was waiting for a phone to ring by a bed in a railway car on a siding, he was saying, "Dagny! That bridge of ours-throw in the ash can all the drawings I sent you, because . . . What? . . . Oh, that? To hell with that! Never mind the looters and their laws! Forget it! Dagny, what do we care! Listen, you know the contraption you called the Rearden Truss, that you admired so much? It's not worth a damn. I've figured out a truss that will beat anything ever built! Your bridge will carry four trains at once, stand three hundred years and cost you less than your cheapest culvert. I'll send you the drawings in two days, but I wanted to tell you about it right now. You see, it's a matter of combining a truss with an arch. If we take diagonal bracing and . . .  What? . . . I can't hear you. Have you caught a cold? . . . What are you thanking me for, as yet? Wait till I explain it to you."