ATLAS SNUBBED
An Unsanctioned Pastiche Parody
Ken V. Krawchuk
Atlas Snubbed
Copyright 2011 by Ken V. Krawchuk
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4524-1768-4
Version W.0
February 3, 2012
230,443 words total
Cover art:
Desert scene courtesy of Michael Davis (mdpub.com)
Train pictures courtesy of Barry F. Krawchuk
Publisher and Licensed Distributor:
Ken Krawchuk & Associates, Ltd.
c/o PO Box 260
Cheltenham, Penna., 19012
info@AtlasSnubbed.com
Smashwords Edition
License Notes:
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Table of Contents
Book Two: Who Is Eddie Willers?
Section III – The Final Months
I dedicate this book in grateful appreciation to the memory of Alisa Rosenbaum, self-styled as Ayn Rand. Through her writings, she taught me how to argue with fools—and the first fool I had to argue with was myself. You’ll have to decide for yourself who won that argument.
The United States was falling.
Beginning with the nineteenth century conflict known variously as the War Between the States, the Civil War, or the War of Northern Aggression—depending on the allegiance of the observer—the nation had embarked upon a path which took it further and further from its philosophical underpinnings of personal liberty and individual rights, drifting oh-so-slowly toward a society rife with over-regulation and collectivism. Over the years, petty thieves, looters, and thugs assumed greater and greater control over the machinery of State, and with predictable results: more and more of the nation’s productive output found itself routed into the pockets of those in power rather than those who had earned it. Unavoidably, the promise of tax-paid riches attracted the unscrupulous, much as a bright light shining in the night draws obnoxious insects. Before long, leadership positions were increasingly awarded not to the most able, but rather to the most ruthless, in a cycle that rapidly worsened with each iteration.
Perhaps America would have realized in time the grave error she was committing and eventually returned to the moral code she had abandoned, if not for the deliberate efforts of one man: the Worker.
“Who is the Worker?” one must ask. Like the fictional John Galt, the Worker was an engineer, inventor, and philosopher, a man of humble beginnings who ultimately graduated from the most prestigious academic institution in the nation. After earning a dual degree in physics and philosophy, he began a promising career as a researcher for the Century Motor Company in Starnesville, Wisconsin, the best motor manufacturer in the nation at that time. But after the company’s founder passed away, his heirs forsook their father’s individualist management style in favor of a blatantly collectivist approach, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” The inevitable result was the rapid decline of the firm, and within four years the Century went bankrupt.
But there was one enduring legacy from the company’s collectivist experiment. Upon hearing the unspeakable evil of collectivism spoken by the heirs in a tone of high moral righteousness, the Worker finally realized the root of the world’s tragedy—the moral code of collectivism—the key to it, and the solution: a brand new moral code, one that was rooted not in some collectivist creed, but rather in individual rights. The summation of his new code fit neatly into a twenty-nine-word oath: “I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”
The Worker did not stay on to witness the destruction of the Century Motor Company. On the night the heirs took over the Factory, at a massive meeting of the entire company, the Worker quit—or, more precisely, commenced a one man strike. As he walked off the job, he vowed to his collectivist co-workers, “I will put an end to this once and for all. I will stop the motor of the world.”
His was no idle threat. Armed only with his unique philosophy, he set forth to scout out the men of ability, the men of the mind. When he found them, his message to them was always the same: stop supporting your destroyers! One by one, one after another, the Worker convinced the nation’s best and brightest to join him in his strike, to withhold from society the fruits of the superlative ability of their minds. Only by withdrawing their support from the collectivist society could they defeat it. Only by consistently treating their life as their own would they finally come to truly own it. Only by refusing to sanction the collectivist’s moral code would the men of ability finally be free. And time after time, in one business after another, the call was heard; and as the years passed, his roster of recruits swelled from dozens, to hundreds, to thousands.
Although the Worker pursued his goals in secret, oddly enough the men of America well knew him by name. Without conscious orchestration, whenever people saw the lights go out in the great factories, their gates closed and conveyor belts stilled, when the roads began to grow empty, or when they saw another collapse in the world which no one could explain, when they took another blow or lost another hope, they would habitually ask the rhetorical question: “Who is John Galt” that he could stop the motor of the world? The question was asked at first by the Worker’s fellow employees at Century, but the pseudonym soon spontaneously spread throughout the nation; and the citizens of America were destined to have their answer.
With economic inevitability, as each man of ability joined the Worker’s strike, the productive output of the nation declined, sometimes only marginally, other times quite significantly. But regardless of the size of the reduction, the result was always the same: fewer goods and services, and a greater strain on the nation’s economy and on the poor souls left behind. Infrastructure—and nerves—became more and more frayed with each successive blow.
At long last, after twelve years of uncompromising effort, the Worker’s dream of the total collapse of the collectivist state was finally poised to come to pass, and that collapse promised to be a horrible one. The declining economic situation had attained dire proportions, and the nation found itself teetering on the brink of disaster and starvation. Armed fighting broke out between men, between cities, and between states as they battled over the last remnants of food and the hulks of abandoned factories. The greatest nation the world had ever known was about to come to a nasty, bloody end.
But at the last minute, the Worker was unwittingly betrayed by the woman he loved, and captured by government agents. They both flattered and tortured him in an attempt to break his will and force him to abandon his strike and rescue the crumbling nation. But before long, his fellow strikers staged a dramatic rescue and they escaped with the Worker to their secret stronghold high in the Colorado Rockies.
Safe in their mountain redoubt, the men of the mind waited patiently for the last remnants of the collectivist state to crumble before they could or would consider returning to the world Outside. But they did not have long to wait. With her last hope abruptly snatched out from beneath her, the United States of America entered her final death throes, and in a fury of fighting, finally perished from the face of the Earth. The once great nation had been relegated to the dustbin of history, the last victim of her own flawed moral code.
With the complete collapse of the collectivists, the course was now clear for the strikers to return. But the world that they ultimately inherited was nothing at all like the world they had originally left behind. Nor was the reception they received quite what they expected, once they did return.
