The handsome, gray stone staff building, which could have done duty as a state capitol, was quiet in the early morning as Adam Trenton wheeled his cream sport coupe down the ramp from outside. Adam made a fast "S" turn, tires squealing, into his stall in the underground, executive parking area, then eased his lanky figure out of the driver's seat, leaving the keys inside. A rain shower last night had slightly spotted the car's bright finish; routinely it would be washed today, topped off with gas, and serviced if necessary.
A personal car of an executive's own choice, replaced every six months, and each time with all the extras he wanted, plus fuel and constant attention, was a fringe benefit which went with the auto industry's higher posts. Depending on which company they worked for, most senior people made their selections from the luxury ranges - Chrysler Imperials, LincoIns, Cadillacs. A few, like Adam, preferred something lighter and sportier, with a high performance engine.
Adam's footsteps echoed as he walked across the black, waxed garage floor, gleaming and immaculate.
A spectator would have seen a gray-suited, lithe, athletic man, a year or two past forty, tall, with broad shoulders and a squarish head thrust forward, as if urging the rest of the body on. Nowadays, Adam Trenton dressed more conservatively than he used to, but still looked fashionable, with a touch of flashiness. His facial features were clean-cut and alert, with intense blue eyes and a straight, firm mouth, the last tempered by a hint of humor and a strong impression, over-all, of open honesty. He backed up this impression, when he talked, with a blunt directness which sometimes threw others off balance - a tactic he had learned to use deliberately. His manner of walking was confident, a no-nonsense stride suggesting a man who knew where he was going.
Adam Trenton carried the auto executive's symbol of office - a filled attache case. It contained papers he had taken home the night before and had worked on, after dinner, until bedtime.
Among the few executive cars already parked, Adam noticed two limousines in vice-presidents' row - a series of parking slots near an exclusive elevator which rose nonstop to the fifteenth floor, preserve of the company's senior officers. A parking spot closest to the elevator was reserved for the chairman of the board, the next for the president; after that came vice-presidents in descending order of seniority. Where a man parked was a significant prestige factor in the auto industry. The higher his rank, the less distance he was expected to walk from his car to his desk.
Of the two limousines already in, one belonged to Adam's own chief, the Product Development vice-president. The other was the car of the Vice-President Public Relations.
Adam bounded up a short flight of stairs, two at a time, entered a doorway to the building's main lobby, then continued briskly to a regular staff elevator where he jabbed a button for the tenth floor.
Alone in the elevator, he waited impatiently while the computer-controlled mechanism took its time about starting, then on the way up experienced the eagerness he always felt to become immersed in a new day's work. As always, through most of the past two years, the Orion was at the forefront of his thoughts. Physically, Adam felt good.
Only a sense of tension troubled him - a mental tautness he had become aware of lately, a nuisance, illogical, yet increasingly difficult to shake off. He took a small, green-and-black capsule from an inside pocket, slipped it into his mouth and gulped it down.
From the elevator, along a silent, deserted corridor which would see little activity for another hour, Adam strode to his own office suite - a corner location, also a token of rank, rating only a little lower than a vice-president's parking slot.
As he went in, he saw a pile of newly delivered mail on his secretary's desk. There was a time, earlier in his career, when Adam would have stopped to riffle through it, to see what was interesting and new, but he had long since shed the habit, nowadays valuing his time too much for that kind of indulgence. One of the duties of a top-notch secretary was - as Adam once heard the company president declare - to "filter out the crap" from the mountain of paper which came her boss's way. She should be allowed to go through everything first, using her judgment about what to refer elsewhere, so that an executive mind could concern itself with policy and ideas, unencumbered by detail which others, in lowlier posts, could be trusted to handle.
That was why few of the thousands of letters yearly which individual car owners addressed to heads of auto companies ever reached the person whom the sender named. All such letters were screened by secretaries, then sent to special departments which dealt with them according to set routines. Eventually the sum of all complaints and comments in a year was tabulated and studied, but no senior executive could cope with them individually and do his job as well. An occasional exception was where a correspondent was shrewd enough to write to an executive's home address - not hard to find, since most were listed in Who's Who, available in public libraries.
Then an executive, or his wife, might well read the letter, become interested in a particular case, and follow through personally.
