Atlas Shrugged [232]
"Whatever you wish."
"But this is totally unprecedented. Nobody has ever refused to sell an essential commodity to the government. As a matter of fact, the law does not permit you to refuse to sell your Metal to any consumer, let alone the government."
"Well, why don't you arrest me, then?"
"Mr. Rearden, this is an amicable discussion. Why speak of such things as arrests?"
"Isn't that your ultimate argument against me?"
"Why bring it up?"
"Isn't it implied in every sentence of this discussion?"
"Why name it?"
"Why not?" There was no answer. "Arc you trying to hide from me the fact that if it weren't for that trump card of yours, I wouldn't have allowed you to enter this office?"
"But I'm not speaking of arrests."
"I am.11
"I don't understand you, Mr. Rearden."
"I am not helping you to pretend that this is any sort of amicable discussion. It isn't. Now do what you please about it."
There was a strange look on the man's face: bewilderment, as if he had no conception of the issue confronting him, and fear, as if he had always had full knowledge of it and had lived in dread of exposure.
Rearden felt a strange excitement; he felt as if he were about to grasp something he had never understood, as if he were on the trail of some discovery still too distant to know, except that it had the most immense importance he had ever glimpsed.
"Mr. Rearden" said the man, "the government needs your Metal.
You have to sell it to us, because surely you realize that the government's plans cannot be held up by the matter of your consent."
"A sale," said Rearden slowly, "requires the seller's consent." He got up and walked to the window. "I'll tell you what you can do."
He pointed to the siding where ingots of Rearden Metal were being loaded onto freight cars. "There's Rearden Metal. Drive down there with your trucks-like any other looter, but without his risk, because I won't shoot you, as you know I can't-take as much of the Metal as you wish and go. Don't try to send me payment. I won't accept it.
Don't print out a check to me. It won't be cashed. If you want that Metal, you have the guns to seize it. Go ahead."
"Good God, Mr. Rearden, what would the public think!"
It was an instinctive, involuntary cry. The muscles of Rearden's face moved briefly in a soundless laughter. Both of them had understood the implications of that cry. Rearden said evenly, in the grave, unstrained tone of finality, "You need my help to make it look like a sale-like a safe, just, moral transaction. I will not help you."
The man did not argue. He rose to leave. He said only, "You will regret the stand you've taken, Mr. Rearden."
"I don't think so," said Rearden.
He knew that the incident was not ended. He knew also that the secrecy of Project X was not the main reason why these people feared to make the issue public. He knew that he felt an odd, joyous, lighthearted self-confidence. He knew that these were the right steps down the trail he had glimpsed.
Dagny lay stretched in an armchair of her living room, her eyes closed. This day had been hard, but she knew that she would see Hank Rearden tonight. The thought of it was like a lever lifting the weight of hours of senseless ugliness away from her.
She lay still, content to rest with the single purpose of waiting quietly for the sound of the key in the lock. He had not telephoned her, but she had heard that he was in New York today for a conference with producers of copper, and he never left the city till next morning, nor spent a night in New York that was not hers. She liked to wait for him. She needed a span of time as a bridge between her days and his nights.
The hours ahead, like all her nights with him, would be added, she thought, to that savings account of one's life where moments of time are stored in the pride of having been lived. The only pride of her workday was not that it had been lived, but that it had been survived.
It was wrong, she thought, it was viciously wrong that one should ever be