For among the survivors still clinging to life in obscure niches of the four corners of the world, there was one cliché that could not be uttered. No longer could people idly bear to hear the name, the phrase, the apocryphal cry of despair, “Who is John Galt?”
Because now, they knew.
February 25, 1953
CHAPTER 1 – UNDERTURE
Eddie smiled in his sleep.
His smile was not so much due to any chance dream, but rather in instinctive response to the slight tickle of perspiration trickling down his cheek. In an ironic twist, the persistent tickling caused the smile to fade, along with the last traces of sleep.
Waking, he felt the cold reality of the warm metal floor of the Diesel’s cab pressing against his cheek, its angled, grey flatness filling half his field of view. With a start, he realized he was still aboard Transcontinental Railroad’s Meteor, the fastest train in the nation, but stalled and stranded somewhere in the middle of an Arizona desert. His back and neck were sore from having slept for hours on the bare metal floor.
Even though the desert sun had not yet risen very far above the horizon, it was already oppressively hot inside the cab. His clothes were drenched with perspiration. When he climbed into the engine the night before, he distinctly recalled closing the cab’s hatch against the night’s chill. But right now if he spent another half hour inside the enclosed Diesel, he feared he would melt like a tallow candle on a hotplate.
Eddie lifted himself painfully, opened the hatch, and climbed down the still-shadowed side of the silent Meteor. The flinty odor of dry sand hung in the breezeless air. Shading his eyes with his hand, he gazed out across the vast, unimpeded expanse of lonely desert. Except for occasional dots of cacti and scrub, the only feature on the limitless gravelly sand was the dusty road at his feet, running parallel to the track. It was the same road that had brought the covered wagons the night before—covered wagons!—that had carried away the last passengers to ever ride the Meteor. All the passengers except him, that is.
He looked back along the length of the train, back toward San Francisco from which the Meteor had recently departed. The train stretched in a straight line away from him: a mail car, two baggage cars, a sleeper, two day coaches, and an ornate observation car coupled to its end. Waves of heat streamed from their roofs, wavering starkly against the featureless crystal blue sky. A growing menagerie of mice, rabbits and prairie dogs had taken refuge from the sun in the shadow of the train. The nearer ones eyed Eddie nervously.
“I am a fool,” he told himself out loud, carefully enunciating each word. He knew now that he should have accepted the wagonmaster’s offer the night before to join up with their wagon train rather than remaining alone aboard the train. In the light of the new day, he saw the naked folly of his grand gesture to the Meteor and to Transcontinental Railroad. He took a deep breath and pulled himself together. No! Not a fool! he reminded himself sternly within the confines of his mind. I am the Special Assistant to the Vice-President in Charge of Operations for Transcontinental Railroad, and this train is my responsibility! Despite his proud words, there was no denying that he and the Meteor were stranded together, and it was becoming increasingly clear that they would likely die together as he went down with his ship. His shoulders slumped perceptibly. But still a fool...
His mind refused to accept the unbelievable news that the wagonmaster had brought him the night before, news that the famous Transcontinental Bridge which had once spanned the mighty Mississippi River was now gone, blasted to bits by some unimaginable mishap at the secretive X Project in Iowa. He looked eastward, past the silent Diesel, his gaze following the track across the nondescript desert stretching beyond his ability to see. He shook his head; the Meteor had originally set out for New York City, but even the waypoint of Chicago was now unattainable. Eddie and the Meteor were left to fend for themselves.
A rumble from his stomach interrupted his reverie, but he gave it no further thought. He knew there was no food on board; diner service on all Transcontinental trains had been “temporarily suspended” months ago; in fact, he had personally relayed the order suspending service. Still, while there may be no food, he knew there would be plenty of potable water in the lavatory holding tanks of the sleeper and day coaches. He might starve, but he certainly wouldn’t die of thirst. Looking again at the living smorgasbord still eying him warily from behind the safety of the train’s wheels, he considered that perhaps he wouldn’t starve either.
Suddenly aware of his thirst, Eddie turned his back on thoughts of unreachable destinations and climbed aboard the sleeper car, ignoring the scuttling of creatures scrambling at his approach. Heat poured out of the sleeper’s door as he opened it, almost a physical wall pressing hot against his sweaty clothes. Entering the sweltering car, he walked down the corridor to the porter’s cubbyhole, opened an access panel, and pulled a dipstick from the main water holding tank. The expertly-calibrated, scored stick indicated that almost ninety gallons remained. He nodded with satisfaction. After replacing the dipstick and conscientiously closing the access panel, he walked further down the hot corridor to the first lavatory, entered it, and turned on the faucet over the sink. Driven by the immutable force of gravity, lukewarm water splashed cheerfully into the bottom of the basin, down the drain, and onto the trackbed below. Eddie pulled a paper cup from its dispenser alongside the sink and felt no guilt as he drank heavily. Ninety gallons would last him for many weeks, maybe months; and there was likely even more water in the day coaches. He knew his bigger problem would be food.
Rather than filling the void in his stomach, drinking so much water made him more acutely aware of the lack of solid food. Inevitably, he found his thoughts returning to the creatures outside. How could he go about catching one? Skinning one? Cooking one? The realization suddenly came to him that he didn’t even have a penknife, let alone any matches to build a fire. What would he do? It appeared he was about to learn, or perhaps die trying.
Searching the entire train, he could find neither a knife nor anything else with a sharp edge. He did, however, discover some watery ice cubes in a refrigerator that was softly humming on fading battery power in an elegantly-paneled recess aboard the observation car. But the best and only weapons he could locate were a screwdriver and a rusted hammer; he wondered how he would be able to get close enough to any animal to be able to use either of them effectively.