The first thing Adam Trenton noticed in his office was a glowing orange light on an intercom box behind his desk. It showed that the Product Development vice-president had called, almost certainly this morning. Adam touched a switch above the light and waited.
A voice, metallic through the intercom, demanded, "What's the excuse today? Accident on the freeway, or did you oversleep?"
Adam laughed, his eyes flicking to a wall clock which showed 7:23. He depressed the key connecting him with the vice-president's office five floors above. "You know my problem, Elroy. Just can't seem to get out of bed."
It was rarely that the head of Product Development beat Adam in; when he did, he liked to make the most of it.
"Adam, how are you fixed for the next hour?"
"I've a few things. Nothing I can't change around."
From the windows of his office, as they talked, Adam could see the early morning freeway traffic. At this time the volume was moderately heavy, though not so great as an hour ago when production workers were heading in to factories to begin day shifts. But the traffic pattern would change again soon as thousands of office employees, now breakfasting at home, added their cars to the hurrying stream. The pressures and easings of traffic density, like variations in the wind, always fascinated Adam - not surprisingly, since automobiles, the traffic's chief constituent, were the idee fixe of his own existence. He had devised a scale of his own - like the Beaufort wind scale, ranging from one to ten degrees of volume - which he applied to traffic as he viewed it. Right now, he decided, the flow was at Volume Five.
"I'd like you up here for a while," Elroy Braithwaite, the vice-president, said. "I guess you know our buddy, Emerson Vale, is off in orbit again."
"Yes." Adam had read the Free Press report of Vale's latest charges before leaving the newspaper beside the bed where Erica was sleeping.
"Some of the press have asked for comments. This time Jake thinks we should make a few."
Jake Earlham was the Vice-President Public Relations, whose car had also been parked below as Adam came in.
"I agree with him," Adam said.
"Well, I seem to have been elected, but I'd like you in on the session.
It'll be informal. Somebody from AP, the Newsweek gal, The Wall Street Journal, and Bob Irvin from the Detroit News. We're going to see them all together."
"Any ground rules, briefing?" Usually, in advance of auto company press conferences, elaborate preparations were made, with public relations departments preparing lists of anticipated questions, which executives then studied. Sometimes rehearsals were staged at which PR-men played reporters. A major press conference took weeks in planning, so that auto company spokesmen were as well prepared as a U.S. President facing the press, sometimes better.
"No briefing," Elroy Braithwaite said. "Jake and I have decided to hang loose on this one. We'll call things the way we see them. That goes for you too."
"Okay," Adam said. "Are you ready now?"
"About ten minutes. I'll call you."
Waiting, Adam emptied his attache case of last night's work, then used a dictating machine to leave a series of instructions for his secretary, Ursula Cox, who would deal with them with predictable efficiency when she came in. Most of Adam's homework, as well as the instructions, concerned the Orion. In his role as Advanced Vehicles Planning Manager he was deeply involved with the new, still-secret car, and today a critical series of tests involving a noise-vibration problem with the Orion would be reviewed at the company's proving ground thirty miles outside Detroit. Adam, who would have to make a decision afterward, had agreed to drive to the test review with a colleague from Design-Styling. Now, because of the press conference just called, one of Ursula's instructions was to reschedule the proving ground arrangements for later in the day.
He had better, Adam decided, reread the Emerson Vale news story before the press session started. Along with the pile of mail outside were some morning newspapers. He collected a Free Press and a New York Times, then returned to his office and spread them out, this time memorizing, point by point, what Vale had said in Washington the day before.
Adam had met Emerson Vale once when the auto critic was in Detroit to make a speech. Like several others from the industry, Adam Trenton had attended out of curiosity and, on being introduced to Vale ahead of the meeting, was surprised to find him an engagingly pleasant young man, not in the least the brash, abrasive figure Adam had expected. Later, when Vale faced his audience from the platform, he was equally personable, speaking fluently and easily while marshaling arguments with skill. The entire presentation, Adam was forced to admit, was impressive and, from the applause afterward, a large part of the audience - which had paid for admission - felt the same way.
There was one shortcoming. To anyone with specialized knowledge, many of Emerson Vale's arguments were as porous as a leaky boat.
