Wheels

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."