Eddie knew it would be no use, but also knew he had to try. He constructed a crude, screwdriver-tipped spear out of a broom handle and some hemp twine he found on board, but it quickly became obvious that he lacked the hunting skills necessary to use it capably; none of his thrusts came anywhere close to his prey. They would always maintain a respectful distance, whiskers twitching, sitting in the shade of the train, easily scurrying out of the path of his ineffectual lunges. Frustrated, he would throw his homemade weapon aside, only to pick it up a short while later to try his hand once again. But the end result always remained the same, and his hunger mounted.
As the desert day wore on, Eddie took occasional breaks from his fruitless hunting to tinker equally in vain with the dead Diesel. In his long career with Transcontinental, he had learned much about Diesels. He put that knowledge to use by making up lengthy lists of items to check, proceeded to check every single thing on his list, then check them all again. But for all his experience, checking, and lists, he could not discover the reason for the engine’s untimely demise. It simply would not start.
Frustrated, Eddie plopped into the engineer’s seat; it creaked geriatrically under the sudden weight. He sat immobile for several minutes when something in front of the train caught his eye. Through the windshield, ahead he could see a prairie dog standing upright in the middle of the track, the sun glinting off its copper-colored fur. Several of its species gathered fearlessly behind it. The lead prairie dog eyed Eddie dispassionately, nose twitching slightly, its tiny arms protruding at ease from its copper pelage. Eddie watched the critter’s tiny whiskers with an almost morbid interest before finally tearing his gaze away. No! he cried silently. We can’t let it go! Not the Meteor! Angrily, he turned his attention back to the task at hand with a renewed vigor, as if the prairie dog’s very existence was an affront to him, driving him on. But the inspiration proved to be a hollow promise; the motor that could save his life persisted in remaining silent.
Come evening, it became impossible for him to ignore the hunger pangs which wracked him. He felt miserable. When the cold of the winter desert night started him shivering, he retired to a sleeper compartment and the shelter of worn, woolen blankets. Remembering how his day had begun in the oven of the Diesel’s cab, he left both the cabin’s window and its door open to the night air. Pulling the covers tightly about his neck, his hunger, fatigue, and frustration quickly drove him into a fitful sleep.
CHAPTER 2 – I LEFT MY HEART IN SAN FRANCISCO
Ma cried.
So many dead! she thought, crying. So many more were dying, and all for what? she asked herself. For what?
Ma and the Buddhist adherents of her “Party of the People” were hurriedly regrouping on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge. They had recently been routed from their stronghold in the Transcontinental terminal in San Francisco, driven northward, and finally from the besieged city itself. Worst of all, their main force lay south of the city. They had been cut off.
So many comrades abandoned along the way, she cried to herself. So many dead! The tears poured down her dirt-streaked face and showed no signs of slowing. She was at a loss to explain how things had reached such a deadly stage. What had started as an innocent fling with Asian mysticism and Oriental asceticism had somehow ended up as a full-scale religious war engulfing the entire West Coast. They were the ones who started it, she told herself, those fanatics and some First Commandment or other!
After weeks of fierce factional fighting, the religious movement known as Back For God now controlled the entire city, plus most of California between the ocean and the Sierras, from San Francisco halfway to Big Sur; and the territory they controlled was still expanding. Though no strategist herself, her top lieutenant maintained that their isolated band of followers should be able to make an effective defensive stand here at the northern terminus of the Golden Gate. And if things turned sour yet again, he figured they could always blow up the bridge—assuming their men had enough time to finish planting the explosive charges.
She thought of her son, Kip, and her already-voluminous flow of tears actually increased. Kip had died only a few months earlier, killed in a train accident caused by the failure of the famous Transcontinental Tunnel in Colorado. It was that disaster which had somehow catapulted her to the forefront of the nation’s leadership, an unexpected legacy inadvertently bestowed upon her by the untimely demise of her bureaucrat son. But all she had wanted to do with her newfound celebrity was bring good things to the greatest number, only good. The sound of small arms fire from across the bridge reached her ears. Only good? Only the good die young! she quoted bitterly to herself as she pushed back a damp lock of her grey hair. She turned to look back across the bridge at the smoldering, smoky city. The fires appeared to be growing.
“All for what?” she wailed out loud this time, then sighed heavily at the naked despair reflected in her words. She turned to her top lieutenant who was crouched next to her, reloading a large-caliber weapon.
He looked up at her, not taking her question as rhetorical. “For what? Because we’re all godless heathens, that’s why!” he replied with his characteristic theatrical sarcasm. His four-year hitch in the Army a decade ago had left him with a modicum of military skills, but had also solidified and reinforced a sharp, cynical outlook on life. “Behold!” he mocked, waving a sweeping hand toward the burning city. “The holy ones are merely fulfilling their divine duty to wipe us off the face of the mortal world!”
Ma wiped tears from her face with a dirty sleeve. And they’re doing a good job of it! she thought to herself. She had only wanted to help, but now she found herself marked for death. Looking back across the bridge to the lost city, out loud she quoted to herself, “‘What makes a person so poisonously righteous that they’d think less of anyone who just disagreed?’”
Her lieutenant gave a short snort of derision. “Who is John Galt?”
Turning away from his dark mood, Ma gaped as a flare burst into bright flame high above the Golden Gate. At first she could not help but admire its brilliant beauty, but terror suddenly stopped her admiration cold. For the flare had been a signal, and now she could see a teeming mob beginning its charge across the bridge toward them, many wearing identical red robes adorned with a fist-sized orange flame embroidered over the left breast, the emblem of the acolyte soldier in the army of Back For God.
“To Mount Tam!” she screamed to her followers. “Quickly! Regroup on Mount Tam!” She turned to run with the rest, but only to halt immediately. Ahead of them, coming from the north, she saw a second host of red-robed figures.
“Flanked!” cried her lieutenant.
A startled Ma turned quickly to look at him quizzically, an offended look on her face. Not knowing what the word meant, she was not entirely sure she had heard him correctly. But it no longer mattered. The first of the red robes from the north were almost upon them, driving them into the arms of the red robes rising from the south.
What makes a person so poisonously righteous...,” she thought one last time as the red tides swept over them.
