The sickening thing about it, thought Rearden, was that the speeches were only half-lies; the other half, in their tone of hysterical urgency, was the unstated wish to have it somehow be true. “What did you want?” he asked.
“Why . . . to listen to you, Mr. Rearden,” said Wesley Mouch, the jerk of his features imitating a frightened smile; the smile was faked, the fear was real. “We . . . we want the benefit of your opinion on the nation’s industrial crisis.”
“I have nothing to say.”
“But, Mr. Rearden,” said Dr. Ferris, “all we want is a chance to co-operate with you.”
“I’ve told you once, publicly, that I don’t co-operate at the point of a gun.”
“Can’t we bury the hatchet at a time like this?” said Lawson beseechingly.
“The gun? Go ahead.”
“Uh?”
“It’s you who’re holding it. Bury it, if you think you can.”
“That . . . that was just a figure of speech,” Lawson explained, blinking, “I was speaking metaphorically.”
>78
“I wasn’t.”
“Can’t we all stand together for the sake of the country in this hour of emergency?” said Dr. Ferris. “Can’t we disregard our differences of opinion? We’re willing to meet you halfway. If there’s any aspect of our policy which you oppose, just tell us and we’ll issue a directive to—”
“Cut it, boys. I didn’t come here to help you pretend that I’m not in the position I’m in and that any halfway is possible between us.
Now come to the point. You’ve prepared some new gimmick to spring on the steel industry. What is it?”
“As a matter of fact,” said Mouch, “we do have a vital question to discuss in regard to the steel industry, but . . . but your language, Mr. Rearden!”
“We don’t want to spring anything on you,” said Holloway. “We asked you here to discuss it with you.”
“I came here to take orders. Give them.”
“But, Mr. Rearden, we don’t want to look at it that way. We don’t want to give you orders. We want your voluntary consent.”
Rearden smiled. “I know it.”
“You do?” Holloway started eagerly, but something about Rearden’s smile made him slide into uncertainty. “Well, then—”
“And you, brother,” said Rearden, “know that that is the flaw in your game, the fatal flaw that will blast it sky-high. Now do you tell me what clout on my head you’re working so hard not to let me notice—or do I go home?”
“Oh no, Mr. Rearden!” cried Lawson, with a sudden dart of his eyes to his wrist watch. “You can’t go now!—That is, I mean, you wouldn’t want to go without hearing what we have to say.”
“Then let me hear it.”
He saw them glancing at one another. Wesley Mouch seemed afraid to address him; Mouch’s face assumed an expression of petulant stubbornness, like a signal of command pushing the others forward; whatever their qualifications to dispose of the fate of the steel industry, they had been brought here to act as Mouch’s conversational bodyguards.
Rearden wondered about the reason for the presence of James Taggart; Taggart sat in gloomy silence, sullenly sipping a drink, never glancing in his direction.
“We have worked out a plan,” said Dr. Ferris too cheerfully, “which will solve the problems of the steel industry and which will meet with your full approval, as a measure providing for the general welfare, while protecting your interests and insuring your safety in a—”
“Don’t try to tell me what I’m going to think. Give me the facts.”
“It is a plan which is fair, sound, equitable and—”
“Don’t tell me your evaluation. Give me the facts.”
“It is a plan which—” Dr. Ferris stopped; he had lost the habit of naming facts.
“Under this plan,” said Wesley Mouch, “we will grant the industry a five per cent increase in the price of steel.” He paused triumphantly.
Rearden said nothing.
“Of course, some minor adjustments will be necessary,” said Holloway airily, leaping into the silence as onto a vacant tennis court. “A certain increase in prices will have to be granted to the producers of iron ore—oh, three per cent at most—in view of the added hardships which some of them, Mr. Larkin of Minnesota, for instance, will now encounter, inasmuch as they’ll have to ship their ore by the costly means of trucks, since Mr. James Taggart has had to sacrifice his Minnesota branch line to the public welfare. And, of course, an increase in freight rates will have to be granted to the country’s railroads—let’s say, seven per cent, roughly speaking—in view of the absolutely essential need for—”
Holloway stopped, like a player emerging from a whirlwind activity to notice suddenly that no opponent was answering his shots.
