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Then the four rescuers were free to fly down the stairs to the locked

steel door at the bottom. They had acted and moved with the precision of a

controlled discipline. Now, it was as if their inner reins had broken.

Danneskjold had the tools to smash the lock. Francisco was first to enter

the cellar, and his arm barred Dagny's way for the fraction of a second—for

the length of a look to make certain that the sight was bearable—then he let

her rush past him: beyond the tangle of electric wires, he had seen Galt's

lifted head and glance of greeting.

She fell down on her knees by the side of the mattress. Galt looked up at

her, as he had looked on their first morning in the valley, his smile was

like the sound of a laughter that had never been touched by pain, his voice

was soft and low: "We never had to take any of it seriously, did we?"

Tears running down her face, but her smile declaring a full, confident,

radiant certainty, she answered, "No, we never had to."

Rearden and Danneskjold were cutting his bonds. Francisco held a flask of

brandy to Galt's lips. Galt drank, and raised himself to lean on an elbow

when his arms were free. "Give me a cigarette," he said.

Francisco produced a package of dollar-sign cigarettes. Galt's hand shook

a little, as he held a cigarette to the flame of a lighter, but Francisco's

hand shook much more.

Glancing at his eyes over the flame, Galt smiled and said in the tone of

an answer to the questions Francisco was not asking, "Yes, it was pretty bad,

but bearable—and the kind of voltage they used leaves no damage,”

"I'll find them some day, whoever they were . . ." said Francisco; the

tone of his voice, flat, dead and barely audible, said the rest.

"If you do, you'll find that there's nothing left of them to kill."

Galt glanced at the faces around him; he saw the intensity of the relief

in their eyes and the violence of the anger in the grimness of their

features; he knew in what manner they were now reliving his torture.

"It's over," he said. "Don't make it worse for yourself than it was for

me."

Francisco turned his face away. "It's only that it was you . . ." he

whispered, "you . . . if it were anyone but you . . ."

"But it had to be me, if they were to try their last, and they've tried,

and"—he moved his hand, sweeping the room—and the meaning of those who had

made it—into the wastelands of the past—"and that's that."

Francisco nodded, his face still turned away; the violent grip of his

fingers clutching Galt's wrist for a moment was his answer.

Galt lifted himself to a sitting posture, slowly regaining control of his

muscles. He glanced up at Dagny's face, as her arm shot forward to help him;

he saw the struggle of her smile against the tension of her resisted tears;

it was the struggle of her knowledge that nothing could matter beside the

sight of his naked body and that this body was living —against her knowledge

of what it had endured. Holding her glance, he raised his hand and touched

the collar of her white sweater with his fingertips, in acknowledgment and in

reminder of the only things that were to matter from now on. The faint tremor

of her lips, relaxing into a smile, told him that she understood.

Danneskjold found Galt's shirt, slacks and the rest of his clothing, which

had been thrown on the floor in a corner of the room. "Do you think you can

walk, John?" he asked.

"Sure."

While Francisco and Rearden were helping Galt to dress, Danneskjold

proceeded calmly, systematically, with no visible emotion, to demolish the

torture machine into splinters.

Galt was not fully steady on his feet, but he could stand, leaning on

Francisco's shoulder. The first few steps were hard, but by the time they

reached the door, he was able to resume the motions of walking.

His one arm encircled Francisco's shoulders for support; his other arm

held Dagny's shoulders, both to gain support and to give it.

They did not speak as they walked down the hill, with the darkness of the

trees closing in about them for protection, cutting off the dead glow of the

moon and the deader glow in the distance behind them, in the windows of the

State Science Institute.

Francisco's airplane was hidden in the brush, on the edge of a meadow

beyond the next hill. There were no human habitations for miles around them.

There were no eyes to notice or to question the sudden streaks of the

airplane's headlights shooting across the desolation of dead weeds, and the

violent burst of the motor brought to life by Danneskjold, who took the

wheel.

With the sound of the door slamming shut behind them and the forward

thrust of the wheels under their feet, Francisco smiled for the first time.

"This is my one and only chance to give you orders," he said, helping Galt

to stretch out in a reclining chair. "Now lie still, relax and take it easy .

. . You, too," he added, turning to Dagny and pointing at the seat by Galt's

side.

The wheels were running faster, as if gaining speed and purpose and

lightness, ignoring the impotent obstacles of small jolts from the ruts of

the ground. When the motion turned to a long, smooth streak, when they saw

the dark shapes of the trees sweeping down and dropping past their windows,

Galt leaned silently over and pressed his lips to Dagny's hand: he was

leaving the outer world with the one value he had wanted to win from it.

Francisco had produced a first-aid kit and was removing Rearden's shirt to

bandage his wound. Galt saw the thin red trickle running from Rearden's

shoulder down his chest.

"Thank you, Hank," he said.

Rearden smiled. "I will repeat what you said when I thanked you, on our

first meeting: 'If you understand that I acted for my own sake, you know that

no gratitude is required.' "

"I will repeat," said Galt, "the answer you gave me: 'That is why I thank

you.'"

Dagny noticed that they looked at each other as if their glance were the

handshake of a bond too firm to require any statement. Rearden saw her

watching them—and the faintest contraction of his eyes was like a smile of

sanction, as if his glance were repeating to her the message he had sent her

from the valley.

They heard the sudden sound of Danneskjold's voice raised cheerfully in

conversation with empty space, and they realized that he was speaking over

the plane's radio: "Yes, safe and sound, all of us. . . .