“Still,” Memo sympathized, “It must take considerable dedication to undergo such a long trip.”
“Well, you know, when you’re in public service, you can’t think of your own comforts.”
“Yes, of course. Too bad the SST isn’t flying anymore. It could have cut your travel time in half. That would give you more time to stay in Samoa . . . investigating conditions there.”
The hearing room in the capitol was jammed with reporters and camera crews. Senator Goodyear sat in the center of the long front table, as befitted the committee chairman. I was in the last row of spectators, as befitted the newly promoted junior Washington representative of Anson Aerospace Corp. I was following the industry’s routine procedure and riding the SSZ program up the corporate ladder.
All through that hot summer morning, the committee had listened to witnesses: my former boss John Driver, Roger K. Memo, Alonzo Pencilbeam, and many others. The concept of the supersonic zeppelin unfolded before the news media and started to take on definite solidity in the rococo-trimmed hearing chamber.
Senator Goodyear sat there solemnly all morning, listening to the carefully rehearsed testimony and sneaking peeks at the greenery outside the big, sunny window. Whenever he remembered the TV cameras, he sat up straighter and tried to look lean and tough. I’d been told he had a drawer full of old Clint Eastwood flicks in his Ohio home.
Now it was his turn to summarize what the witnesses had told the committee. He looked straight into the bank of cameras, trying to come on strong and determined, like a high-plains drifter.
“Gentlemen,” he began, immediately antagonizing the women in the room, “I believe that what we have heard here today can mark the beginning of a new program that will revitalize the American aerospace industry and put our great nation back in the forefront of international commerce—”
One of the younger senators at the far end of the table, a woman, interrupted:
“Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, but my earlier question about pollution was never addressed. Won’t the SSZ use the same kind of jet engines that the Concorde used? And won’t they cause just as much pollution?”
Goodyear glowered at the junior member’s impudence, but controlled his temper well enough to say only, “Erm . . . Dr. Pencilbeam, would you care to comment on that question?”
Half dozing at one of the front benches, Pencilbeam looked startled at the mention of his name. Then he got to his feet like a carpenter’s ruler unfolding, went to the witness table, sat down, and hunched his bony frame around the microphone there.
“The pollution from the Concorde was so minimal that it had no measurable effect on the stratosphere. The early claims that a fleet of SSTs would create a permanent cloud deck over the northern hemisphere and completely destroy the ozone layer were never substantiated.”
“But there were only a half-dozen Concordes flying,” said the junior senator. “If we build a whole fleet of SSZs—”
Before she could go any further, Goodyear fairly shouted into his microphone, “Rest assured that we are well aware of the possible pollution problem.” He popped his P’s like artillery bursts. “More importantly, the American aerospace industry is suffering, employment is in the doldrums, and our economy is slumping. The SSZ will provide jobs and boost the economy. Our engineers will, I assure you, find ways to deal with any and every pollution problem that may be associated with the SSZ.”
I had figured that somebody, sooner or later, would raise the question of pollution. The engineers back in Phoenix wanted to look into the possibilities of using hydrogen fuel for the SSZ’s jet engines, but I figured that just the mention of hydrogen would make people think of the old Hindenberg, and that would scuttle the program right there and then. So we went with ordinary turbojet engines that burned ordinary jet fuel.
But I went a step farther. In my capacity as a junior (and rising) executive, I used expense-account money to plant a snoop in the organization of the nation’s leading ecology freak, Mark Sequoia. It turned out that, unknown to Sequoia, Anson Aerospace was actually his biggest financial contributor. Politics make strange bedfellows, doesn’t it?
You see, Sequoia had fallen on relatively hard times. Once a flaming crusader for ecological salvation and environmental protection, Sequoia had made the mistake of letting the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania hire him as the state’s Director of Environmental Protection. He had spent nearly five years earnestly trying to clean up Pennsylvania, a job that had driven four generations of the original Penn family into early Quaker graves. The deeper Sequoia buried himself in the solid waste politics of Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Chester, Erie, and other hopelessly corrupted cities, the fewer dedicated followers and news media headlines he attracted. After a very credible Mafia threat on his life, he quite sensibly resigned his post and returned to private life, scarred but wiser. And alive.
When the word about the SSZ program reached him, Sequoia was hiking along a woodland trail in Fairmont Park, Philadelphia, leading a scraggly handful of sullen high school students through the park’s soot-ravaged woodlands on a steaming August afternoon. They were dispiritedly picking up empty beer cans and gummy prophylactics—and keeping a wary eye out for muggers. Even full daylight was no protection against assault. And the school kids wouldn’t help him, Sequoia knew. Half of them would jump in and join the fun.
Sequoia was broad shouldered, almost burly. His rugged face was seamed by weather and news conferences. He looked strong and fit, but lately his back had been giving him trouble, and his old trick knee . . .
He heard someone pounding up the trail behind him.
“Mark! Mark!”
Sequoia turned to see Larry Helper, his oldest and therefore most trusted aide, running along the gravel path toward him, waving a copy of the Daily News over his head. Newspaper pages were slipping from his sweaty grasp and fluttering off into the bushes.
“Littering,” Sequoia muttered in a tone sometimes used by archbishops when facing a case of heresy.
“Some of you kids,” said Sequoia in
