"What am I doing here?" asked Dr. Robert Stadler. "Why was I asked to come here? I demand an explanation. I'm not accustomed to being dragged halfway across a continent without rhyme, reason or notice."  Dr, Floyd Ferris smiled. "Which makes me appreciate it all the more that you did come, Dr. Stadler." It was impossible to tell whether his voice had a tone of gratitude-or of gloating.  The sun was beating down upon them and Dr. Stadler felt a streak of perspiration oozing along his temple. He could not hold an angrily, embarrassingly private discussion in the middle of a crowd streaming to fill the benches of the grandstand around them-the discussion which he had tried and failed to obtain for the last three days. It occurred to him that that was precisely the reason why his meeting with Dr. Ferris had been delayed to this moment; but he brushed the thought aside, just as he brushed some insect buzzing to reach his wet temple.  "Why was I unable to get in touch with you?" he asked. The fraudulent weapon of sarcasm now seemed to sound less effective than ever, but it was Dr. Stadler's only weapon: "Why did you find it necessary to send me messages on official stationery worded in a style proper, I'm sure, for Army"-orders, he was about to say, but didn't-"communications, but certainly not for scientific correspondence?"  "It is a government matter," said Dr. Ferris gently.  "Do you realize that I was much too busy and that this meant an interruption of my work?"  "Oh yes," said Dr. Ferris noncommittally.  "Do you realize that I could have refused to come?"  "But you didn't," said Dr. Ferris softly.  "Why was I given no explanation? Why didn't you come for me in person, instead of sending those incredible young hooligans with their mysterious gibberish that sounded half-science, half-pulp-magazine?"  "I was too busy," said Dr. Ferris blandly.  "Then would you mind telling me what you're doing in the middle of a plain in Iowa-and what I'm doing here, for that matter?" He waved contemptuously at the dusty horizon of an empty prairie and at the three wooden grandstands. The stands were newly erected, and the wood, too, seemed to perspire; he could see drops of resin sparkling in the sun.  "We are about to witness an historical event, Dr. Stadler. An occasion which will become a milestone on the road of science, civilization, social welfare and political adaptability." Dr. Ferris' voice had the tone of a public relations man's memorized handout. "The turning point of a new era."  "What event? What new era?"  "As you will observe, only the most distinguished citizens, the cream of our intellectual elite, have been chosen for the special privilege of witnessing this occasion. We could not omit your name, could we?-and we feel certain, of course, that we can count on your loyalty and cooperation."  He could not catch Dr. Ferris' eyes. The grandstands were rapidly filling with people, and Dr. Ferris kept interrupting himself constantly to wave to nondescript newcomers, whom Dr. Stadler had never seen before, but who were personages, as he could tell by the particular shade of gaily informal deference in Ferns' waving. They all seemed to know Dr. Ferris and to seek him out, as if he were the master of ceremonies -or the star-of the occasion.  "If you would kindly be specific for a moment," said Dr. Stadler, "and tell me what-"  "Hi, Spud!" called Dr. Ferris, waving to a portly, white-haired man who filled the full-dress uniform of a general.  Dr. Stadler raised his voice: "I said, if you would kindly concentrate long enough to explain to me what in hell is going on-"  "But it's very simple. It's the final triumph of . . . You'll have to excuse me a minute, Dr. Stadler," said Dr. Ferris hastily, tearing forward, like an over trained lackey at the sound of a bell, in the direction of what looked like a group of aging rowdies; he turned back long enough to add two words which he seemed reverently to consider as a full explanation: "The press!"  Dr. Stadler sat down on the wooden bench, feeling unaccountably reluctant to brush against anything around him. The three grandstands were spaced at intervals in a semi-curve, like the tiers of a small, private circus, with room for some three hundred people; they seemed built for the viewing of some spectacle-but they faced the emptiness of a flat prairie stretching off to the horizon, with nothing in sight but the dark blotch of a farmhouse miles away.  There were radio microphones in front of one stand, which seemed reserved for the press. There was a contraption resembling a portable switchboard in front of the stand reserved for officials; a few levers of polished metal sparkled in the sun on the face of the switchboard. In an improvised parking lot behind the stands, the glitter of luxurious new cars seemed a brightly reassuring sight. But it was the building that stood on a knoll some thousand feet away that gave Dr. Stadler a vague sense of uneasiness. It was a small, squat structure of unknown purpose, with massive stone walls, no windows except a few slits protected by stout iron bars, and a large dome, grotesquely too heavy for the rest, that seemed to press the structure down into the soil. A few outlets protruded from the base of the dome, in loose, irregular shapes, resembling badly poured clay funnels; they did not seem to belong to an industrial age or to any known usage. The building had an air of silent malevolence, like a puffed, venomous mushroom; it was obviously modern, but its sloppy, rounded, ineptly unspecific lines made it look like a primitive structure unearthed in the heart of the jungle, devoted to some secret rites of savagery.  Dr. Stadler sighed with irritation; he was tired of secrets. "Confidential" and "Top Confidential" had been the words stamped on the invitation which had demanded that he travel to Iowa on a two-day notice and for an unspecified purpose. Two young men, who called themselves physicists, had appeared at the Institute to escort him; his calls to Ferris' office in Washington had remained unanswered. The young men had talked-through an exhausting trip by government plane, then a clammy ride in a government car-about science, emergencies, social equilibriums and the need of secrecy, till he knew less than he had known at the start; he noticed only that two words kept recurring in their jabber, which had also appeared in the text of the invitation, two words that had an ominous sound when involving an unknown issue: the demands for his "loyalty" and "co-operation."  The young men had deposited him on a bench in the front row of the grandstand and had vanished, like the folding gear of a mechanism, leaving him to the sudden presence of Dr. Ferris in person. Now, watching the scene around him, watching Dr. Ferris' vague, excited, loosely casual gestures in the midst of a group of newsmen, he had an impression of bewildering confusion, of senseless, chaotic inefficiency-and of a smooth machine working to produce the exact degree of that impression needed at the exact moment.  He felt a single, sudden flash of panic, in which, as in a flash of lightning, he permitted himself to know that he felt a desperate desire to escape. But he slammed his mind shut against it. He knew that the darkest secret of the occasion-more crucial, more untouchable, more deadly than whatever was hidden in the mushroom building-was that which had made him agree to come.  He would never have to learn his own motive, he thought; he thought it, not by means of words, but by means of the brief, vicious spasm of an emotion that resembled irritation and felt like acid. The words that stood in his mind, as they had stood when he had agreed to come, were like a voodoo formula which one recites when it is needed and beyond which one must not look: What can you do when you have to deal with people?  