“Don’t think of it,” Mr. Weatherby cut in snappily. “Don’t try dreaming about any repeals. We wouldn’t consider it. We wouldn’t even consider listening to any talk on the subject.”
“Mr. Chairman,” the gray-haired man asked quietly, “shall I continue?”
The chairman spread out his hands, with a smooth smile, indicating helplessness. “It would be impractical,” he answered.
“I think we’d better confine the discussion to the status of the Rio Norte Line,” snapped James Taggart.
There was a long silence.
The man with the green muffler turned to Dagny. “Miss Taggart,” he asked sadly and cautiously, “would you say that if—this is just a hypothetical question—if the equipment now in use on the Rio Norte Line were made available, it would fill the needs of our transcontinental main-line traffic?”
“It would help.”
“The rail of the Rio Norte Line,” said the pallid man with the mustache, “is unmatched anywhere in the country and could not now be purchased at any price. We have three hundred miles of track, which means well over four hundred miles of rail of pure Rearden Metal in that Line. Would you say, Miss Taggart, that we cannot afford to waste that superlative rail on a branch that carries no major traffic any longer?”
“That is for you to judge.”
“Let me put it this way: would it be of value if that rail were made available for our main-line track, which is in such urgent need of repair?”
“It would help.”
“Miss Taggart,” asked the man with the quavering voice, “would you say that there are any shippers of consequence left on the Rio Norte Line?”
“There’s Ted Nielsen of Nielsen Motors. No one else.”
“Would you say that the operating costs of the Rio Norte Line could be used to relieve the financial strain on the rest of the system?”
“It would help.”
“Then, as our Operating Vice-President . . .” He stopped; she waited, looking at him; he said, “Well?”
“What was your question?”
“I meant to say . . . that is, well, as our Operating Vice-President, don’t you have certain conclusions to draw?”
She stood up. She looked at the faces around the table. “Gentlemen,” she said, “I do not know by what sort of self-fraud you expect to feel that if it’s I who name the decision you intend to make, it will be I who’ll bear the responsibility for it. Perhaps you believe that if my voice delivers the final blow, it will make me the murderer involved—since you know that this is the last act of a long-drawn-out murder. I cannot conceive what it is you think you can accomplish by a pretense of this kind, and I will not help you to stage it. The final blow will be delivered by you, as were all the others.”
She turned to go. The chairman half-rose, asking helplessly, “But, Miss Taggart—”
“Please remain seated. Please continue the discussion—and take the vote in which I shall have no voice. I shall abstain from voting. Ill stand by, if you wish me to, but only as an employee. I will not pretend to be anything else.”
She turned away once more, but it was the voice of the gray-haired man that stopped her. “Miss Taggart, this is not an official question, it is only my personal curiosity, but would you tell me your view of the future of the Taggart Transcontinental system?”
She answered, looking at him in understanding, her voice gentler, “I have stopped thinking of a future or of a railroad system. I intend to continue running trains so long as it is still possible to run them. I don’t think that it will be much longer.”
She walked away from the table, to the window, to stand aside and let them continue without her.
She looked at the city. Jim had obtained the permit which allowed them the use of electric power to the top of the Taggart Building.
From the height of the room, the city looked like a flattened remnant, with but a few rare, lonely streaks of lighted glass still rising through the darkness to the sky.
She did not listen to the voices of the men behind her. She did not know for how long the broken snatches of their struggle kept rolling past her—the sounds that nudged and prodded one another, trying to edge back and leave someone pushed forward—a struggle, not to assert one’s own will, but to squeeze an assertion from some unwilling victim —a battle in which the decision was to be pronounced, not by the winner, but by the loser: “It seems to me . . . It is, I think . . . It must, in my opinion . . .
If we were to suppose . . . I am merely suggesting . . . I am not implying, but . . . If we consider both sides . . . It is, in my opinion, indubitable . . . It seems to me to be an unmistakable fact . . .”
She did not know whose voice it was, but she heard it when the voice pronounced: “. . . and, therefore, I move that the John Galt Line be closed.”
Something, she thought, had made him call the Line by its right name.
You had to bear it, too, generations ago—it was just as hard for you, just as bad, but you did not let it stop you—was it really as bad as this? as ugly?—never mind, it’s different forms, but it’s only pain, and you were not stopped by pain, not by whatever kind it was that you had to bear—you were not stopped—you did not give in to it—you faced it and this is the kind I have to face—you fought and I will have to —you did it—I will try . . . She heard, in her own mind, the quiet intensity of the words of dedication—and it was some time before she realized that she was speaking to Nat Taggart.
The next voice she heard was Mr. Weatherby’s: “Wait a minute, boys.
Do you happen to remember that you need to obtain permission before you can close a branch line?”
“Good God, Clem!” Taggart’s cry was open panic. “Surely there’s not going to be any trouble about—”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of it. Don’t forget that you’re a public service and you’re expected to provide transportation, whether you make money or not.”
“But you know that it’s impossible!”
“Well, that’s fine for you, that solves your problem, if you close that Line—but what will it do to us? Leaving a whole state like Colorado practically without transportation—what sort of public sentiment will it arouse? Now, of course, if you gave Wesley something in return, to balance it, if you granted the unions’ wage raises—”
“I can’t! I gave my word to the National Alliance!”
“Your word? Well, suit yourself; We wouldn’t want to force the Alliance. We much prefer to have things happen voluntarily. But these are difficult times and it’s hard telling what’s liable to happen. With everybody going broke and the tax receipts falling, we might—fact being that we hold well over fifty per cent of the Taggart bonds—we might be compelled to call for the payment of railroad bonds within six months.”
“What?!” screamed Taggart.
“—or sooner.”
“But you can’t! Oh God, you can’t! It was understood that the moratorium was for five years! It was a contract, an obligation! We were counting on it!”
“An obligation? Aren’t you old-fashioned, Jim? There aren’t any obligations, except the necessity of the moment. The original owners of those bonds were counting on their payments, too.”
Dagny burst out laughing.
She could not stop herself, she could not resist it, she could not reject a moment’s chance to avenge Ellis Wyatt, Andrew Stockton, Lawrence Hammond, all the others. She said, torn by laughter: “Thanks, Mr. Weatherby!”
Mr. Weatherby looked at her in astonishment. “Yes?” he asked coldly.
“I knew that we would have to pay for those bonds one way or another. We’re paying.”
“Miss Taggart,” said the chairman severely, “don’t you think that I told-you-so’s are futile? To talk of what would have happened if we had acted differently is nothing but purely theoretical speculation. We cannot indulge in theory, we have to deal with the practical reality of the moment.”
“Right,” said Mr. Weatherby. “That’s what you ought to be—practical. Now we offer you a trade. You do something for us and we’ll do something for you. You give the unions their wage raises and we’ll give you permission to close the Rio Norte Line.”
“All right,” said James Taggart, his voice choked.
Standing at the window, she heard them vote on their decision. She heard them declare that the John Galt Line would end in six weeks, on March 31.
It’s only a matter of getting through the next few moments, she thought; take care of the next few moments, and then the next, a few at a time, and after a while it will be easier; you’ll get over it, after a while.