CHAPTER 3 – WE JUST DISAGREE
Dwight smiled wearily.
It had been not only a busy February day at the airfield in the Gulch, but also a memorable one. The morning had seen the triumphant return of the strikers who had accomplished the daring rescue of the Worker from the hands of the looters, and the entire valley was nothing short of jubilant.
The fleet of rescuers had returned from the State’s Science Institute with the Worker shortly after dawn, and while that meant a day for the liberators to celebrate, for Dwight it meant work. He was the valley’s airfield attendant—in addition to his careers as aircraft manufacturer and hog farmer—and as such, it was his responsibility to see to the dozens of airplanes that had to be hangared, and those without galtmotors refueled. It took a great deal of effort, more time consuming than it was difficult, and the sheer volume of busywork made his day pass quickly. But he didn’t mind at all; he thoroughly enjoyed the responsibilities of his profession; besides, he was no fan of jubilant celebrations, no matter how warranted. The superlative performance of his duties was all the celebration of life he had ever desired or needed.
Although it was still light out, the winter sun had already set behind the snow-covered mountain peaks that surrounded the Colorado valley. He sat at his desk in the quarter of the airfield’s administration building which had not been given over to temporary housing, humming to himself as he updated the last of the maintenance logs of the airplanes for which he was responsible. Of course, there were dozens of logs, one per airplane; more busywork.
When his task was finally completed and the last of the logs returned to its niche above his desk, he was more than ready to head home for dinner; but much to his surprise, the airfield radio burst into life.
“Atlantis tower, Atlantis tower, this is Wandering Premise. Request clearance for landing. Over.”
Dwight grinned like a kid on Christmas morning. “Owen?” he asked himself in excited disbelief. Still grinning, he picked up the microphone, keyed his transmitter and replied, “Atlantis tower here. Owen! Is that you? Over.”
“Is there another premise that wanders?” he kidded. “Of course it’s me, Dwight! Over.”
“Man, but it’s good to hear your voice! With the outside world taking its final nose dive, we feared the worst! Over.”
“Come on, Dwight; you know I’m harder to kill than that. Over.”
Dwight paused a moment; something was tickling the edges of his awareness. “What’s wrong with your radio? Your voice sounds odd. Over.”
“A long story, Dwight. I may be hard to kill, but the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune sometimes score upon this too, too solid flesh,” he misquoted. “Over.”
“If you insist,” he replied jokingly, the smile obvious in his voice. “I’m looking forward to hearing all about it.” With practiced ease, he shifted to a professional, no-nonsense tone of voice. “Wandering Premise this is Atlantis tower. You are cleared to land. Winds are from the northwest at twenty-four knots with gusts to forty, so keep an eye out. Over.”
“Roger that; cleared to land, twenty-four knots from the northwest pushing forty. Over and out.”
“Roger. Over and out.”
Dwight stood at the window of his office watching with a professional eye as Owen swung his airplane around to the eastern end of the airstrip to avoid the worst of the winds. Although Dwight could not discern any noticeable visual effect from his vantage point on the ground, he knew that Owen had momentarily keyed off the ray screen that floated over the valley.
That screen was one of the many inventions created by the men of the Gulch. It protected them from prying eyes by ensuring that anyone flying overhead would see only the refracted image of giant boulders, not the sprawling enclave of the men of the mind. Not that there were many prying eyes flitting about the skies in these dark days; even so, the screen was kept active and in place, just in case. But the ray screen wasn’t merely an optical illusion meant to fool the uninitiated; it possessed another, more dangerous property as well; for any unwary pilot who attempted to physically penetrate it would find themselves momentarily blinded and the circuits of their airplane scrambled. The only person to ever successfully navigate that particular hazard was Dagny, the Vice-President of Operations for Transcontinental Railroad. Although she had survived the attempt, she happened to flatten one of Dwight’s brand-new monoplanes in the process. The unfortunate aircraft had been stationed at an emergency landing field owned by Friendship Airlines, not far from the Gulch, to be used as a ferry aircraft by residents of the valley. Through an unbelievable coincidence, Dagny had chanced upon the airplane, rented it from someone who had absolutely no authority over it, then used it to literally crash the gate into the strikers’ valley.
Dwight smiled and shook his head at the memory. Dagny was some woman, that was sure. She had just returned to the valley that morning, a part of the victorious fleet that had rescued the Worker. Dwight was overjoyed to hear that she had finally decided to come home to the valley for good.
Still smiling, he donned his fleece jacket, covering up the brightly-colored cowboy shirt he liked to wear, and headed outside to greet Owen. He stood hatless in the cold breeze on the shoveled walkway, ignoring the two long rows of olive-drab Army tents that stretched alongside the hangar and the campfires that blazed among them. He watched as Owen’s airplane touched down expertly and rolled along the airstrip, shedding speed. Reaching the far end of the runway, the aircraft swung around onto the plowed taxiway which would bring it back to where Dwight stood. Smiling, he waited eagerly as the aircraft approached.
A loud, brief screeching of tires behind him took Dwight by surprise. His head snapped around and his jaw dropped in disbelief. There, rolling along his runway was a second airplane, a twin-engine sightseeing model, it’s elongated canopy consisting entirely of segmented panes of glass. Both of its motors were shut down, which explained why he hadn’t heard it approach until its tires had scuffed the tarmac. The strange airplane rolled to a halt a little beyond the administration building, almost even with where Dwight stood. The aircraft was large enough to seat several people, but it appeared that only the pilot was on board. The intruder sat on the runway and did not immediately emerge from his aircraft.
Owen’s airplane was closing in on the administration building, the impressive drone of its oversized propeller increasing in pitch and volume as it approached. It stopped between Dwight and the runway, blocking somewhat his view of the intruder. The engine fell silent, and the door impatiently swung open. Grinning from ear to ear, Owen disembarked and strode briskly in Dwight’s direction.