He noticed that the stand reserved for those whom Ferris had called the intellectual elite was larger than the stand prepared for government officials. He caught himself feeling a swift little sneak of pleasure at the thought that he had been placed in the front row. He turned to glance at the tiers behind him. The sensation he experienced was like a small, gray shock: that random, faded, shopworn assembly was not his conception of an intellectual elite. He saw defensively belligerent men and tastelessly dressed women-he saw mean, rancorous, suspicious faces that bore the one mark incompatible with a standard bearer of the intellect: the mark of uncertainty. He could find no face he knew, no face to recognize as famous and none likely ever to achieve such recognition.  He wondered by what standard these people had been selected.  Then he noticed a gangling figure in the second row, the figure of an elderly man with a long, slack face that seemed faintly familiar to him, though he could recall nothing about it, except a vague memory, as of a photograph seen in some unsavory publication. He leaned toward a woman and asked,  pointing, "Could you tell me. the name of that gentleman?" The woman answered in a whisper of awed respect, "That is Dr. Simon Pritchett!" Dr. Stadler turned away, wishing no one would see him, wishing no one would ever learn that he had been a member of that group.  He raised his eyes and saw that Ferris was leading the whole press gang toward him. He saw Ferris sweeping his arm at him, in the manner of a tourist guide, and declaring, when they were close enough to be heard, "But why should you waste your time on me, when there is the source of today's achievement, the man who made it all possible-Dr. Robert Stadler!"  It seemed to him for an instant that he saw an incongruous look on the worn, cynical faces of the newsmen, a look that was not quite respect, expectation or hope, but more like an echo of these, like a faint reflection of the look they might have worn in their youth on hearing the name of Robert Stadler. In that instant, he felt an impulse which he would not acknowledge: the impulse to tell them that he knew nothing about today's event, that his power counted for less than theirs, that he had been brought here as a pawn in some confidence game, almost as . . . as a prisoner.  Instead, he heard himself answering their questions in the smug, condescending tone of a man who shares all the secrets of the highest authorities: "Yes, the State Science Institute is proud of its record of public service. . . . The State Science Institute is not the tool of any private interests or personal greed, it is devoted to the welfare of mankind, to the good of humanity as a whole-" spouting, like a dictaphone, the sickening generalities he had heard from Dr. Ferris.  He would not permit himself to know that what he felt was self loathing; he identified the emotion, but not its object; it was loathing for the men around him, he thought; it was they who were forcing him to go through this shameful performance. What can you do-he thought-when you have to deal with people?  The newsmen were making brief notes of his answers. Their faces now had the look of automatons acting out the routine of pretending that they were hearing news in the empty utterances of another automaton.  "Dr. Stadler," asked one of them, pointing at the building on the knoll, "is it true that you consider Project X the greatest achievement of the State Science Institute?"  There was a dead drop of silence.  "Project . . . X . . . ?" said Dr. Stadler.  He knew that something was ominously wrong in the tone of his voice, because he saw the heads of the newsmen go up, as at the sound of an alarm; he saw them waiting, their pencils poised.  For one instant, while he felt the muscles of his face cracking into the fraud of a smile, he felt a formless, an almost supernatural terror, as if he sensed again the silent working of some smooth machine, as if he were caught in it, part of it and doing its irrevocable will. "Project X?" he said softly, in the mysterious tone of a conspirator. "Well, gentlemen, the value-and the motive-of any achievement of the State Science Institute are not to be doubted, since it is a non-profit venture-need I say more?"  He raised his head and noticed that Dr. Ferris had stood on the edge of the group through the whole of the interview. He wondered whether he imagined that the look on Dr. Ferris' face now seemed less tense-and more impertinent.  Two resplendent cars came shooting at full speed into the parking lot and stopped with a flourish of screeching brakes. The newsmen deserted him in the middle of a sentence and went running to meet the group alighting from the cars.  Dr. Stadler turned to Ferris. "What is Project X?" he asked sternly.  Dr. Ferris smiled in a manner of innocence and insolence together.  "A non-profit venture," he answered-and went running off to meet the newcomers.  From the respectful whispers of the crowd, Dr. Stadler learned that the little man in a wilted linen suit, who looked like a shyster, striding briskly in the center of the new group, was Mr. Thompson, the Head of the State. Mr. Thompson was smiling, frowning and barking answers to the newsmen. Dr. Ferris was weaving through the group, with the grace of a cat rubbing against sundry legs.  The group came closer and he saw Ferris steering them in his direction. "Mr. Thompson," said Dr. Ferris sonorously, as they approached, "may I present Dr. Robert Stadler?"  Dr. Stadler saw the little shyster's eyes studying him for the fraction of a second: the eyes had a touch of superstitious awe, as at the sight of a phenomenon from a mystical realm forever incomprehensible to Mr. Thompson-and they had the piercing, calculating shrewdness of a ward heeler who feels certain that nothing is immune from his standards, a glance like the visual equivalent of the words: What's your angle?  "It's an honor, Doctor, an honor, I'm sure," said Mr. Thompson briskly, shaking his hand.  He learned that the tall, stoop-shouldered man with a crew haircut was Mr. Wesley Mouch. He did not catch the names of the others, whose hands he shook. As the group proceeded toward the officials' grandstand, he was left with the burning sensation of a discovery he dared not face: the discovery that he had felt anxiously pleased by the little shyster's nod of approval.  A party of young attendants, who looked like movie theater ushers, appeared- from, somewhere with handcarts of glittering objects, which they proceeded to distribute to the assembly. The objects were field glasses. Dr. Ferns took his place at the microphone of a public-address system by the officials' stand. At a signal from Wesley Mouch, his voice boomed suddenly over the prairie, an unctuous, fraudulently solemn voice magnified by the microphone inventor's ingenuity into the sound and power of a giant: "Ladies and gentlemen . . . !"  The crowd was struck into silence, all heads jerking unanimously toward the graceful figure of Dr. Floyd Ferris.  "Ladies and gentlemen, you have been chosen-in recognition of your distinguished public service and social loyalty-to witness the unveiling of a scientific achievement of such tremendous importance, such staggering scope, such epoch-making possibilities that up to this moment it has been known only to a very few and only as Project X."  Dr. Stadler focused his field glasses on the only thing in sight-on the blotch of the distant farm.  He saw that it was the deserted ruin of a farmhouse, which had obviously been abandoned years ago. The light of the sky showed through the naked ribs of the roof, and jagged bits of glass framed the darkness of empty windows. He saw a sagging barn, the rusted tower of a water wheel, and the remnant of a tractor lying upturned with its treads in the air.  Dr. Ferris was talking about the crusaders of science and about the years of selfless devotion, unremitting toil and persevering research that had gone into Project X.  