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?"