Atlas Shrugged [108]
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.