It was odd-thought Dr. Stadler, studying the ruins of the farm-that there should be a herd of goats in the midst of such desolation. There were six or seven of them, some drowsing, some munching lethargically at whatever grass they could find among the sun-scorched weeds.  "Project X," Dr. Ferris was saying, "was devoted to some special research in the field of sound. The science of sound has astonishing aspects, which laymen would scarcely suspect. . . ."  Some fifty feet away from the farmhouse, Dr. Stadler saw a structure, obviously new and of no possible purpose whatever: it looked like a few spans of a steel trestle, rising into empty space, supporting nothing, leading nowhere.  Dr. Ferris was now talking about the nature of sound vibrations.  Dr. Stadler aimed his field glasses at the horizon beyond the farm, but there was nothing else to be seen for dozens of miles. The sudden, straining motion of one of the goats brought his eyes back to the herd.  He noticed that the goats were chained to stakes driven at intervals into the ground.  ". . . And it was discovered," said Dr. Ferris, "that there are certain frequencies of sound vibration which no structure, organic or inorganic, can withstand. . . ."  Dr. Stadler noticed a silvery spot bouncing over the weeds among the herd. It was a kid that had not been chained; it kept leaping and weaving about its mother.  ". . . The sound ray is controlled by a panel inside the giant underground laboratory," said Dr. Ferris, pointing at the building on the knoll. "That panel is known to us affectionately as the 'Xylophone'-because one must be darn careful to strike the right keys, or, rather, to pull the right levers. For this special occasion, an extension Xylophone, connected to the one inside, has been erected here"-he pointed to the switchboard in front of the officials’ stand-"so that you may witness the entire operation and see the simplicity of the whole procedure. . . ."  Dr. Stadler found pleasure in watching the kid, a soothing, reassuring kind of pleasure. The little creature seemed barely a week old, it looked like a ball of white fur with graceful long legs, it kept bounding in a manner of deliberate, gaily ferocious awkwardness, all four of its legs held stiff and straight. It seemed to be leaping at the sunrays, at the summer air, at the joy of discovering its own existence.  ". . . The sound ray is invisible, inaudible and fully controllable in respect to target, direction and range. Its first public test, which you are about to witness, has been set to cover a small sector, a mere two miles, in perfect safety, with all space cleared for twenty miles beyond. The present generating equipment in our laboratory is capable of producing rays to cover-through the outlets which you may observe under the dome-the entire countryside within a radius of a hundred miles, a circle with a periphery extending from the shore of the Mississippi, roughly from the bridge of the Taggart Transcontinental Railroad, to Des Moines and Fort Dodge, Iowa, to Austin, Minnesota, to Woodman, Wisconsin, to Rock Island, Illinois. This is only a modest beginning. We possess the technical knowledge to build generators with a range of two and three hundred miles-but due to the fact that we were unable to obtain in time a sufficient quantity of a highly heat resistant metal, such as Rearden Metal, we had to be satisfied with our present equipment and radius of control. In honor of our great executive, Mr. Thompson, under whose far-sighted administration the State Science Institute was granted the funds without which Project X would not have been possible, this great invention will henceforth be known as the Thompson Harmonizer!"  The crowd applauded. Mr. Thompson sat motionless, with his face held self-consciously stiff. Dr. Stadler felt certain that this small-time shyster had had as little to do with the Project as any of the movie usher attendants, that he possessed neither the mind nor the initiative nor even the sufficient degree of malice to cause a new gopher trap to be brought into the world, that he, too, was only the pawn of a silent machine-a machine that had no center, no leader, no direction, a machine that had not been set in motion by Dr. Ferris or Wesley Mouch, or any of the cowed creatures in the grandstands, or any of the creatures behind the scenes-an impersonal, unthinking, unembodied machine, of which none was the driver and all were the pawns, each to the degree of his evil. Dr. Stadler gripped the edge of the bench: he felt a desire to leap to his feet and run.  ". . . As to the function and the purpose of the sound ray, I shall say nothing. I shall let it speak for itself. You will now see it work. When Dr. Blodgett pulls the levers of the Xylophone, I suggest that you keep your eyes on the target-which is that farmhouse two miles away. There will be nothing else to see. The ray itself is invisible. It has long been conceded by all progressive thinkers that there are no entities, only actions-and no values, only consequences. Now, ladies and gentlemen, you will see the action and the consequences of the Thompson Harmonizer."  Dr. Ferris bowed, walked slowly away from the microphone and came to take his seat on the bench beside Dr. Stadler.  A youngish, fattish kind of man took his stand by the switchboard-and raised his eyes expectantly toward Mr. Thompson. Mr. Thompson looked blankly bewildered for an instant, as if something had slipped his mind, until Wesley Mouch leaned over and whispered some word into his ear. "Contact!" said Mr. Thompson loudly.  Dr. Stadler could not bear to watch the graceful, undulating, effeminate motion of Dr. Blodgett's hand as it pulled the first lever of the switchboard, then the next. He raised his field glasses and looked at the farmhouse.  In the instant when he focused his lens, a goat was pulling at its chain, reaching placidly for a tall, dry thistle. In the next instant, the goat rose into the air, upturned, its legs stretched upward and jerking, then fell into a gray pile made of seven goats in convulsions. By the time Dr. Stadler believed it, the pile was motionless, except for one beast's leg sticking out of the mass, stiff as a rod and shaking as in a strong wind. The farmhouse tore into strips of clapboard and went down, followed by a geyser of the bricks of its chimney. The tractor vanished into a pancake. The water tower cracked and its shreds hit the ground white its wheel was still describing a long curve through the air, as if of its own leisurely volition. The steel beams and girders of the solid new trestle collapsed like a structure of matchsticks under the breath of a sigh. It was so swift, so uncontested, so simple, that Dr. Stadler felt no horror, he felt nothing, it was not the reality he had known, it was the realm of a child's nightmare where material objects could be dissolved by means of a single malevolent wish.  He moved the field glasses from his eyes. He was looking at an empty prairie. There was no farm, there was nothing in the distance except a darkish strip that looked like the shadow of a cloud. A single, high, thin scream rose from the tiers behind him, as some woman fainted. He wondered why she should scream so long after the fact-and then he realized that the time elapsed since the touch of the first lever was not a full minute.  He raised his field glasses again, almost as if he were suddenly hoping that the cloud shadow would be all he would see. But the material objects were still there; they were a mount of refuse. He moved his glasses over the wreckage; in a moment, he realized that he was looking for the kid. He could not find it; there was nothing but a pile of gray fur.  When he lowered the glasses and turned, he found Dr. Ferns looking at him. He felt certain that through the whole of the test, it was not the target, it was his face that Ferris had watched, as if to see whether he, Robert Stadler, could withstand the ray.  "That's all there is to it," the fattish Dr. Blodgett announced through the microphone, in the ingratiating sales tone of a department-store floorwalker. "There is no nail or rivet remaining in the frame of the structures and there is no blood vessel left unbroken in the bodies of the animals."  The crowd was rustling with jerky movements and high-pitched whispers. People were looking at one another, rising uncertainly and dropping down again, restlessly demanding anything but this pause. There was a sound of submerged hysteria in the whispers. They seemed to be waiting to be told what to think.  Dr. Stadler saw a woman being escorted down the steps from the back row, her head bent, a handkerchief pressed to her mouth: she was sick at her stomach.  He turned away and saw that Dr. Ferris was still watching him. Dr. Stadler leaned back a little, his face austere and scornful, the face of the nation's greatest scientist, and asked, "Who invented that ghastly thing?"  "You did."  Dr. Stadler looked at him, not moving.  "It is merely a practical appliance," said Dr. Ferris pleasantly, "based upon your theoretical discoveries. It was derived from your invaluable research into the nature of cosmic rays and of the spatial transmission of energy."  "Who worked on the Project?"  "A few third-raters, as you would call them. Really, there was very little difficulty. None of them could have begun to conceive of the first step toward the concept of your energy-transmission formula, but given that-the rest was easy."  "What is the practical purpose of this invention? What are the 'epoch-making possibilities'?"  "Oh, but don't you see? It is an invaluable instrument of public security. No enemy would attack the possessor of such a weapon. It will set the country free from the fear of aggression and permit it to plan its future in undisturbed safety." His voice had an odd carelessness, a tone of offhand improvisation, as if he were neither expecting nor attempting to be believed. "It will relieve social frictions. It will promote peace, stability and-as we have indicated-harmony. It will eliminate all danger of war."  "What war? What aggression? With the whole world starving and all those People's States barely subsisting on handouts from this country-where do you see any danger of war? Do you expect those ragged savages to attack you?"  Dr. Ferris looked straight into his eyes. "Internal enemies can be as great a danger to the people as external ones," he answered. "Perhaps greater." This time his voice sounded as if he expected and was certain to be understood. "Social systems are so precarious. But think of what stability could be achieved by a few scientific installations at strategic key points. It would guarantee a state of permanent peace-don't you think so?"  Dr. Stadler did not move or answer; as the seconds clicked past and his face still held an unchanged expression, it began to look paralyzed.  His eyes had the stare of a man who suddenly sees that which he had known, had known from the first, had spent years trying not to see, and who is now engaged in a contest between the sight and his power to deny its existence. "I don't know what you're talking about!" he snapped at last.  Dr. Ferris smiled. "No private businessman or greedy industrialist would have financed Project X," he said softly, in the tone of an idle, informal discussion. "He couldn't have afforded it. It's an enormous investment, with no prospect of material gain. What profit could he expect from it? There are no profits henceforth to be derived from that farm." He pointed at the dark strip in the distance. "But, as you have so well observed, Project X had to be a non-profit venture. Contrary to a business firm, the State Science Institute had no trouble in obtaining funds for the Project. You have not heard of the Institute having any financial difficulties in the past two years, have you? And it used to be such a problem-getting them to vote the funds necessary for the advancement of science. They always demanded gadgets for their cash, as you used to say. Well, here was a gadget which some people in power could fully appreciate. They got the others to vote for it. It wasn't difficult. In fact, a great many of those others felt safe in voting money for a project that was secret-they felt certain it was important, since they were not considered important enough to be let in on it. There were, of course, a few skeptics and doubters. But they gave in when they were reminded that the head of the State Science Institute was Dr. Robert Stadler-whose judgment and integrity they could not doubt."  Dr. Stadler was looking down at his fingernails.  The sudden screech of the microphone jerked the crowd into an instantaneous attentiveness; people seemed to be a second's worth of self-control away from panic. An announcer, with a voice like a machine gun spitting smiles, barked cheerily that they were now to witness the radio broadcast that would break the news of the great discovery to the whole nation. Then, with a glance at his watch, his script and the signaling arm of Wesley Mouch, he yelled into the sparkling snake-head of the microphone-into the living rooms, the offices, the studies, the nurseries of the country: "Ladies and gentlemen! Project X!"  Dr. Ferris leaned toward Dr. Stadler-through the staccato hoof beats of the announcer's voice galloping across the continent with a description of the new invention-and said in the tone of a casual remark, "It is vitally important that there be no criticism of the Project in the country at this precarious time," then added semi-accidentally, as a semi-joke, "that there be no criticism of anything at any time."  "-and the nation's political, cultural, intellectual and moral leaders," the announcer was yelling into the microphone, "who have witnessed this great event, as your representatives and in your name, will now tell you their views of it in person!"  Mr. Thompson was the first to mount the wooden steps to the platform of the microphone. He snapped his way through a brief speech, hailing a new era and declaring-in the belligerent tone of a challenge to unidentified enemies-that science belonged to the people and that every man on the face of the globe had a right to a share of the advantages created by technological progress.  Wesley Mouch came next. He spoke about social planning and the necessity of unanimous rallying in support of the planners. He spoke about discipline, unity, austerity and the patriotic duty of bearing temporary hardships. "We have mobilized the best brains of the country to work for your welfare. This great invention was the product of the genius of a man whose devotion to the cause of humanity is not to be questioned, a man acknowledged by all as the greatest mind of the century-Dr. Robert Stadler!"  "What?" gasped Dr. Stadler, whirling toward Ferris.  Dr. Ferris looked at him with a glance of patient mildness.  "He didn't ask my permission to say that!" Dr. Stadler half-snapped, half-whispered.  Dr. Ferris spread out his hands in a gesture of reproachful helplessness. "Now you see, Dr. Stadler, how unfortunate it is if you allow yourself to be disturbed by political matters, which you have always considered unworthy of your attention and knowledge. You see, it is not Mr. Mouch's function to ask permissions."  The figure now slouching against the sky on the speakers platform, coiling itself about the microphone, talking in the bored, contemptuous tone of an off-color story, was Dr. Simon Pritchett. He was declaring that the new invention was an instrument of social welfare, which guaranteed general prosperity, and that anyone who doubted this self evident fact was an enemy of society, to be treated accordingly.  "This invention, the product of Dr. Robert Stadler, the pre-eminent lover of freedom-"  Dr. Ferris opened a briefcase, produced some pages of neatly typed copy and turned to Dr. Stadler. "You are to be the climax of the broadcast," he said. "You will speak last, at the end of the hour." He extended the pages. "Here's the speech you'll make," His eyes said the rest: they said that his choice of words had not been accidental.  Dr. Stadler took the pages, but held them between the tips of two straight fingers, as one might hold a scrap of waste paper about to be tossed aside. "I haven't asked you to appoint yourself as my ghost writer," he said. The sarcasm of the voice gave Ferris his clue: this was not a moment for sarcasm.  "I couldn't have allowed your invaluable time to be taken up by the writing of radio speeches," said Dr. Ferris. "I felt certain that you would appreciate it." He said it in a tone of spurious politeness intended to be recognized as spurious, the tone of tossing to a beggar the alms of face-saving.  Dr. Stadler's answer disturbed him: Dr. Stadler did not choose to answer or to glance down at the manuscript.  "Lack of faith," a beefy speaker was snarling on the platform, in the tone of a street brawl, "lack of faith is the only thing we got to fear! If we have faith in the plans of our leaders, why, the plans will work and we'll all have prosperity and ease and plenty. It's the fellows who go around doubting and destroying our morale, it's they who're keeping us in shortages and misery. But we're not going to let them do it much longer, we're here to protect the people-and if any of those doubting smarties come around, believe you me, we'll take care of them!"  "It would be unfortunate," said Dr. Ferris in a soft voice, "to arouse popular resentment against the State Science Institute at an explosive time like the present. There's a great deal of dissatisfaction and unrest in the country-and if people should misunderstand the nature of the new invention, they're liable to vent their rage on all scientists. Scientists have never been popular with the masses."  "Peace," a tall, willowy woman was signing into the microphone, "this invention is a great, new instrument of peace. It will protect us from the aggressive designs of selfish enemies, it will allow us to breathe freely and to learn to love our fellow men." She had a bony face with a mouth embittered at cocktail parties, and wore a flowing pale blue gown, suggesting the concert garment of a harpist. "It may well be considered as that miracle which was thought impossible in history-the dream of the ages-the final synthesis of science and love!"  Dr. Stadler looked at the faces in the grandstands. They were sitting quietly now, they were listening, but their eyes had an ebbing look of twilight, a look of fear in the process of being accepted as permanent, the look of raw wounds being dimmed by the veil of infection. They knew, as he knew it, that they were the targets of the shapeless funnels protruding from the mushroom building's dome-and he wondered in what manner they were now extinguishing their minds and escaping that knowledge; he knew that the words they were eager to absorb and believe were the chains slipping in to hold them, like the goats, securely within the range of those funnels. They were eager to believe; he saw the tightening lines of their lips, he saw the occasional glances of suspicion they threw at their neighbors-as if the horror that threatened them was not the sound ray, but the men who would make them acknowledge it as horror. Their eyes were veiling over, but the remnant look of a wound was a cry for help.  "Why do you think they think?" said Dr. Ferris softly. "Reason is the scientist's only weapon-and reason has no power over men, has it? At a time like ours, with the country falling apart, with the mob driven by blind desperation to the edge of open riots and violence-order must be maintained by any means available. What can we do when we have to deal with people?"  Dr. Stadler did not answer.  A fat, jellied woman, with an inadequate brassiere under a dark, perspiration-stained dress, was saying into the microphone-Dr. Stadler could not believe it at first-that the new invention was to be greeted with particular gratitude by the mothers of the country.  Dr. Stadler turned away; watching him, Ferris could see nothing but the noble line of the high forehead and the deep cut of bitterness at the corner of the mouth.  Suddenly, without context or warning, Robert Stadler whirled to face him. It was like a spurt of blood from a sudden crack in a wound that had almost closed: Stadler's face was open, open in pain, in horror, in sincerity, as if, for that moment, both he and Ferris were human beings, while he moaned with incredulous despair: "In a civilized century, Ferris, in a civilized century!"  Dr. Ferris took his time to produce and prolong a soft chuckle. "I don't know what you're talking about," he answered in the tone of a quotation.  Dr. Stadler lowered his eyes.  When Ferris spoke again, his voice had the faintest edge of a tone which Stadler could not define, except that it did not belong in any civilized discussion: "It would be unfortunate if anything were to happen to jeopardize the State Science Institute. It would be most unfortunate if the Institute were to be closed-or if any one of us were to be forced to leave it. Where would we go? Scientists are an inordinate luxury these days-and there aren't many people or establishments left who're able to afford necessities, let alone luxuries. There are no doors left open to us. We wouldn't be welcome in the research department of an industrial concern, such as-let us say-Rearden Steel. Besides, if we should happen to make enemies, the same enemies would be feared by any person tempted to employ our talents. A man like Rearden would have fought for us. Would a man like Orren Boyle? But this is purely theoretical speculation, because, as a matter of practical fact, all private establishments of scientific research have been closed by law-by Directive 10-289, issued, as you might not realize, by Mr. Wesley Mouch. Are you thinking, perhaps, of universities? They are in the same position. They can't afford to make enemies. Who would speak up for us? I believe that some such man as Hugh Akston would have come to our defense-but to think of that is to be guilty of an anachronism. He belonged to a different age. The conditions set up in our social and economic reality have long since made his continued existence impossible. And I don't think that Dr. Simon Pritchett, or the generation reared under his guidance, would be able or willing to defend us. I have never believed in the efficacy of idealists-have you?-and this is no age for impractical idealism. If anyone wished to oppose a government policy, how would he make himself heard? Through these gentlemen of the press, Dr. Stadler? Through this microphone? Is there an independent newspaper left in the country? An uncontrolled radio station? A private piece of property, for that matter-or a personal opinion?" The tone of the voice was obvious now: it was the tone of a thug. "A personal opinion is the one luxury that nobody can afford today."  Dr. Stadler's lips moved stiffly, as stiffly as the muscles of the goats, "You are speaking to Robert Stadler."  "I have not forgotten that. It is precisely because I have not forgotten it that I am speaking, 'Robert Stadler' is an illustrious name, which I would hate to see destroyed. But what is an illustrious name nowadays? In whose eyes?" His arm swept over the grandstands. "In the eyes of people such as you see around you? If they will believe, when so told, that an instrument of death is a tool of prosperity-would they not believe it if they were told that Robert Stadler is a traitor and an enemy of the State? Would you then rely on the fact that this is not true? Are you thinking of truth, Dr. Stadler? Questions of truth do not enter into social issues. Principles have no influence on public affairs. Reason has no power over human beings. Logic is impotent. Morality is superfluous. Do not answer me now, Dr. Stadler. You will answer me over the microphone. You're the next speaker."  