“Hey, Dwight!” he called out, but he received no reply. Owen’s smile faltered and his step slowed in confusion. It appeared to him that Dwight was looking right through him; but as he came closer, he realized that Dwight wasn’t so much looking through him as he was looking past him. He turned his head around to see what was so captivating, and his jaw fell open in shocked surprise, for there on the runway was the very airplane he had left behind that morning in Wisconsin. The two men stared as the front portion of the canopy popped open, and a familiar face was revealed.
“Hello-o-o-o-o-o, O-o-o-o-o-owen!” called a deep bass voice. He stood on his seat and leapt with gusto directly from the cabin onto the runway, landing on both feet simultaneously, his bending knees absorbing the shock. He immediately headed in their direction, sporting a big, friendly grin.
Dwight turned his head slightly to face Owen. “You know this guy?”
He closed his still-gaping mouth and answered without even a glance toward Dwight. “I saved his life yesterday,” he admitted.
“Outrageous fortune indeed! You should have let me know you were bringing company in behind you, if only for safety’s sake.” His eyes darted skywards out of professional habit, then returned to Owen, a quizzical expression on his face. “Why didn’t you leave the ray screen turned off for him? Looks like you killed his motors.”
“I didn’t know he was following me,” he replied flatly, still staring at the approaching intruder.
“What? He tailed you here?”
“Apparently.”
“From where?”
“Wisconsin.” He finally turned to face his questioner. “Madison, Wisconsin. He told me he was heading back to the State’s Science Institute. I guess he didn’t.”
“He was heading where?” he cried incredulously. Too many successive shocks were shaking Dwight.
“The State’s Science Institute in New Hampshire. He works as a pilot for the Institute’s top co-ordinator, Dr. Floyd.”
Dwight was thoroughly flabbergasted, and it showed plainly on his face. He took a deep breath and tried to hold his voice steady. “Am I to understand that one of Dr. Floyd’s men—the same Dr. Floyd who kidnapped and tortured the Worker!—followed you here?”
Owen sighed. “That about sums it up.”
Dwight nervously licked his lips; he had no weapon handy. He glanced at the approaching pilot, then back to Owen. “Are we in danger, do you think?”
“Danger? No, I don’t think so.” Recalling the animated discussions he and the pilot had had the night before regarding Directive 289-10, he predicted, “But it could get interesting.”
An obvious fact finally penetrated Dwight’s confused consciousness. “What’s wrong with your voice? Why is it so deep?”
He smiled. “The slings and arrows of the X Project.”
“The X Project? You mean the looters’ killer sound ray machine?” Agitated, he ran his fingers through his hair like a comb. “Didn’t that blow up a few days ago?” Clearly, he was still having trouble keeping up.
“I told you it was a long story.”
But there was no chance to tell it just then, for the pilot strode up to the two waiting men. “Hello, Owen. Sorry I dropped in unannounced, but I had second thoughts about continuing my employment with Dr. Floyd.”
Owen smiled mockingly. “Did you ask the Unificating Board for permission to quit? No man can be hired, fired, or change jobs without their permission, remember. Directive 289-10 was very clear about the sweeping powers granted to the Board—a Directive you said you approved of, as I recall. Last night you called it ‘a victory for us common folks.’”
The pilot shrugged. “Maybe I’m having second thoughts about that as well.” Dismissing the subject, he looked around appreciatively. “What is this place?”
“‘Home.’”
“Nice view,” he opined as he gazed at the snow-covered panorama surrounding them. “Look at those mountains!” Returning his attention to the two men standing in front of him, he stated the obvious. “I seem to be having engine troubles again. Can I impose upon you gentlemen to help me move my airplane off of the runway?”
Dwight’s addled wits finally caught up with events. “What are you doing here?” he demanded angrily.
The pilot appraised him in turn with a touch of disdain on his face. “In case you hadn’t heard, the United States of America died yesterday. I saw for myself the lights of New York City go out. Didn’t you hear the news?”
Dwight refused to be diverted. “Yes, yes. Everybody knows all about that. About time, too. But that doesn’t answer my question.”
“Well, where else was I to go?” he retorted testily, then continued in a calmer voice. “So I figured I’d impose upon Captain Owen and his friends for a little charity in these hard times.”
Dwight burst into loud guffaws. “Brother, have you come to the wrong place!”
The pilot misunderstood Dwight’s logic. “What, does Captain Owen have no friends here?”
Dwight and Owen exchanged glances, then Dwight chuckled. “Check your premises and guess again.”
The pilot put on airs and replied, in his best fake British accent, “Which premises could you possibly mean?” His unusually-deep voice added depth to his dramatics.
“All of them, it would seem.” He looked away from the pilot to the stalled airplane. “Never mind; no time for all this gay banter. Right now, we have to get your airplane off that runway. I’m not expecting anyone else tonight, but with the world crumbling the way it is, you never know.”
The pilot smiled. “I see you do understand why I’m here.” Neither listener deigned to reply as they began walking the short distance to the disabled airplane. After a few paces, the pilot spoke again. “Once we get my girl out of your way, I could sure use some liquid refreshment. Is it far to the nearest taproom?”
Dwight laughed. “Yes, it is. I believe the nearest one is in Denver.”
The pilot halted. “Denver?” he exclaimed.
“Could be Provo or Albuquerque,” came the offhanded reply as he kept walking. “I’d have to check a map before I could say for sure.”
“Probably not Provo,” mumbled Owen, suppressing a smile.
The pilot shook his head and started walking again. “No taproom!” He glanced heavenward and asked rhetorically, “What have I gotten myself into?”
“The real world. Deal with it.”
* * *
The three men took seats.
Dwight had led them into his office in the airfield’s administration building—at least the one corner of it that hadn’t been given over to temporary lodging—to discuss their next moves. Domestic noises drifted out from behind the artificial and inadequate barriers of file cabinets, mobile corkboards, and old cotton sheets that walled off Dwight’s corner of the expansive room. Smells of cooking filled the air, an olfactory amalgam of numerous, radically-differing dishes underpinned by the tang of stale cigarette smoke. A large Franklin stove dominated the middle of the room, hence one corner of their immediate space, but it sat cold. Nevertheless, the room was quite comfortable despite the wintry chill outside.
