Atlas Shrugged [442]
"This is Dagny Taggart, speaking from-"
"Who?"
"Dagny Taggart, of Taggart Transcontinental, speaking-"
"Oh . . . Oh yes . . . I see . . . Yes?"
"-speaking from your track phone Number 83. The Comet is stalled seven miles north of here. It's been abandoned. The crew has deserted."
There was a pause. "Well, what do you want me to do about it?"
She had to pause in turn, in order to believe it. "Are you the night dispatcher?"
"Yeah."
"Then send another crew out to us at once."
"A full passenger train crew?"
"Of course."
"Now?"
"Yes."
There was a pause. "The rules don't say anything about that."
"Get me the chief dispatcher," she said, choking.
"He's away on his vacation."
"Get the division superintendent."
"He's gone down to Laurel for a couple of days."
"Get me somebody who's in charge."
"I'm in charge."
"Listen," she said slowly, fighting for patience, "do you understand that there's a train, a passenger limited, abandoned in the middle of the prairie?"
"Yeah, but how am I to know what I'm supposed to do about it?
The rules don't provide for it. Now if you had an accident, we'd send out the wrecker, but if there was no accident . . . you don't need the wrecker, do you?"
"No. We don't need the wrecker. We need men. Do you understand? Living men to run an engine."
"The rules don't say anything about a train without men. Or about men without a train. There's no rule for calling out a full crew in the middle of the night and sending them to hunt for a train somewhere.
I've never heard of it before,"
"You're hearing it now. Don't you know what you have to do?"
"Who am I to know?"
"Do you know that your job is to keep trains moving?"
"My job is to obey the rules. If I send out a crew when I'm not supposed to, God only knows what's going to happen! What with the Unification Board and all the regulations they've got nowadays, who am I to take it upon myself?"
"And what's going to happen if you leave a train stalled on the line?"
"That's not my fault. I had nothing to do with it. They can't blame me. I couldn't help it."
"You're to help it now."
"Nobody told me to."
"I'm telling you to!"
"How do I know whether you're supposed to tell me or not? We're not supposed to furnish any Taggart crews. You people were to run with your own crews. That's what we were told."
"But this is an emergency!"
"Nobody told me anything about an emergency."
She had to take a few seconds to control herself. She saw Kellogg watching her with a bitter smile of amusement.
"Listen," she said into the phone, "do you know that the Comet was due at Bradshaw over three hours ago?"
"Oh, sure. But nobody's going to make any trouble about that. No train's ever on schedule these days,"
"Then do you intend to leave us blocking your track forever?"
"We've got nothing due till Number 4, the northbound passenger out of Laurel, at eight thirty-seven A.M. You can wait till then. The day-trick dispatcher will be on then. You can speak to him,"
"You blasted idiot! This is the Comet!"
"What's that to me? This isn't Taggart Transcontinental. You people expect a lot for your money. You've been nothing but a headache to us7 with all the extra work at no extra pay for the little fellows."
His voice was slipping into whining insolence. "You can't talk to me that way. The time's past when you could talk to people that way."
She had never believed that there were men with whom a certain method, which she had never used, would work; such men were not hired by Taggart Transcontinental and she had never been forced to deal with them before.
"Do you know who I am?" she asked, in the cold, overbearing tone of a personal threat.
It worked. "I . . . I guess so," he answered.
"Then let me tell you that if you don't send a crew to me at once, you'll be out of a job within one hour after I reach Bradshaw, which I'll reach sooner or later. You'd better make it sooner."
"Yes, ma'am," he said.
"Call out a full passenger