Looking off at the dark strip of the farm in the distance, Dr. Stadler knew that what he felt was terror, but he would not permit himself to know its nature. He, who had been able to study the particles and sub particles of cosmic space, would not permit himself to examine his feeling and to know that it was made of three parts: one part was terror of a vision that seemed to stand before his eyes, the vision of the inscription cut, in his honor, over the door of the Institute: "To the fearless mind, to the inviolate truth"-another part was a plain, brute, animal fear of physical destruction, a humiliating fear which, in the civilized world of his youth, he had not expected ever to experience-and the third was the terror of the knowledge that by betraying the first, one delivers oneself into the realm of the second.  He walked toward the speaker's scaffold, his steps firm and slow, his head lifted, the manuscript of the speech held crumpled in his fingers. It looked like a walk to mount either a pedestal or a guillotine. As the whole of a man's life flashes before him in his dying moment, so he walked to the sound of the announcer's voice reading to the country the list of Robert Stadler's achievements and career. A faint convulsion ran over Robert Stadler's face at the words: "-former head of the Department of Physics of the Patrick Henry University." He knew, distantly, not as if the knowledge were within him, but as if it were within some person he was leaving behind, that the crowd was about to witness an act of destruction more terrible than the destruction of. the farm.  He had mounted the first three steps of the scaffold, when a young newsman tore forward, ran to him and, from below, seized the railing to stop him. "Dr. Stadler!" he cried in a desperate whisper. "Tell them the truth! Tell them that you had nothing to do with it! Tell them what sort of infernal machine it is and for what purpose it's intended to be used! Tell the country what sort of people are trying to rule it! Nobody can doubt your word! Tell them the truth! Save us! You're the only one who can!"  Dr. Stadler looked down at him. He was young; his movements and voice had that swift, sharp clarity which belongs to competence; among his aged, corrupt, favor-ridden and pull-created colleagues, he had managed to achieve the rank of elite of the political press, by means and in the role of a last, irresistible spark of ability. His eyes had the look of an eager, unfrightened intelligence; they were the kind of eyes Dr. Stadler had seen looking up at him from the benches of classrooms.  He noticed that this boy's eyes were hazel; they had a tinge of green.  Dr. Stadler turned his head and saw that Ferris had come rushing to his side, like a servant or a jailer. "I do not expect to be insulted by disloyal young punks with treasonable motives," said Dr. Stadler loudly.  Dr. Ferris whirled upon the young man and snapped, his face out of control, distorted by rage at the unexpected and unplanned, "Give me your press card and your work permit!"  "I am proud," Dr. Robert Stadler read-into the microphone and into the attentive silence of a nation, "that my years of work in the service of science have brought me the honor of placing into the hands of our great leader, Mr. Thompson, a new instrument with an incalculable potential for a civilizing and liberating influence upon the mind of man. . . . "  The sky had the stagnant breath of a furnace and the streets of New York were like pipes running, not with air and light, but with melted dust. Dagny stood on a street corner, where the airport bus had left her, looking at the city in passive astonishment. The buildings seemed worn by weeks of summer heat, but the people seemed worn by centuries of anguish. She stood watching them, disarmed by an enormous sense of unreality.  That sense of unreality had been her only feeling since the early hours of the morning-since the moment when, at the end of an empty highway, she had walked into an unknown town and stopped the first passer-by to ask where she was.  "Watsonville," he answered. "What state, please?" she asked. The man glanced at her, said, "Nebraska," and walked hastily away. She smiled mirthlessly, knowing that he wondered where she had come from and that no explanation he could imagine would be as fantastic as the truth. Yet it was Watsonville that seemed fantastic to her, as she walked through its streets to the railroad station. She had lost the habit of observing despair as the normal and dominant aspect of human existence, so normal as to become unnoticed-and the sight of it struck her in all of its senseless futility. She was seeing the brand of pain and fear on the faces of people, and the look of evasion that refuses to know it-they seemed to be going through the motions of some enormous pretense, acting out a ritual to ward off reality, letting the earth remain unseen and their lives unlived, in dread of something namelessly forbidden-yet the forbidden was the simple act of looking at the nature of their pain and questioning their duty to bear it. She was seeing it so clearly that she kept wanting to approach strangers, to shake them, to laugh in their faces and to cry, "Snap out of it!"  There was no reason for people to be as unhappy as that, she thought, no reason whatever . . . and then she remembered that reason was the one power they had banished from their existence.  She boarded a Taggart train for the nearest airfield; she did not identify herself to anyone: it seemed irrelevant. She sat at the window of a coach, like a stranger who has to learn the incomprehensible language of those around her. She picked up a discarded newspaper; she managed, with effort, to understand what was written, but not why it should ever have been written: it all seemed so childishly senseless.  She stared in astonishment at a paragraph in a syndicated column from New York, which stated over emphatically that Mr. James Taggart wished it to be known that his sister had died in an airplane crash, any unpatriotic rumors to the contrary notwithstanding. Slowly, she remembered Directive 10-289 and realized that Jim was embarrassed by the public suspicion that she had vanished as a deserter.  The wording of the paragraph suggested that her disappearance had been a prominent public issue, not yet dropped. There were other suggestions of it: a mention of Miss Taggart's tragic death, in a story about the growing number of plane crashes-and, on the back page, an ad, offering a $100,000 reward to the person who would find the wreckage of her plane, signed by Henry Rearden.  The last gave her a stab of urgency; the rest seemed meaningless.  Then, slowly, she realized that her return was a public event which would be taken as big news. She felt a lethargic weariness at the prospect of a dramatic homecoming, of facing Jim and the press, of witnessing the excitement. She wished they would get it over with in her absence.  At the airfield, she saw a small-town reporter interviewing some departing officials. She waited till he had finished, then she approached him, extended her credentials and said quietly, to the gaping stare of his eyes, "I'm Dagny Taggart. Would you make it known, please, that I'm alive and that I'll be in New York this afternoon?" The plane was about to take off and she escaped the necessity of answering questions.  She watched the prairies, the rivers, the towns slipping past at an untouchable distance below-and she noted that the sense of detachment one feels when looking at the earth from a plane was the same sense she felt when looking at people: only her distance from people seemed longer, The passengers were listening to some radio broadcast, which appeared to be important, judging by their earnest attentiveness. She caught brief snatches of fraudulent voices talking about some sort of new invention that was to bring some undefined benefits to some undefined public's welfare. The words were obviously chosen to convey no specific meaning whatever; she wondered how one could pretend that one was hearing a speech; yet that was what the passengers were doing.  