“It’s been a long day,” the pilot needlessly observed. “I shouldn’t be staying overly long. Is there a hotel nearby?”
Once again, Owen and Dwight exchanged glances knowingly. “No,” they replied simultaneously.
“Maybe Provo,” Owen suggested quietly, a hint of a smile in his deep voice.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Seconds passed before Dwight took up an answer. “No, there are no hotels here, per se. People tend to stay with the people who invited them in.”
The pilot turned to face Owen.
“Don’t look at me! I didn’t invite you!”
“I can pay my own way, sir,” the pilot interjected proudly. The two men looked at him, as at the boast of a beggar, then exchanged knowing glances again. The pilot looked on, perplexed.
“You’ll have to,” asserted Dwight. “And speaking of which, you already owe me a landing fee. Do you plan on paying your own way there, too?”
“Depends,” he replied cautiously, sensing it to be a trick question. “How much is it?”
“Three cents,” Dwight pronounced solemnly.
“Three cents?” He was stunned. The price was far too low.
“Three cents.”
He looked at Dwight blankly for a brief moment, then scowled. “All right. What’s the catch?”
Dwight smiled. “In gold.”
The pilot did not react. After a brief moment, “I see,” was all he said. The silence that followed lasted a long time: no one wanted to be next to speak. Voices came to them from over the barriers: a man and wife discussing his day at work; half a conversation being held via telephone; the rhythmic sounds of a concerto serving as an undercurrent to the audioscape. The comparative silence extended itself.
Finally, the pilot spoke. “Well, since I’m the one who needs food and shelter, let me ask again: where can I spend the night?”
“I don’t know,” Owen responded quickly.
“Me neither,” Dwight chimed in.
“Well, someone’s got to help me!”
From across a wall, a woman’s voice replied to her husband’s unrelated question: “Must we?” she asked petulantly. Her question hung immobile in the air.
“What did you do to my airplane?” demanded the pilot, shifting the subject. “How did you shoot me down?”
“Ray screen,” Dwight replied offhandedly. The brief explanation was the least he could do, and he did it.
“What kind of ray screen?”
His two listeners exchanged knowing glances once again.
“Knock that off,” he huffed. He folded his arms defensively. “I don’t give a damn anyhow.” He paused, then asked again. “Tell me: where do I spend the night?”
Both men looked away.
The silence dragged on.
Finally, Owen looked back and offered, “In your airplane?”
“But I’ll freeze!”
“Nobody asked you to follow me here,” he pointed out needlessly.
The pilot snorted a sharp, short breath and fell back in his chair, deflated. He looked first from one man then to the other. “I don’t get it,” he finally declared, tossing his hands in the air and letting them fall with a dual slap onto his knees. “Here I am, a man in need, and you guys play games!”
Yet again, the other two men exchanged their knowing look.
“Stop that!” yelled the pilot.
“Stop that yelling!” came the quick reply from over one of the barriers. All three sets of eyes turned toward the unexpected intrusion; but only two sets were accompanied by a smile.
The pilot folded his arms again and looked away, none too happy. “So what’s the deal?” he finally hissed, his deep voice theatrically low.
“You want to tell him?” Owen suggested to Dwight.
“Me? It was you he was following!”
Owen shrugged.
Dwight took a deep breath, glancing sidelong at the pilot. “All right, I’ll tell him.” Turning to the pilot, he plunged into his narrative, “Okay, here’s how it is... Have you ever heard of the Worker?”
The pilot’s only reply was a sardonic glare; and the tableau held for several seconds. Owen looked from one man to the other and decided it simpler if he offered Dwight a brief summary. “He’s the pilot who flew the Worker up to the State’s Science Institute the other day,” explained Owen. “And that was the airplane.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of the hangar.
The pilot smiled grimly and said nothing, arms still folded.
Dwight’s eyebrows went up in surprise; he stared at Owen for several seconds, then turned back to face the pilot. “Well, I guess someone had to be the one to do it.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “You may have flown him up there, but he’s escaped; he’s back here now. This is the Worker’s home. We call it the Gulch.”
The pilot did not act surprised, but Owen did. “He’s back! When did he get here?”
“Just this morning. Francisco led a raiding party on the State’s Science Institute the day before yesterday. And Dagny’s come home to stay, too. Lots of changes in the week you’ve been gone.”
The pilot listened to their exchange knowingly. “So this is the Worker’s place. I figured you were headed to one of those enclaves he talked about on the radio,” he confided, looking at Owen. “But I didn’t suspect this particular one was the Worker’s home turf.” He chuckled, then added, “No wonder it doesn’t have a taproom!”
Dwight hesitated uncertainly. “Huh? Why do you say that?”
The pilot shrugged. “I heard his big speech on the radio a few months ago. Seems to me that the Worker is the sort of man who doesn’t know how to have a good time. No sense of humor, either.” After a moment, he added derisively, “And it looks like the same goes for you, too, pal.”
Dwight held his temper and proffered a meaningful response instead. “Those of us who live here conduct our lives according to the philosophy the Worker taught us, and every person who stays here must first take his striker’s oath. Believe it or not, there are some of us here who do drink, but not to the point of—”
“Striker’s oath?” interjected the pilot.
Dwight drew himself up proudly. “Yes, the striker’s oath.” He continued without being prompted. “‘I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.’” His eyes shone as he recited the words, as if it were a sacred prayer. “The striker’s oath. We, the men of the mind, are on strike against your society, and have been for the last twelve years. It is because of our strike that your society has collapsed. About time, too!” Some of his anger edged out into the open, and reflected itself in his strident tone of voice. “You, who did not know how to value us, have now learned the hard way about the value we once provided. You, who once persecuted us, now have only yourselves to persecute. You—”
“Yeah, yeah, I get the idea,” the pilot interrupted again. “So this Johnnie-boy had it up to here—” His hand flew in a chopping motion over the top of his head. “—with men like me, so him and the rest of you Johnnies went and hid up here in the mountains. Save your breath—I heard the big speech, I tell you.”