While attacking a highly technical industry, Vale betrayed his own lack of technical know-how and was frequently in error in describing mechanical functions. His engineering pronouncements were capable of several interpretations; Vale gave one, which suited his own viewpoint. At other moments he dealt in generalities. Even though trained in law, Emerson Vale ignored elementary rules of evidence. He offered assertion, hearsay, unsupported evidence as fact; occasionally the young auto critic - it seemed to Adam - distorted facts deliberately. He resurrected the past, listing faults in cars which manufacturers had long since admitted and rectified. He presented charges based on no more than his own mail from disgruntled car users. While excoriating the auto industry for bad design, poor workmanship, and lack of safety features, Vale acknowledged none of the industry's problems nor recent genuine attempts to improve its ways. He failed to see anything good in auto manufacturers and their people, only indifference, neglect, and villainy.
Emerson Vale had published a book, its title: The American Car: Unsure in Any Need. The book was skillfully written, with the attention-commanding quality which the author himself possessed, and it proved a bestseller which kept Vale in the spotlight of public attention for many months.
But subsequently, because there seemed little more for him to say, Emerson Vale began dropping out of sight. His name appeared in newspapers less frequently, then, for a while, not at all. This lack of attention goaded Vale to new activity. Craving publicity like a drug, he seemed willing to make any statement on any subject, in return for keeping his name before the public. Describing himself as "a consumers' spokesman," he launched a fresh series of attacks on the auto industry, alleging design defects in specific cars, which the press reported, though some were later proved untrue. He coaxed a U.S. senator into quoting pilfered information on auto company costs which soon after was shown to be absurdly incomplete. The senator looked foolish. A habit of Vale's was to telephone reporters on big city dailies collect, and sometimes in the night - with suggestions for news stories which just incidentally would include Emerson Vale's name, but which failed to stand up when checked out. As a result, the press, which had relied on Vale for colorful copy, became more wary and eventually some reporters ceased trusting him at all.
Even when proved wrong, Emerson Vale like his predecessor in the auto critic field, Ralph Nader - was never known to admit an error or to apologize, as General Motors had once apologized to Nader after the corporation's unwarranted intrusion into Nader's private life. Instead, Vale persisted with accusations and charges against all automobile manufacturers and, at times, could still draw nationwide attention, as he had succeeded in doing yesterday in Washington.
Adam folded the newspapers. A glance outside showed him that the freeway traffic had increased to Volume Six.
A moment later the intercom buzzed. "The fourth estate just got here," the Product Development vice-president said. "You want to make a fifth?"
On his way upstairs, Adam reminded himself that he must telephone his wife sometime today. He knew that Erica had been unhappy lately, at moments more difficult to live with than during the first year or two of their marriage which began so promisingly. Adam sensed that part of the trouble was his own tiredness at the end of each day, which took its toll physically of them both. But he wished Erica would get out more and learn to be enterprising on her own. He had tried to encourage her in that, just as he had made sure she had all the money she needed. Fortunately there were no money problems for either of them, thanks to his own steady series of promotions, and there was a good chance of even bigger things to come, which any wife ought to be pleased about.
Adam was aware that Erica still resented the amount of time and energy which his job demanded, but she had been an automotive wife for five years now, and ought to have come to terms with that, just as other wives learned to.
Occasionally, he wondered if it had been a mistake to marry someone so much younger than himself, though intellectually they had never had the slightest problem. Erica had brains and intelligence far beyond her years, and - as Adam had seen - was seldom en rapport with younger men.
The more he thought about it, the more he realized they would have to find some resolution to their problems soon.
But at the fifteenth floor, as he entered high command territory, Adam thrust personal thoughts away.
In the office suite of the Product Development vice-president, Jake Earlham, Vice-President Public Relations, was performing introductions.
Earlham, bald and stubby, had been a newspaperman many years ago and now looked like a donnish Mr. Pickwick. He was always either smoking a pipe or gesturing with it. He waved the pipe now to acknowledge Adam Trenton's entry.
"I believe you know Monica from Newsweek." "We've met." Adam acknowledged a petite brunette, already seated on a sofa. With shapely ankles crossed, smoke rising lazily from a cigarette, she smiled back coolly, making it plain that a representative of New York would not be taken in by Detroit charm, no matter how artfully applied.