They were going through the performance of a child who, not yet able to read, holds a book open and spells out anything he wishes to spell, pretending that it is contained in the incomprehensible black lines. But the child, she thought, knows that he is playing a game; these people pretend to themselves that they are not pretending; they know no other state of existence.  The sense of unreality remained as her only feeling, when she landed, when she escaped a crowd of reporters without being seen-by avoiding the taxi stands and leaping into the airport bus-when she rode on the bus, then stood on a street corner, looking et New York, She felt as if she were seeing an abandoned city. She felt no sense of homecoming, when she entered her apartment; the place seemed to be a convenient machine that she could use for some purpose of no significance whatever.  But she felt a quickened touch of energy, like the first break in a fog -a touch of meaning-when she picked up the telephone receiver and called Rearden's office in Pennsylvania. "Oh, Miss Taggart . . . Miss Taggart!" said, in a joyous moan, the voice of the severe, unemotional Miss Ives.  "Hello, Miss Ives. I haven't startled you, have I? You knew that I was alive?"  "Oh yes! I heard it on the radio this morning."  "Is Mr. Rearden in his office?"  "No, Miss Taggart. He . . . he's in the Rocky Mountains, searching for . . . that is . . ."  "Yes, I know. Do you know where we can reach him?"  "I expect to hear from him at any moment. He's stopping in Los Gatos, Colorado, right now. I phoned him, the moment I heard the news, but he was out and I left a message for him to call me. You see, he's out flying, most of the day . . . but he'll call me when he comes back to the hotel."  "What hotel is it?"  "The Eldorado Hotel, in Los Gatos."  "Thank you, Miss Ives." She was about to hang up.  "Oh, Miss Taggart!"  "Yes?"  "What was it that happened to you? Where were you?"  "I . . . I'll tell you when I see you. I'm in New York now. When Mr. Rearden calls, tell him please that I'll be in my office."  "Yes, Miss Taggart."  She hung up, but her hand remained on the receiver, clinging to her first contact with a matter that had importance. She looked at her apartment and at the city in the window, feeling reluctant to sink again into the dead fog of the meaningless.  She raised the receiver and called Los Gatos.  "Eldorado Hotel," said a woman's drowsily resentful voice.  "Would you take a message for Mr. Henry Rearden? Ash him, when he comes in, to-"  "Just a minute, please," drawled the voice, in the impatient tone that resents any effort as an imposition.  She heard the clicking of switches, some buzzing, some breaks of silence and then a man's clear, firm voice answering: "Hello?" It was Hank Rearden.  She stared at the receiver as at the muzzle of a gun, feeling trapped, unable to breathe.  "Hello?" he repeated.  "Hank, is that you?"  She heard a low sound, more a sigh than a gasp, and then the long, empty crackling of the wire.  "Hank!" There was no answer. "Hank!" she screamed in terror.  She thought she heard the effort of a breath-then she heard a whisper, which was not a question, but a statement saying everything: "Dagny."  "Hank, I'm sorry-oh, darling, I'm sorry!-didn't you know?"  "Where are you, Dagny?"  "Are you all right?"  "Of course."  "Didn't you know that I was back and . . . and alive?"  "No . . . I didn't know it."  "Oh God, I'm sorry I called, I-"  "What are you talking about? Dagny, where are you?"  "In New York. Didn't you hear about it on the radio?"  "No. I've just come in."  "Didn't they give you a message to call Miss Ives?"  "No."  "Are you all right?"  "Now?" She heard his soft, low chuckle. She was hearing the sound of unreleased laughter, the sound of youth, growing in his voice with every word. "When did you come back?"  "This morning."  "Dagny, where were you?"  She did not answer at once. "My plane crashed," she said. "In the Rockies. I was picked up by some people who helped me, but I could not send word to anyone."  The laughter went out of his voice. "As bad as that?"  "Oh . . . oh, the crash? No, it wasn't bad. I wasn't hurt. Not seriously."  "Then why couldn't you send word?"  "There were no . . . no means of communication."  "Why did it take you so long to get back?"  "I . . . can't answer that now,"  "Dagny, were you in danger?"  The half-smiling, half-bitter tone of her voice was almost regret, as she answered, "No."  "Were you held prisoner?"  "No-not really."  "Then you could have returned sooner, but didn't?"  "That's true-but that's all I can tell you."  "Where were you, Dagny?"  "Do you mind if we don't talk about it now? Let's wait until I see you."  "Of course. I won't ask any questions. Just tell me: are you safe now?"  "Safe? Yes."  "I mean, have you suffered any permanent injuries or consequences?"  She answered, with the same sound of a cheerless smile, "Injuries-no, Hank. I don't know, as to the permanent consequences."  "Will you still be in New York tonight?"  "Why, yes. I'm . . . I'm back for good."  "Are you?"  "Why do you ask that?"  "I don't know. I guess I'm too used to what it's like when . . . when I can't find you."  "I'm back."  "Yes. I'll see you in a few hours." His voice broke off, as if the sentence were too enormous to believe. "In a few hours," he repeated firmly.  "I'll be here."  "Dagny-"  "Yes?"  He chuckled softly. "No, nothing. Just wanted to hear your voice awhile longer. Forgive me. I mean, not now. I mean, I don't want to say anything now."  "Hank, I-"  "When I see you, my darling. So long."  She stood looking at the silent receiver. For the first time since her return, she felt pain, a violent pain, but it made her alive, because it was worth feeling.  She telephoned her secretary at Taggart Transcontinental, to say briefly that she would be in the office in half an hour.  The statue of Nathaniel Taggart was real-when she stood facing it in the concourse of the Terminal. It seemed to her that they were alone in a vast, echoing temple, with fog coils of formless ghosts weaving and vanishing around them. She stood still, looking up at the statue, as for a brief moment of dedication. I'm back-were the only words she had to offer.  "Dagny Taggart" was still the inscription on the frosted glass panel of the door to her office. The look on the faces of her staff, as she entered the anteroom, was the look of drowning persons at the sight of a lifeline. She saw Eddie Willers standing at his desk in his glass enclosure, with some man before him. Eddie made a move in her direction, but stopped; he looked imprisoned. She let her glance greet every face in turn, smiling at them gently as at doomed children, then walked toward Eddie's desk.  Eddie was watching her approach as if he were seeing nothing else in the world, but his rigid posture seemed designed to pretend that he was listening to the man before him.  "Motive power?" the man was saying in a voice that had a brusque, staccato snap and a slurred, nasal drawl, together. "There's no problem about motive power. You just take-"  "Hello," said Eddie softly, with a muted smile, as to a distant vision.  The man turned to glance at her. He had a yellow complexion, curly hair, a hard face made of soft muscles, and the revolting handsomeness belonging to the esthetic standards of barroom corners; his blurred brown eyes had the empty flatness of glass.  "Miss Taggart," said Eddie, in a resonant tone of severity, the tone of slapping the man into the manners of a drawing room he had never entered, "may I present Mr. Meigs?"  "How d' do," said the man without interest, then turned to Eddie and proceeded, as if she were not present: "You just take the Comet off the schedule for tomorrow and Tuesday, and shoot the engines to Arizona for the grapefruit special, with the rolling stock from the Scranton coal run I mentioned. Send the orders out at once."  "You'll do nothing of the kind!" she gasped, too incredulous to be angry.  Eddie did not answer.  Meigs glanced at her with what would have been astonishment if his eyes were capable of registering a reaction. "Send the orders," he said to Eddie, with no emphasis, and walked out.  Eddie was jotting notations on a piece of paper.  "Are you crazy?" she asked.  He raised his eyes to her, as though exhausted by hours of beating.  "We'll have to, Dagny" he said, his voice dead.  "What is that?" she asked, pointing at the outer door that had closed on Mr. Meigs.  "The Director of Unification."  "What?"  "The Washington representative, in charge of the Railroad Unification Plan."  "What's that?"  "It's . . . Oh, wait, Dagny, are you all right? Were you hurt? Was it a plane crash?"  She had never imagined what the face of Eddie Willers would look like in the process of aging, but she was seeing it now-aging at thirty-five and within the span of one month. It was not a matter of texture or wrinkles, it was the same face with the same muscles, but saturated by the withering look of resignation to a pain accepted as hopeless.  She smiled, gently and confidently, in understanding, in dismissal of all problems, and said, extending her hand, "All right, Eddie. Hello."  He took her hand and pressed it to his lips, a thing he had never done before, his manner neither daring nor apologetic, but simply and openly personal.  "It was a plane crash," she said, "and, Eddie, so that you won't worry, I’ll tell you the truth: I wasn't hurt, not seriously. But that's not the story I'm going to give to the press and to all the others. So you're never to mention it."  "Of course."  "I had no way to communicate with anyone, but not because I was hurt. It's all I can tell you, Eddie. Don't ask me where I was or why it took me so long to return."  "I won't."  "Now tell me, what is the Railroad Unification Plan?"  "It's . . . Oh, do you mind?-let Jim tell you. He will, soon enough. I just don't have the stomach-unless you want me to," he added, with a conscientious effort at discipline, "No, you don't have to. Just tell me whether I understood that Unificator correctly: he wants you to cancel the Comet for two days in order to give her engines to a grapefruit special in Arizona?"  "That's right."  "And he's cancelled a coal train in order to get cars to lug grapefruit?"  "Yes."  "Grapefruit?"  "That's right."  "Why?"  "Dagny, 'why' is a word nobody uses any longer."  After a moment, she asked, "Have you any guess about the reason?"  "Guess? I don't have to guess. I know."  "All right, what is it?"  "The grapefruit special is for the Smather brothers. The Smather brothers bought a fruit ranch in Arizona a year ago, from a man who went bankrupt under the Equalization of Opportunity Bill. He had owned the ranch for thirty years. The Smather brothers were in the punchboard business the year before. They bought the ranch by means of a loan from Washington under a project for the reclamation of distressed areas, such as Arizona. The Smather brothers have friends in Washington."  "Well?"  "Dagny, everybody knows it. Everybody knows how train schedules have been run in the past three weeks, and why some districts and some shippers get transportation, while others don't. What we're not supposed to do is say that we know it. We're supposed to pretend to believe that 'public welfare is the only reason for any decision-and that the public welfare of the city of New York requires the immediate delivery of a large quantity of grapefruit." He paused, then added, "The Director of Unification is sole judge of the public welfare and has sole authority over the allocation of any motive power and rolling stock on any railroad anywhere in the United States."  There was a moment of silence. "I see," she said. In another moment, she asked, "What has been done about the Winston tunnel?"  "Oh, that was abandoned three weeks ago. They never unearthed the trains. The equipment gave out."  "What has been done about rebuilding the old line around the tunnel?"  "That was shelved."  "Then are we running any transcontinental traffic?"  He gave her an odd glance. "Oh yes," he said bitterly.  "Through the detour of the Kansas Western?"  "No."  "Eddie, what has been happening here in the past month?"  He smiled as if his words were an ugly confession. "We've been making money in the past month," he answered.  She saw the outer door open and James Taggart come in, accompanied by Mr. Meigs. "Eddie, do you want to be present at the conference?" she asked. "Or would you rather miss this one?"  "No. I want to be present."  Jim's face looked like a crumpled piece of paper, though its soft, puffed flesh had acquired no additional lines.  "Dagny, there's a lot of things to discuss, a lot of important changes which-" he said shrilly, his voice rushing in ahead of his person. "Oh, I'm glad to see you back, I'm happy that you're alive," he added impatiently, remembering. "Now there are some urgent-"  "Let's go to my office," she said.  Her office was like a historical reconstruction, restored and maintained by Eddie Willers. Her map, her calendar, the picture of Nat Taggart were on the walls, and no trace was left of the Clifton Locey era, "I understand that I am still the Operating Vice-President of this railroad?" she asked, sitting down at her desk.  "You are," said Taggart hastily, accusingly, almost defiantly. "You certainly are-and don't you forget it-you haven't quit, you're still -have you?"  "No, I haven't quit."  "Now the most urgent thing to do is to tell that to the press, tell them that you're back on the job and where you were and-and, by the way, where were you?"  "Eddie," she said, "will you make a note on this and send it to the press? My plane developed engine trouble while I was flying over the Rocky Mountains to the Taggart Tunnel. I lost my way, looking for an emergency landing, and crashed in an uninhabited mountain section-of Wyoming. I was found by an old sheepherder and his wife, who took me to their cabin, deep in the wilderness, fifty miles away from the nearest settlement. I was badly injured and remained unconscious for most of two weeks. The old couple had no telephone, no radio, no means of communication or transportation, except an old truck that broke down when they attempted to use it. I had to remain with them until I recovered sufficient strength to walk. I walked the fifty miles to the foothills, then hitchhiked my way to a Taggart station in Nebraska."  "I see," said Taggart. "Well, that's fine. Now when you give the press interview-"  "I'm not going to give any press interviews."  "What? But they've been calling me all day! They're waiting! It's essential!" He had an air of panic. "It's most crucially essential!"  "Who's been calling you all day?"  "People in Washington and . . . and others . . . They're waiting for your statement."  She pointed at Eddie's notes. "There's my statement."  "But that's not enough! You must say that you haven't quit."  "That's obvious, isn't it? I'm back."  "You must say something about it."  "Such as what?"  "Something personal."  "To whom?"  "To the country. People were worried about you. You must reassure them."  "The story will reassure them, if anyone was worried about me."  "That's not what I mean!"  "Well, what do you mean?"  "I mean-" He stopped, his eyes avoiding hers. "I mean-" He sat, searching for words, cracking his knuckles.  Jim was going to pieces, she thought; the jerky impatience, the shrillness, the aura of panic were new; crude outbreaks of a tone of ineffectual menace had replaced his pose of cautious smoothness.  "I mean-" He was searching for words to name his meaning without na............