Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand [229]
As she sat at her desk, over the schedules of the John Gait Line, waiting for Dr. Stadler to come, she wondered why no first-rate talent had risen in the field of science for years. She was unable to look for an answer. She was looking at the black line which was the corpse of Train Number 93 on the schedule before her.
A train has the two great attributes of life, she thought, motion and purpose; this had been like a living entity, but now it was only a number of dead freight cars and engines. Don’t give yourself time to feel, she thought, dismember the carcass as fast as possible, the engines are needed all over the system, Ken Danagger in Pennsylvania needs trains, more trains, if only—
“Dr. Robert Stadler,” said the voice of the interoffice communicator on her desk.
He came in, smiling; the smile seemed to underscore his words: “Miss Taggart, would you care to believe how helplessly glad I am to see you again?”
She did not smile, she looked gravely courteous as she answered, “It was very kind of you to come here.” She bowed, her slender figure standing tautly straight but for the slow, formal movement of her head.
“What if I confessed that all I needed was some plausible excuse in order to come? Would it astonish you?”
“I would try not to overtax your courtesy.” She did not smile. “Please sit down, Dr. Stadler.”
He looked brightly around him. “I’ve never seen the office of a railroad executive. I didn’t know it would be so ... so solemn a place. Is that in the nature of the job?”
“The matter on which I’d like to ask your advice is far removed from the field of your interests, Dr. Stadler. You may think it odd that I should call on you. Please allow me to explain my reason.”
“The fact that you wished to call on me is a fully sufficient reason. If I can be of any service to you, any service whatever, I don’t know what would please me more at this moment.” His smile had an attractive quality, the smile of a man of the world who used it, not to cover his words, but to stress the audacity of expressing a sincere emotion.
“My problem is a matter of technology,” she said, in the clear, expressionless tone of a young mechanic discussing a difficult assignment. “I fully realize your contempt for that branch of science. I do not expect you to solve my problem—it is not the kind of work which you do or care about. I should like only to submit the problem to you, and then I’ll have just two questions to ask you. I had to call on you, because it is a matter that involves someone’s mind, a very great mind, and”—she spoke impersonally, in the manner of rendering exact justice—“and you are the only great mind left in this field.”
She could not tell why her words hit him as they did. She saw the stillness of his face, the sudden earnestness of the eyes, a strange earnestness that seemed eager and almost pleading, then she heard his voice come gravely, as if from under the pressure of some emotion that made it sound simple and humble:
“What is your problem, Miss Taggart?”
She told him about the motor and the place where she had found it; she told him that it had proved impossible to learn the name of the inventor; she did not mention the details of her quest. She handed him photographs of the motor and the remnant of the manuscript.
She watched him as he read. She saw the professional assurance in the swift, scanning motion of his eyes, at first, then the pause, then the growing intentness, then a movement of his lips which, from another man, would have been a whistle or a gasp. She saw him stop for long minutes and look off, as if his mind were racing over countless sudden trails, trying to follow them all—she saw him leaf back through the pages, then stop, then force himself to read on, as if he were torn between his eagerness to continue and his eagerness to seize all the possibilities breaking open before his vision. She saw his silent excitement, she knew that he had forgotten her office, her existence,