Beside Newsweek, on the sofa, was The Wall Street Journal, a florid, middle-aged reporter named Harris. Adam shook his hand, then that of AP, a taut young man with a sheaf of copy paper, who acknowledged Adam curtly, plainly wanting the session to get on. Bob Irvin, bald and easygoing, of the Detroit News, was last.
"Hi, Bob," Adam said. Irvin, whom Adam knew best, wrote a daily column about automotive affairs. He was well-informed and respected in the industry, though no sycophant, being quick to jab a needle when he felt occasion warranted. In the past, Irvin had given a good deal of sympathetic coverage to both Ralph Nader and Emerson Vale.
Elroy Braithwaite, the Product Development vice-president, dropped into a vacant armchair in the comfortable lounge area where they had assembled. He asked amiably, "Who'll begin?"
Braithwaite, known among intimates as "The Silver Fox" because of his mane of meticulously groomed gray hair, wore a tightly cut Edwardian mode suit and sported another personal trademark - enormous cuff links.
He exuded a style matching his surroundings. Like all offices for vice-presidents and above, this one had been exclusively designed and furnished; it had African avodire wood paneling, brocaded drapes, and deep broadloom underfoot. Any man who attained this eminence in an auto company worked long and fiercely to get here. But once arrived, the working conditions held pleasant perquisites including an office like this, with adjoining dressing room and sleeping quarters, plus-on the floor above - a personal dining room, as well as a steam bath and masseur, available at any time.
"Perhaps the lady should lead off." It was Jake Earlham, perched on a window seat behind them.
"All right," the Newsweek brunette said. "What's the latest weak alibi for not launching a meaningful program to develop a nonpollutant steam engine for cars?"
"We're fresh out of alibis," the Silver Fox said. Braithwaite's expression had not changed; only his voice was a shade sharper.
"Besides, the job's already been done - by a guy named George Stephenson - and we don't think there's been a lot of significant progress since."
The AP man had put on thin-rimmed glasses; he looked through them impatiently. "Okay, so we've got the comedy over. Can we have some some straight questions and answers now?"
"I think we should," Jake Earlham said. The PR-head added apologetically, "I should have remembered. The wire services have an early deadline for the East Coast afternoon papers."
"Thank you," AP said. He addressed Elroy Braithwaite. "Mr. Vale made a statement last night that the auto companies are guilty of conspiracy and some other things because they haven't made serious efforts to develop an alternative to the internal combustion engine. He also says that steam and electric engines are available now. Would you care to comment on that?"
The Silver Fox nodded. "What Mr. Vale said about the engines being available now is true. There are! various kinds; most of them work, and we have several ourselves in our test center. What Vale didn't say - either because it would spoil his argument or he doesn't know - is that there still isn't a hope in hell of making a steam or electric engine for cars, at low cost, low weight, and good convenience, in the foreseeable future."
"How long's that?"
"Through the 1970s. By the 1980s there'll be other new developments, though the internal combustion engine - an almost totally nonpolluting one - still may dominate."
The Wall Street Journal interjected, "But there've been a lot of news stories about all kinds of engines here and now . . ."
"You're damn right," Elroy Braithwaite said, "and most of 'em should be in the comics section. If you'll excuse my saying so, newspaper writers are about the most gullible people afloat. Maybe they want to be; I guess, that way, the stories they write are more interesting. But let some inventor - never mind if he's a genius or a kookcome up with a one-only job, and turn the press loose on him. What happens? Next day all the news stories say this 'may' be the big breakthrough, this 'may' be the way the future's going. Repeat that a few times so the public reads it often, and everybody thinks it must be true, just the way newspaper people, I suppose, believe their own copy if they write enough of it. It's that kind of hoopla that's made a good many in this country convinced they'll have a steam or electric car, or maybe a hybrid, soon in their own garages."
The Silver Fox smiled at his public relations colleague, who had shifted uneasily and was fidgeting with his pipe. "Relax, Jake. I'm not taking off at the press. Just trying to fix a perspective."
Jake Earlharn said dryly, "I'm glad you told me. For a minute I was wondering."
"Aren't you losing sight of some facts, Mr. Braithwaite?" AP persisted.
