Atlas Shrugged [519]
"I can take care of myself."
"John, there's no reason for you to take the risk," said Francisco.
"What risk?"
"The looters are. worried about the men who've disappeared. They're suspecting something. You, of all people, shouldn't stay there any longer. There's always a chance that they might discover just who and what you are."
"There's some chance. Not much."
"But there's no reason whatever to take it. There's nothing left that Ragnar and I can't finish."
Hugh Akston was watching them silently, leaning back in his chair; his face had that look of intensity, neither quite bitterness nor quite a SOS
smile, with which a man watches a progression that interests him, but that lags a few steps behind his vision.
"If I go back," said Galt, "it won't be for our work. It will be to win the only thing I want from the world for myself, now that the work is done. I've taken nothing from the world and I've wanted nothing. But there's one thing which it's still holding and which is mine and which I won't let it have. No, I don't intend to break my oath, I won't deal with the looters, I won't be of any value or help to anyone out there, neither to looters nor neutrals-nor scabs. If I go, it won't be for anyone's sake but mine-and I don't think I'm risking my life, but if I am-well, I'm now free to risk it."
He was not looking at her, but she had to turn away and stand pressed against the window frame, because her hands were trembling.
"But, John!" cried Mulligan, waving his arm at the valley, "if anything happens to you, what would we-" He stopped abruptly and guiltily.
Galt chuckled. "What were you about to say?" Mulligan waved his hand sheepishly, in a gesture of dismissal. "Were you about to say that if anything happens to me, I'll die as the worst failure in the world?"
"All right," said Mulligan guiltily, "I won't say it. I won't say that we couldn't get along without you-we can, I won't beg you to stay here for our sake-I didn't think I'd ever revert to that rotten old plea, but, boy!
-what a temptation it was, I can almost see why people do it. I know that whatever it is you want, if you wish to risk your life, that's all there is to it-but I'm thinking only that it's . . . oh God, John, it's such a valuable life!"
Galt smiled. "I know it. That's why I don't think I'm risking it-I think I'll win."
Francisco was now silent, he was watching Galt intently, with a frown of wonder, not as if he had found an answer, but as if he had suddenly glimpsed a question.
"Look, John," said Mulligan, "since you haven't decided whether you'll go-you haven't decided it yet, have you?"
"No, not yet."
"Since you haven't, would you let me remind you of a few things, just for you to consider?"
"Go ahead."
"It's the chance dangers that I'm afraid of-the senseless, unpredictable dangers of a world falling apart. Consider the physical risks of complex machinery in the hands of blind fools and fear-crazed cowards.
Just think of their railroads-you'd be taking a chance on some such horror as that Winston tunnel incident every time you stepped aboard a train-and there will be more incidents of that kind, coming faster and faster. They'll reach the stage where no day will pass without a major wreck."
"I know it."
"And the same will be happening in every other industry, wherever machines are used-the machines which they thought could replace our minds. Plane crashes, oil tank explosions, blast-furnace break-outs, high-tension wire electrocutions, subway cave-ins and trestle collapses -they'll see them all. The very machines that had made their life so safe, will now make it a continuous peril."
"I know it."
"I know that you know it, but have you considered it in every specific detail? Have you allowed yourself to visualize it? I want you to see the exact picture of what it is that you propose to enter-before you decide whether anything can justify your entering it. You know that the cities will be hit worst of all. The cities were made by the railroads and