Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand [330]
A gray-haired man of patrician bearing, who had remained silent throughout the session, with a look of the quietly bitter knowledge that the entire performance was futile, glanced at Dagny in a way which would have been sympathy had he still felt a remnant of hope. He said, raising his voice just enough to betray a note of controlled indignation, “Mr. Chairman, if it is practical solutions that we are considering, I should like to suggest that we discuss the limitation placed upon the length and speed of our trains. Of any single practice, that is the most disastrous one. Its repeal would not solve all of our problems, but it would be an enormous relief. With the desperate shortage of motive power and the appalling shortage of fuel, it is criminal insanity to send an engine out on the road with sixty cars when it could pull a hundred and to take four days on a run which could be made in three. I suggest that we compute the number of shippers we have ruined and the districts we have destroyed through the failures, shortages and delays of transportation, and then we—”
“Don’t think of it,” Mr. Weatherby cut in snappily. “Don’t try dreaming about any repeals. We wouldn’t consider it. We wouldn’t even consider listening to any talk on the subject.”
“Mr. Chairman,” the gray-haired man asked quietly, “shall I continue?”
The chairman spread out his hands, with a smooth smile, indicating helplessness. “It would be impractical,” he answered.
“I think we’d better confine the discussion to the status of the Rio Norte Line,” snapped James Taggart.
There was a long silence.
The man with the green muffler turned to Dagny. “Miss Taggart,” he asked sadly and cautiously, “would you say that if—this is just a hypothetical question—if the equipment now in use on the Rio Norte Line were made available, it would fill the needs of our transcontinental main-line traffic?”
“It would help.”
“The rail of the Rio Norte Line,” said the pallid man with the mustache, “is unmatched anywhere in the country and could not now be purchased at any price. We have three hundred miles of track, which means well over four hundred miles of rail of pure Rearden Metal in that Line. Would you say, Miss Taggart, that we cannot afford to waste that superlative rail on a branch that carries no major traffic any longer?”
“That is for you to judge.”
“Let me put it this way: would it be of value if that rail were made available for our main-line track, which is in such urgent need of repair?”
“It would help.”
“Miss Taggart,” asked the man with the quavering voice, “would you say that there are any shippers of consequence left on the Rio Norte Line?”
“There’s Ted Nielsen of Nielsen Motors. No one else.”
“Would you say that the operating costs of the Rio Norte Line could be used to relieve the financial strain on the rest of the system?”
“It would help.”
“Then, as our Operating Vice-President ...” He stopped; she waited, looking at him; he said, “Well?”
“What was your question?”
“I meant to say... that is, well, as our Operating Vice-President, don’t you have certain conclusions to draw?”
She stood up. She looked at the faces around the table. “Gentlemen,” she said, “I do not know by what sort of self-fraud you expect to feel that if it’s I who name the decision you intend to make, it will be I who’ll bear the responsibility for it. Perhaps you believe that if my voice delivers the final blow, it will make me the murderer involved—since you know that this is the last act of a long-drawn-out murder. I cannot conceive what it is you think you can accomplish by a pretense of this kind, and I will not help you to stage it. The final blow will be delivered by you, as were all the others.”
She turned to go. The chairman half-rose, asking helplessly, “But, Miss Taggart—”
“Please remain seated. Please continue the discussion—and take the vote in which I shall have no voice. I shall abstain from voting. I’ll stand by, if you wish me to, but only as an employee. I will not pretend to be