"There are reputable people who still believe in steam power. Some big outfits other than auto companies are working on it. The California government is putting money on the line to get a fleet of steam cars on the road. And there are legislative proposals out there to ban internal combustion engines five years from now."
The Product Development vice-president shook his head decisively, his silver mane bobbing. "In my book, the only reputable guy who believed in a steam car was Bill Lear. Then he gave up publicly, calling the idea 'utterly ridiculous."'
"But Lear's since changed his mind," AP said.
"Sure, sure. And carries around a hatbox, saying his new steam engine is inside. Well, we know what's inside; it's the engine's innermost core, which is like taking a spark plug and saying 'there's an engine from our present cars.' What's seldom mentioned, by Mr. Lear and others, is that to be added are combusters, boiler, condenser, recuperation fans . . . a long list of heavy, expensive, bulky hardware, with dubious efficiency."
Jake Earlharn prompted, "The California government's steam cars . . ."
The Silver Fox nodded. "Okay, California. Sure the state's spending lots of money; what government doesn't? If you and half a million others were willing to pay a thousand dollars more for your cars, maybe -just maybe - we could build a steam engine, with all its problems and disadvantages. But most of our customers - and our competitors' customers, which we have to think about too - don't have that kind of moss to sling around."
"You're still ducking electric cars," The Wall Street Journal pointed out.
Braithwaite nodded to Adam. "You take that one."
"There are electric cars right now," Adam told the reporters. "You've seen golf carts, and it's conceivable that a two-passenger vehicle can be developed soon for shopping or similar use within a small local area. At the moment, though, it would be expensive and not much more than a curiosity. We've also built, ourselves, experimental trucks and cars which are electric powered. The trouble is, as soon as we give them any useful range we have to fill most of the inside space with heavy batteries, which doesn't make a lot of sense."
"The small, lightweight battery - zinc-air or fuel cells," AP questioned.
"When is it coming?"
"You forgot sodium sulphur," Adam said. "That's another that's been talked up. Unfortunately, there's little more than talk so far."
Elroy Braithwaite put in, "Eventually we believe there will be a breakthrough in batteries, with a lot of energy stored in small packages. What's more, there's a big potential use for electric vehicles in downtown traffic. But based on everything we know, we can't see it happening until the 1980s."
"And if you're thinking about air pollution in conjunction with electric cars," Adam added, "there's one factor which a lot of people overlook.
Whatever kind of batteries you had, they'd need recharging. So with hundreds of thousands of cars plugged into power sources, there'd be a requirement for many more generating stations, each spewing out its own air pollution. Since electric power plants are usually built in the suburbs, what could happen is that you'd end up taking the smog from the cities and transferring it out there."
"Isn't all that still a pretty weak alibi?" The cool Newsweek brunette uncrossed her legs, then twitched her skirt downward, to no effect, as she undoubtedly knew; it continued to ride high on shapely thighs. One by one, the men dropped their eves to where the thighs and skirt joined.
She elaborated, "I mean an alibi for not having, a crash program to make a good, cheap engine - steam or electric, or both. That's how we got to the moon, isn't it?" She added pertly, "If you'll remember, that was my first question."
"I remember," Elroy Braithwaite said. Unlike the other men, he did not remove his gaze from the junction of skirt and thighs, but held it there deliberately. There were several seconds of silence in which most women would have fidgeted or been intimidated. The brunette, self-assured, entirely in control, made clear that she was not. Still not looking up, the Silver Fox said slowly, "What was the question again, Monica?"
"I think you know." Only then did Braithwaite, outmaneuvered, lift his head.
He sighed. "Oh, yes - the moon. You know, there are days I wish we'd never got there. It's produced a new cliche. Nowadays, the moment there's any kind of engineering hangup, anywhere, you can count on somebody saying: We got to the moon, didn't we? Why can't we solve this?"
"If she hadn't asked," The Wall Street journal said, "I would. So why can't we?"
"I'll tell you," the vice-president snapped. "Quite apart from the space gang having unlimited public money - which we haven't - they had an objective: Get to the moon. You people are asking us, on the vague basis of things you've read or heard, to give development of a steam or electric engine for cars that kind of all-or-nothing, billions-in-the-kitty priority.
Well, it so happens that some of the best engineering brains in this business think it isn't a practical objective, or even a worthwhile one.