“But there will be no increase in wages,” said Dr. Ferris hastily. “An essential point of the plan is that we will grant no increase in wages to the steel workers, in spite of their insistent demands. We do wish to be fair to you, Mr. Rearden, and to protect your interests—even at the risk of popular resentment and indignation.”
“Of course, if we expect labor to make a sacrifice,” said Lawson, “we must show them that management, too, is making certain sacrifices for the sake of the country. The mood of labor in the steel industry is extremely tense at present, Mr. Rearden, it is dangerously explosive and . . . and in order to protect you from . . . from . . . ” He stopped.
“Yes?” said Rearden. “From?”
“From possible . . . violence, certain measures are necessary, which . . . Look, Jim”—he turned suddenly to James Taggart—”why don’t you explain it to Mr. Rearden, as a fellow industrialist?”
“Well, somebody’s got to support the railroads,” said Taggart sullenly, not looking at him. “The country needs railroads and somebody’s got to help us carry the load, and if we don’t get an increase in freight rates—”
“No, no, no!” snapped Wesley Mouch. “Tell Mr. Rearden about the working of the Railroad Unification Plan.”
“Well, the Plan is a full success,” said Taggart lethargically, “except for the not fully controllable element of time. It is only a question of time before our unified teamwork puts every railroad in the country back on its feet. The Plan, I’m in a position to assure you, would work as successfully for any other industry.”
“No doubt about that,” said Rearden, and turned to Mouch. “Why do you ask the stooge to waste my time? What has the Railroad Unification Plan to do with me?”
“But, Mr. Rearden,” cried Mouch with desperate cheerfulness, “that’s the pattern we’re to follow! That’s what we called you here to discuss!”
“What?”
“The Steel Unification Plan!”
There was an instant of silence, as of breaths drawn after a plunge.
Rearden sat looking at them with a glance that seemed to be a glance of interest.
“In view of the critical plight of the steel industry,” said Mouch with a sudden rush, as if not to give himself time to know what made him uneasy about the nature of Rearden’s glance, “and since steel is the most vitally, crucially basic commodity, the foundation of our entire industrial structure, drastic measures must be taken to preserve the country’s steel-making facilities, equipment and plant.” The tone and impetus of public speaking carried him that far and no farther. “With this objective in view, our Plan is . . . our Plan is . . .”
“Our Plan Is really very simple,” said Tinky Holloway, striving to prove it by the gaily bouncing simplicity of his voice. “We’ll lift all restrictions from the production of steel and every company will produce all it can, according to its ability. But to avoid the waste and danger of dog-eat-dog competition, all the companies will deposit their gross earnings into a common pool, to be known as the Steel Unification Pool, in charge of a special Board. At the end of the year, the Board will distribute these earnings by totaling the nation’s steel output and dividing it by the number of open-hearth furnaces in existence, thus arriving at an average which will be fair to all—and every company will be paid according to its need. The preservation of its furnaces being its basic need, every company will be paid according to the number of furnaces it owns.”
He stopped, waited, then added, “That’s it, Mr. Rearden,” and getting no answer, said, “Oh, there’s a lot of wrinkles to be ironed out, but . . . but that’s it.”
Whatever reaction they had expected, it was not the one they saw.
Rearden leaned back in his chair, his eyes attentive, but fixed on space, as if looking at a not too distant distance, then he asked, with an odd note of quietly impersonal amusement, “Will you tell me just one thing, boys: what is it you’re counting on?”
He knew that they understood. He saw, on their faces, that stubbornly evasive look which he had once thought to be the look of a liar cheating a victim, but which he now knew to be worse: the look of a man cheating himself of his own consciousness. They did not answer. They remained silent, as if struggling, not to make him forget his question, but to make themselves forget that they had heard it.