enough to issue that order for people to be free—which any rational human being would throw back in my face, because he’d know that his rights are not to be held, given or received by your permission or mine.”
“Tell me,” said Mr. Thompson, looking at him reflectively, “what is it you’re after?”
“I told you on the radio.”
“I don’t get it. You said that you’re out for your own selfish interest—and that, I can understand. But what can you possibly want in the future that you couldn’t get right now, from us, handed down to you on a platter? I thought you were an egoist—and a practical man. I offer you a blank check on anything you wish—and you tell me that you don’t want it, Why?”
“Because there are no funds behind your blank check.”
“What?”
“Because you have no value to offer me.”
“I can offer you anything you can ask. Just name it.”
“You name it.”
“Well, you talked a lot about wealth. If it’s money that you want—you couldn’t make in three lifetimes what I can hand over to you in a minute, this minute, cash on the barrel. Want a billion dollars—a cool, neat billion dollars?”
“Which I’ll have to produce, for you to give me?”
“No, I mean straight out of the public treasury, in fresh, new bills... or... or even in gold, if you prefer.”
“What will it buy me?”
“Oh, look, when the country gets back on its feet—”
“When I put it back on its feet?”
“Well, if what you want is to run things your own way, if it’s power that you’re after, I’ll guarantee you that every man, woman and child in this country will obey your orders and do whatever you wish.”
“After I teach them to do it?”
“If you want anything for your own gang—for all those men who’ve disappeared—jobs, positions, authority, tax exemptions, any special favor at all—just name it and they’ll get it.”
“After I bring them back?”
“Well, what on earth do you want?”
“What on earth do I need you for?”
“Huh?”
“What have you got to offer me that I couldn’t get without you?”
There was a different look in Mr. Thompson’s eyes when he drew back, as if cornered, yet looked straight at Galt for the first time and said slowly, “Without me, you couldn’t get out of this room, right now.”
Galt smiled. “True.”
“You wouldn’t be able to produce anything. You could be left here to starve.”
“True.”
“Well, don’t you see?” The loudness of homey joviality came back into Mr. Thompson’s voice, as if the hint given and received were now to be safely evaded by means of humor. “What I’ve got to offer you is your life.”
“It’s not yours to offer, Mr. Thompson,” said Galt softly.
Something about his voice made Mr. Thompson jerk to glance at him, then jerk faster to look away: Galt’s smile seemed almost gentle.
“Now,” said Galt, “do you see what I meant when I said that a zero can’t hold a mortgage over life? It’s I who’d have to grant you that kind of mortgage—and I don’t. The removal of a threat is not a payment, the negation of a negative is not a reward, the withdrawal of your armed hoodlums is not an incentive, the offer not to murder me is not a value.”
“Who... who’s said anything about murdering you?”
“Who’s said anything about anything else? If you weren’t holding me here at the point of a gun, under threat of death, you wouldn’t have a chance to speak to me at all. And that is as much as your guns can accomplish. I don’t pay for the removal of threats. I don’t buy my life from anyone.”
“That’s not true,” said Mr. Thompson brightly. “If you had a broken leg, you’d pay a doctor to set it.”
“Not if he was the one who broke it.” He smiled at Mr. Thompson’s silence. “I’m a practical man, Mr. Thompson. I don’t think it’s practical to establish a person whose sole means of livelihood is the breaking of my bones. I don’t think it’s practical to support a protection racket.”
Mr. Thompson looked thoughtful, then shook his head. “I don’t think you’re practical,” he said. “A practical man doesn’t ignore the facts of reality. He doesn’t waste his time wishing things to be different or trying to change them. He takes things as they are. We’re holding you. It’s a fact. Whether you like it or not, it’s a fact. You should act accordingly.”
“I am.”
“What I mean is, you should co-operate. You should recognize an existing situation, accept it and adjust to it.”
“If you had blood poisoning, would you adjust to it or act to change it?”
“Oh, that’s different! That’s physical!”
“You mean, physical facts are open to correction, but your whims are not?”
“Huh?”
“You mean, physical nature can be adjusted to men, but your whims are above the laws of nature, and men must adjust to you?”
“I mean that I hold the upper hand!”
“With a gun in it?”
“Oh, forget about guns! I—”
“I can’t forget a fact of reality, Mr. Thompson. That would be impractical.”
“All right, then: I hold a gun. What are you going to do about it?”
“I’ll act accordingly. I’ll obey you.”
“What?”
“I’ll do whatever you tell me to.”
“Do you mean it?”
“I mean it. Literally.” He saw the eagerness of Mr. Thompson’s face ebb slowly under a look of bewilderment. “I will perform any motion you order me to perform. If you order me to move into the office of an Economic Dictator, I’ll move into it. If you order me to sit at a desk, I will sit at it. If you order me to issue a directive, I will issue the directive you order me to issue.”
“Oh, but I don’t know what directives to issue!”
“I don’t, either.”
There was a long pause.
“Well?” said Galt. “What are your orders?”
“I want you to save the economy of the country!”
“I don’t know how to save it.”
“I want you to find a way!”
“I don’t know how to find it.”
“I want you to think!”
“How will your gun make me do that, Mr. Thompson?”
Mr. Thompson looked at him silently—and Galt saw, in the tightened lips, in the jutting chin, in the narrowed eyes, the look of an adolescent bully about to utter that philosophical argument which is expressed by the sentence: I’ll bash your teeth in. Galt smiled, looking straight at him, as if hearing the unspoken sentence and underscoring it. Mr. Thompson looked away.
“No,” said Galt, “you don’t want me to think. When you force a man to act against his own choice and judgment, it’s his thinking that you want him to suspend. You want him to become a robot. I shall comply.”
Mr. Thompson sighed. “I don’t get it,” he said in a tone of genuine helplessness. “Something’s off and I can’t figure it out. Why should you ask for trouble? With a brain like yours—you can beat anybody.
I’m no match for you, and you know it. Why don’t you pretend to join us, then gain control and outsmart me?”