We have better ideas and other objectives."
Braithwaite passed a hand over his silver mane, then nodded to Adam. He gave the impression of having had enough.
"What we believe," Adam said, "is that clean air - at least air not polluted by motor vehicles can be achieved best, fastest, and most cheaply through refinements of the present gasoline internal combustion engine, along with more improvements in emission control and fuels. That includes the Wankel engine which is also an internal combustion type."
He had deliberately kept his voice low key. Now he added, "Maybe that's not as spectacular as the idea of steam or electric power but there's a lot of sound science behind it."
Bob Irvin of the Detroit News spoke for the first time. "Quite apart from electric and steam engines, you'd admit, wouldn't you, that before Nader, Emerson Vale, and their kind, the industry wasn't nearly as concerned as it is now about controlling air pollution?"
The question was asked with apparent casualness, Irvin looking blandly through his glasses, but Adam knew it was loaded with explosive. He hesitated only momentarily, then answered, "Yes, I would."
The three other reporters looked at him, surprised.
"As I understand it," Irvin said, still with the same casual manner, "we're here because of Emerson Vale, or in other words, because of an auto critic. Right?"
Jake Earlham intervened from his window seat. "We're here because your editors - and in your case, Bob, you personally - asked if we would respond to some questions today, and we agreed to. It was our understanding that some of the questions would relate to statements which Mr. Vale had made, but we did not schedule a press conference specifically because of Vale."
Bob Irvin grinned. "A bit hair-splitty, aren't you Jake?"
The Vice-President Public Relations shrugged. I guess."
From Jake Earlham's doubtful expression now and earlier, Adam suspected he was wondering if the informal press meeting had been such a good idea.
"In that case," Irvin said, "I guess this question wouldn't be out of order, Adam." The columnist seemed to ruminate, shambling verbally as he spoke, but those who knew him were aware how deceptive this appearance was. "In your opinion have the auto critics - let's take Nader and safety - fulfilled a useful function?"
The question was simple, but framed so it could not be ducked, Adam felt like protesting to Irvin: Why pick me? Then he remembered Elroy Braithwaite's instructions earlier: "We'll call things the way we see them."
Adam said quietly, "Yes, they have fulfilled a function. In terms of safety, Nader booted this industry, screaming, into the second half of the twentieth century."
All four reporters wrote that down.
While they did, Adam's thoughts ranged swiftly over what he had said and what came next. Within the auto industry, he was well aware, plenty of others would agree with him. A strong contingent of younger executives and a surprising sprinkling at topmost echelons conceded that basically - despite excesses and inaccuracies - the arguments of Vale and Nader over the past few years made sense. The industry had relegated safety to a minor role in car design, it had focused attention on sales to the exclusion of most else, it had resisted change until forced to change through government regulation or the threat of it. It seemed, looking back, as if auto makers had become drunken on their own immensity and power, and had behaved like Goliaths, until in the end they were humbled by a David - Ralph Nader and, later, Emerson Vale.
The David-Goliath equation, Adam thought, was apt. Nader particularly - alone, unaided, and with remarkable moral courage - took on the entire U.S. auto industry with its unlimited resources and strong Washington lobby, and, where others had failed, succeeded in having safety standards raised and new consumer-oriented legislation passed into law.
The fact that Nader was a polemicist who, like all polemicists, took rigid poses, was often excessive, ruthless, and sometimes inaccurate, did not lessen his achievement. Only a bigot would deny that he had performed a valuable public service. Equally to the point: to achieve such a service, against such odds, a Nader-type was necessary.
The Wall Street Journal observed, "So far as I know, Mr. Trenton, no auto executive has made that admission publicly before."
"If no one has," Adam said, "maybe it's time someone did."
Was it imagination, or had Jake Earlham apparently busy with his pipe - gone pale? Adam detected a frown on the face of the Silver Fox, but what the hell; if necessary, he would argue with Elroy later. Adam had never been a "yes man." Few who rose high in the auto industry were, and those who held back their honest opinions, fearing disapproval from seniors, or because of insecurity about their jobs, seldom made it higher than middle management, at best. Adam had not held back, believing that directness and honesty were useful contributions he could make to his employers. The important thing, he had learned, was to stay an individual. A misguided notion which outsiders had of auto executives was that they conformed to a standard pattern, as if stamped out by cookie cutters. No concept could be more wrong. True, such men had certain traits in common - ambition, drive, a sense of organization, a capacity for work. But, apart from that, they were highly individual, with a better-than-average sprinkling of eccentrics, geniuses, and mavericks.