“—who took everything we had to offer, yet gave us no value in return,” he continued steadily, as if the pilot had not spoken, “are now denied any value that we might give. We, the men of the mind, are on strike.”
“Okay, okay, I get it. No taproom, no hotel, no fun, no help. Thanks for nothing, pal!”
Dwight pushed his chair backwards in disgust, its legs scraping loudly across the wooden floor. His mouth opened in preparation to speak, but Owen stretched his arm out in front of Dwight to restrain him, although not touching him. “Why should we help you?” Owen cut in, speaking to the pilot.
“Because I’m in need, I tell you!” the pilot cried aloud without pause. “Because I’m thousands of miles from home with no place else to go!” He lurched to his feet, his chair clattering over onto the floor behind him. Through clenched teeth, he ended angrily, “Because you killed my goddamn airplane!”
“Knock it off!” came the cry from over the impromptu wall. Again, no one apologized.
“It’s just your coils,” Owen explained calmly, his deep voice low. “No big deal to replace them.”
“And just how am I supposed to pay for it?” He pulled a billfold out of his pocket and jerkily extracted a wad of useless cash. Grey dust puffed out from within the wallet as he did so, leaving a small cloud hanging immobile in the air. He brandished the bills and thrust them at the man. “With this?” A few dusty notes fluttered to the floor trailing a thin scarf of dust that first hung twisting in the air, then slowly began to drift downward. No one bothered to retrieve the fallen cash, not even the pilot. “Or are you going to break your oh-so-holy oath and just give the parts to me?” The pilot stood red-faced with emotion, and he strained to keep his deep voice low.
Having weathered the pilot’s anger the night before, Owen knew to take a different tack. “No I’m not going to buy the coils for you,” he replied, his voice still calm. “But you are.”
“Me? What do you mean? I have no gold! Owning gold’s illegal, in case you forgot.”
“Not here, it isn’t. And I’ll bet you must’ve brought something with you that someone here will find worth exchanging for some gold. What do you think I was doing in Madison? There are all sorts of things we need here in the valley that can only be found Outside. Surely you have something of value with you?”
“I wish! I used up all my whiskey against the damned dust.” He gestured angrily to the curtain of grey dust still hanging in mid-air in front of him. “What else do I have left? Nothing!”
“The dust?” inquired Dwight, his confusion surfacing again.
“The du-u-u-u-u-ust,” intoned the pilot in a deep bass voice, gesturing again at the slowly-settling swirl “Where do you think we got this manly voice?”
“He’s right,” explained Owen, his own voice reflecting the same bass note. “It’s because of the X Project—I started to tell you when we were outside. The dust kicked up from its disintegration clogged our vocal chords and changed the tonal qualities of our voices. Much more and it would have killed us.” He paused a second, his eyes downcast. “It did kill Wesley and Gene.”
“Wesley and Eugene? Two of the top leaders of the nation?” Dwight shrugged. “Can’t say as I really care.”
“Formerly two of the top leaders,”‘ corrected the pilot, interrupting. “We left their bodies in Wisconsin—and almost left mine there, too! Captain Owen here saved my life. Saved me from the dust, he did. And I used up all my whiskey following his advice.”
Dwight reassumed his confused countenance and looked up at the pilot. “How does whiskey enter into it?”
“I soaked a shirttail with it,” the pilot explained, “then used it as a mask to filter out the dust.” He turned and held Owen’s eye. “Saved my life,” he repeated, then turned back to face Dwight and sigh mightily. “So now I have my life, but nothing left to sell.” He bent over to right his fallen chair.
“No other cargo?”
The pilot reclaimed his seat with a plop. “Nope.”
“No supplies?”
“Nope,” he repeated. “And probably not even enough fuel to get me the hell out of here.”
The silence dragged on for several seconds, then Dwight slowly suggested, “Well, you do have an airplane...”
The pilot’s eyes darted to meet his. “Yes. I do,” he enunciated very clearly. “And she’s mine,” he stated slowly and firmly.
“But she’s worth some fraction of her weight in gold, isn’t she?”
The pilot held Dwight’s gaze, but did not reply. The seconds passed.
“And you say you don’t have enough fuel to get yourself out of here?”
Still, the pilot did not answer.
“Doesn’t sound like you have a whole lot of options.”
Silence.
“I’d be willing to buy her from you.”
No reply.
“We don’t have any airplanes here like yours, and I could sure use one.” As an afterthought, he added, “Not that I couldn’t outfit it with a galtmotor and it wouldn’t need hardly a thimbleful of fuel ever again.”
The pilot retained his stony silence, but tilted his head at Dwight’s final remark. The silence stretched on, until finally he replied. “A galtmotor?”
“Yep. They run on atmospheric electricity.”
“I think I heard the Worker mention that on the radio.” He paused again reflectively. “You’d put one of those in my girl?” He tossed his head lightly in the direction of the hangar.
Dwight nodded once in silence.
“But you’d own her.”
Another nod.
“Would you sell her back to me afterwards?”
Dwight shrugged.
The pilot assimilated the situation as the silent seconds dragged into mute minutes. Well, there’s no going back for me—and no place else to go, either! Like it or not, this’ll have to be my home for now. The pilot shrugged mentally as he reached a decision. Might as well roll with it... Finally, aloud he broached the forbidden subject. “How much will you give me for her,” he stammered. It was not easy for him.
“That depends. Tell me everything about her; I want to know cycles, hours, gross weight, load, seating, the works.”
For the next several minutes, the pilot divulged the intimate secrets of his lady to the man he had just met. As he spoke, Dwight compiled a detailed inventory of her salient features. When finally the inventory was complete, he contemplated his notes for a moment, jotted some calculations, then named his price.
A stunned Owen faced Dwight open-mouthed. “How much did you say?” He turned to the pilot. “I’ll give you twice that!”
