“The very fact that we—the leading experts in the field—can find no crisis is in itself a crisis,” I told them.

They sighed, as if a great work of art had suddenly been unveiled.

“Think of the crisis management teams all around the world who are idle! Think of the psychologists and the therapists who stand ready to help their fellow man and woman, yet have nothing to do! Think of the vast teams of news reporters, camera persons, editors, producers, publishers, even golfers, the whole vast panoply of men and women who have dedicated their lives to bringing the latest crisis into the homes of every human being on this planet—with nothing more to do than report on sports and weather!”

They leaped to their feet and converged on me. They raised me to their shoulders and joyously carried me around the table, shouting praises.

Deliriously happy, I thought to myself, I won’t be at the foot of the table anymore. I’ll move up. One day, I’ll be at the head of the table, where The All-American Boy is now. He’s getting old, burnt out. I’ll get there. I’ll get there!

And I knew what my power name would be. I’d known it from the start, when I’d first been made the lowliest member of the board. I’d been saving it, waiting until the proper moment to make the change.

My power name would be different, daring. A name that bespoke true power, the ability to command, the vision to see far into the future. And it wouldn’t even require changing my real name that much. I savored the idea and rolled my power name through my mind again as they carried me around the table. Yes, it would work. It was right.

I would no longer be Thomas K. James. With the slightest, tiniest bit of manipulation my true self would stand revealed: James T. Kirk.

I was on my way.

FREE ENTERPRISE

Much has been said and written about the failures of American industry and the successes of the Japanese. Here is a tale that examines an industry I know rather well, publishing, and shows why we may soon be buying our books from Japan, as well as our automobiles and television sets. If any of my friends in the publishing industry take umbrage at this candid appraisal, good!

The Idea

It happened at approximately midnight, late in April, when they both should have been studying for their final exams.

Mark Moskowitz (a.k.a. “Mark the Monk”) and Mitsui Minimata shared a rented room over one of Berkeley’s shabbier head shops, less than a half-mile from the campus. Mark was going for his doctorate in logic; Mitsui was working doggedly toward his in electrical engineering. The few friends they had, years later, claimed that the idea was probably inspired by the various strange aromas wafting up from the shop below their room.

Mark’s sobriquet was two-edged: not only did he have the heavy-browed, hairy, shambling appearance of an early homonid; he was, despite his apeish looks, exceedingly shy, bookish, and unsocial to the point of reclusiveness. Mitsui was just the opposite: tiny, constantly smiling, excruciatingly polite, and an accomplished conversationalist. Where Mark sat and pondered, Mitsui flashed around the room like an excited electron.

He was struggling with a heavy tome on electrical engineering, just barely managing to stagger across the room with it, heading for his reading chair, when he tripped on the threadbare rug and went sprawling face-first. Mark, snapped out of his glassy-eyed introspection by the thud of his roommate’s impact on the floor, spent a moment focusing his far-sighted eyes on the situation. As Mitsui slowly sat up and shook his head groggily, Mark heaved himself up from the sagging sofa which served as his throne, shambled over to his friend, picked the little Japanese up with one hand, the ponderous textbook in the other, and settled them both safely on Mitsui’s reading chair.

“Thank you ten thousand times,” said Mitsui, after a sharp intake of breath to show that he was unworthy of his friend’s kindness.

“You ought to pick on books your own size,” Mark replied. For him, that amounted to a sizzling witticism.

Mitsui shrugged. “There are no books my size. Not in electrical engineering. They all weigh a metric ton.”

Mark glared down at the weighty tome. “I wonder why they still print books on paper. Wouldn’t electrons be a lot lighter?”

“Yes, of course. And cheaper, as well.”

“H’mm,” said Mark.

“H’mm,” said Mitsui.

And they never spoke of the idea again. Not to each other, at least. A month later they received their degrees and went their separate ways.

The Presentation

Gene Rockmore blinked several times at the beetle-browed young man sitting in his office. “Mark M. Moskowitz, Ph.D.,” the visitor’s card said. Nothing else. No phone number or address. Rockmore tried to engage the young man in trivial conversation while studying him. He looked like a refugee from a wrestling school, despite his three-piece suit and conservative tie. Or maybe because of them; the clothes did not seem to be his, they barely fit him, and he looked very uncomfortable in them.

For several minutes Rockmore chatted about the weather, the awful cross-town traffic, and the dangers of being mugged on Manhattan’s streets. He received nothing back from his visitor except a few grunts and uneasy wriggles.

Why me? Rockmore asked himself silently. Why do I have to get all the crazies who come in off the street? After all, I’m a vice president now. I ought to be involved in making deals with agents, and taking famous writers out to lunch. At least Charlene’s father ought to let me get into the advertising and promotion end of the business. I could be a smash on the Johnny Carson show, plugging our company’s books. Instead, I have to sit here and deal with inarticulate ape-men.

Rockmore, who looked like (and was) a former chorus boy in a Broadway musical, slicked back his thinning blond hair with one hand and finally asked, “Well, eh, just what is it you wanted to talk to me about, Mr. Mos. . . I mean, Dr. Moskowitz?”

“Electronic books,” said Mark.

“Electronic books?” Rockmore asked.

“Uh-huh.” And for the next three hours, Mark did all the talking.

Mitsui hardly spoke at all, and when he did, it was in Japanese, a language both simple and supple. Most of the time, as he sat side-by-side with the vice president for innovation at Kanagawa Electronics and Shipbuilding, Inc., Mitsui tapped out numbers on his pocket computer. The v.p. grinned and nodded and hissed happily at the glowing digits on the tiny readout screen.

The Reception

Robert Emmett Upton, president of Hubris Books, a division of WPA Entertainment, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Moribundic Industries, Inc., which in turn is owned by Empire State Bank (and, it is rumored, the Mafia), could scarcely believe his ears.

“Electronic books? What on earth are electronic books?”

Lipton smiled gently at his son-in-law. It didn’t do to get tough with Rockmore. He simply broke down and cried and went home to Charlene, who would then phone to tell her mother what a heel her father was to pick on such a sensitive boy as Gene.

So the president of Hubris Books rocked slowly in his big leather chair and tried to look interested as his son-in-law explained his latest hare-brained scheme. Lipton sighed inwardly, thinking about the time Rockmore suggested to the editorial board that they stop printing books that failed to sell well, and stuck only to best sellers. That was when Rockmore had just graduated from the summer course in management at Harvard. Ten years later, and he still didn’t know a thing about the publishing business. But he kept Charlene happy, and that kept Charlene’s mother happy, and that was the only reason Lipton allowed Rockmore to play at being an executive.