Anyway, it had been said; nothing would undo it now. But there were postscripts.
"If you're going to quote that" - Adam surveyed the quartet of reporters - "some other things should be said as well."
"Which are?" It was the Newsweek girl's query. She seemed less hostile than before, had stubbed out her cigarette and was making notes. Adam stole a glance: her skirt was as high as ever, her thighs and legs increasingly attractive in filmy gray nylon. He felt his interest sharpen, then tore his thoughts away.
"First," Adam said, "the critics have done their job. The industry is working harder on safety than it ever did; what's more, the pressure's staying on. Also, we're consumer oriented. For a while, we weren't.
Looking back, it seems as if we got careless and indifferent to consumers without realizing it. Right now, though, we're neither, which is why the Emerson Vales have become shrill and sometimes silly. If you accept their view, nothing an automobile maker does is ever right. Maybe that's why Vale and his kind haven't recognized yet - which is my second point - that the auto industry is in a whole new era."
AP queried, "If that's true, wouldn't you say the auto critics forced you there?"
Adam controlled his irritation. Sometimes auto criticism became a fetish, an unreasoning cult, and not just with professionals like Vale. "They helped," he admitted, "by establishing directions and goals, particularly about safety and pollution. But they had nothing to do with the technological revolution which was coming anyway. It's that that's going to make the next ten years more exciting for everybody in this business than the entire half century just gone."
"Just how?" AP said, glancing at his watch.
"Someone mentioned breakthroughs," Adam answered. "The most important ones, which we can see coming, are in materials which will let us design a whole new breed of vehicles by the mid or late '70s. Take metals. Instead of solid steel which we're using now, honeycomb steel is coming; it'll be strong, rigid, yet incredibly lighter meaning fuel economy; also it'll absorb an impact better than conventional steel - a safety plus. Then there are new metal alloys for engines and components. We anticipate one which will allow temperature changes from a hundred degrees to more than two thousand degree Fahrenheit, in seconds, with minor expansion only. Using that, we can incinerate the remainder of unburned fuel causing air pollution. Another metal being worked on is one with a retention technique to 'remember' its original shape. If you crumple a fender or a door, you'll apply heat or pressure and the metal will spring back the way it was before. Another alloy we expect will allow cheap production of reliable, high-quality wheels for gas turbine engines."
Elroy Braithwaite added, "That last is one to watch. If the internal combustion engine goes eventually, the gas turbine's most likely to move in. There are plenty of problems with a turbine for cars - it's efficient only at high power output, and you need a costly heat exchanger if you aim not to burn pedestrians. But they're solvable problems, and being worked on."
"Okay," The Wall Street Journal said. "So that's metals. What else is new?"
"Something significant, and coming soon for every car, is an on-board computer." Adam glanced at AP. "It will be small, about the size of a glove compartment."
"A computer to do what?"
"Just about anything; you name it. It will monitor engine components - plugs, fuel injection, all the others. It will control emissions and warn if the engine is polluting. And in other ways it will be revolutionary."
"Name some," Newsweek said.
"Part of the time the computer will think for drivers and correct mistakes, often before they realize they're made. One thing it will mastermind is sensory braking - brakes applied individually on every wheel so a driver can never lose control by skidding. A radar auxiliary will warn if a car ahead is slowing or you're following too close. In an emergency the computer could decelerate and apply brakes automatically, and because a computer's reactions are faster than human there should be a lot less rear-end collisions. There'll be the means to lock on to automatic radar control lanes on freeways, which are on the way, with space satellite control of traffic flow not far behind."
Adam caught an approving glance from Jake Earlham and knew why. He had succeeded in turning the talk from defensive to positive, a tactic which the public relations department was constantly urging on company spokesmen.