Dwight held both hands in front of him, palms forward, fingers splayed. “Okay, Okay! Let me think for a minute.” He glowered briefly at Owen, then turned to make some additional calculations alongside his previous ones. He stared at the ceiling for a moment, then named a new price many times higher than his previous offer, one with two more zeroes to the left of the decimal point. This time, Owen remained silent.
The pilot considered the answer for a moment, then leaned over to whisper in Owen’s ear. “Is that enough?”
Owen sat back while folding his arms, and nodded knowingly. “More than enough,” he rumbled.
The pilot remained silent for the better part of a minute; his two chance companions allowed him the time to think. Finally, he spoke again, his eyes narrowing. “Enough for me to buy a house?”
“Oh, yes,” affirmed Dwight. “Enough and then some. Even in our current tight housing market.” He extended his hand to indicate the file cabinets and cork boards that surrounded them.
The pilot looked to Owen again. “And that’s a good price?”
“I could use a big airplane like that myself, but he’d have to offer a whole lot less before I’d consider bidding on it. At that price, it’s out of my league.”
The pilot sighed; they continued to wait him out. “Like you say, it doesn’t seem like I have much of a choice. Can’t fly her out, can’t stay without selling her.” He fell silent again, then repeated, “You sure it’s a good price?”
Owen merely nodded.
“And it’s a lot?” he persisted.
“You’ll be relatively well off, compared to other new residents—including me, and I’ve been living here for a while.”
The pilot sighed again. Clearly, he did not want to sell, but he saw just as clearly that he had no other option. But on the positive side, the cache of gold would give him the resources he’d need to establish himself in the valley. Coming to a decision, he stretched out a hand to Dwight. “Okay. Deal.”
The two men shook hands.
“Great. Let me write you out a warehouse receipt for the gold.” He fetched a small card from a niche above his desk and made some notations upon it before handing it to the pilot. “You can cash it at the Midas Bank in town...” He turned to Owen, concern appearing on his face. “Speaking of which, did you hear about Midas?”
“Did I hear what about Midas?”
Dwight’s face fell, then his head dropped. Obviously, the news was not good. Looking up, he took a deep breath. “Let me tell you later, okay?”
“Hey, are you telling me this check’s no good?” interrupted the pilot, gesturing angrily with the card. “What are you trying to pull here?”
“There’s nothing wrong with the check,” Dwight explained slowly, his words like drops of lead, his emotions barely held in check.
The pilot carefully examined the warehouse receipt, then pocketed it within his flight jacket. “I’ll be back if it bounces,” he warned.
“It won’t.”
None of the men said anything for a brief while, then the pilot spoke again. “So now that I have some credit in this God-forsaken valley, let me ask again: where can I spend the night?”
Pulling himself back together again, Dwight took a deep breath, then glanced around his quadrant of the administration building, finally suggesting, “Why not stay right here? Just for tonight, though,” he added quickly. “It’ll only cost you another nickel.”
The pilot snorted in mock laughter, his mouth pinched shut. “Does that come with room service?” he added sarcastically in his best British accent, playing the faux-Sassenach.
Dwight ignored the jab and simply answered, “It’s another dime a day for meals, if you want them. At least that’s what I hear the going rate is. But you’ll have to negotiate that with the fishwife, not me. And I couldn’t say if she’d want to take on any more customers right now. Remember, we’re pretty strained these days. You’ll have to ask her.”
“Does she sell whiskey?”
“No,” Dwight replied flatly. “And now that I think about it, I don’t think she’d deal with a scab in any case.” As an afterthought, he added, “Nobody here distills whiskey, not that I know of. Our pianist composer Richard does lay down a pretty respectable wine, though.”
The pilot snorted again. “It sounds like what this place needs is a decent taproom!” He paused at the thought, then his eyes went wide. “Yeah... A taproom! And I know just the guy who can do it!” He smiled in reflection. And maybe I can meet a sweet little thing here in this God-forsaken Gulch...
“Good luck finding a decent place to build it. As I said, housing is tight, and you’re not the only unexpected guest here in town, not by a long shot.”
The pilot continued smiling, wrapped in his own thoughts and only half listening. Yep, the future is definitely looking up.
CHAPTER 4 – PEACE TRAIN
The Transcontinental terminal manager fled.
The fire in San Francisco had quickly spread from the beleaguered Transcontinental terminal to the surrounding structures. No one was battling the blaze; they were too busy battling each other. No fireman could be convinced to take a stand in the No Man’s Land that once was the busiest district in the City By The Bay, nor could anyone make a full, comprehensive list of the factions who had fought over the terminal, nor why. Granted, the terminal manager possessed a signed truce with three of those factions, painstakingly negotiated only a few days earlier by some Transcontinental executive from New York, a serious-looking fellow named Mr. Eddie. The negotiations had ultimately succeeded and trains began to move once more, but it quickly became a hollow victory, for the peace treaties now sat in the terminal manager’s office—on the second floor of the blazing building. Fittingly enough, he thought bitterly.
The terminal manager found himself a man without a job and a manager without a terminal, trudging south along Transcontinental’s coastal tracks, destination unknown. Behind him billowed huge clouds of black smoke that rose from the burning city, a sky-blotting fog that slowly drifted inland. Hundreds of other refugees from the fighting paraded on the tracks all around him, all heading south. Some wore overstuffed backpacks, a few others pushed overloaded wheelbarrows, but the vast majority had only the clothes on their backs. Like him, they had no destination in mind, no plan of action to follow, their only goal to put distance between themselves and the fighting.
As he walked, the terminal manager took stock of his location. Steep mountains rose dramatically on his left; to his right, only scrub growth and a rocky cliff separated the railroad from the ocean. Mountain and cliff conspired together to funnel the two tracks onto a narrow, slowly-winding shelf squeezed precariously between land and sea. In other circumstances, he would have considered the scenery stupendous; but today, he could muster no appreciation for such luxuries.