"One effect of all the changes," Adam went on, "is that interiors of cars, especially from a driver's viewpoint, will look startlingly different within the next few years. The in-car computer will modify most of our present instruments. For example, the gas gauge as we know it is on the way out; in its place will be an indicator showing how many miles of driving your fuel is good for at present speed. On a TV-type screen in front of the driver, route information and highway warning signs will appear, triggered by magnetic sensors in the road. Having to look out for highway signs is already old-fashioned and dangerous; often a driver misses them; when they're inside the car, he won't. Then if you travel a route which is new, you'll slip in a cassette, the way you do a tape cartridge for entertainment now. According to where you are, and keyed in a similar way to the road signs, you'll receive spoken directions and visual signals on the screen.
And almost at once the ordinary car radio will have a transmitter, as well as a receiver, operating on citizens' band. It's to be a nationwide system, so that a driver can call for aid - of any kind - whenever he needs it."
AP was on his feet, turning to the PR Vice-President. "If I can use a phone . . . "
Jake Earlham slipped from his window seat and went around to the door. He motioned with his pipe for AP to follow him. "I'll find you somewhere private."
The others were getting up.
Bob Irvin of the News waited until the wire service reporter had left, then asked, "About that on-board computer. Are you putting it in the Orion?"
God damn that Irvin! Adam knew that he was boxed. The answer was "yes," but it was secret. On the other hand, if he replied "no," eventually the journalists would discover he had lied.
Adam protested, "You know I can't talk about the Orion, Bob."
The columnist grinned. The absence of an outright denial had told him all he needed.
"Well," the Newsweek brunette said; now that she was standing, she appeared taller and more lissome than when seated. "You trickily steered wheels the whole thing away from what we came here to talk about."
"Not me." Adam met her eyes directly; they were ice blue, he noted, and derisively appraising. He found himself wishing they had met in a different way and less as adversaries. He smiled. "I'm just a simple auto worker who tries to see both sides."
"Really!" The eyes remained fixed, still mirroring derision. "Then how about an honest answer to this: Is the outlook inside the auto industry really changing?" Newsweek glanced at her notebook. "Are the big auto makers truly responding to the times - accepting new ideas about community responsibility, developing a social conscience, being realistic about changing values, including values about cars? Do you genuinely believe that consumerism is here to stay? Is there really a new era, the way you claim? Or is it all a front-office dress-up, staged by public relations flacks, while what you really hope is that the attention you're getting now will go away, and everything will slip back the way it was before, when you did pretty much what you liked? Are you people really tuned in to what's happening about environment, safety, and all those other things, or are you kidding yourselves and us? Quo Vadis? - do you remember your Latin, Mr. Trenton?"
"Yes," Adam said, "I remember." Quo Vadis? Whither goest thou? . . . The age-old question of mankind, echoing down through history, asked of civilizations, nations, individuals, groups and, now, an industry.
Elroy Braithwaite inquired, "Say, Monica, is that a question or a speech?"
"It's a melange question." The Newsweek girl gave the Silver Fox an unwarmed smile. "If it's too complicated for you, I could break it into simple segments, using shorter words."
The public relations chief had just returned after escorting AP "Jake," the Product Development vice-president told his colleague, "somehow these press meetings aren't what they used to be."
"If you mean we're more aggressive, not deferential any more," The Wall Street Journal said, "it's because reporters are being trained that way, and our editors tell us to bore in hard. Like everything else, I guess there's a new look in journalism." He added thoughtfully, "Sometimes it makes me uncomfortable, too."
"Well, it doesn't me," Newsweek said, "and I still have a question hanging." She turned to Adam. "I asked it of you."
Adam hesitated. Quo Vadis? In other forms, he sometimes put the same interrogation to himself. But in answering now, how far should open honesty extend?
Elroy Braithwaite relieved him of decision.
"If Adam doesn't mind," the Silver Fox interposed, "I believe I'll answer that. Without accepting all your premises, Monica, this company - as it represents our industry - has always accepted community responsibility; what's more, it does have a social conscience and has demonstrated this for many years. As to consumerism, we've always believed in it, long before the word itself was coined by those who . . ."
The rounded phrases rolled eloquently on. Listening, Adam was relieved he hadn't answered. Despite his own dedication to his work, he would have been compelled, in honesty, to admit some doubts.
He was relieved, though, that the session was almost done. He itched to get back to his own bailiwick where the Orion - like a loving but demanding mistress - summoned him.