«Yes! What about the other side of the hall? The earthquakes.»

«God did it.»

«Only God? No helpers?»

«How can anyone help an earthquake?»

«Partially. Indirectly. Collaboratively.»

«An earthquake is an earthquake. A city just happens to be in its way. Underfoot.»

«Wrong, Hank.»

«Wrong!?»

«What if I told you that those cities were not accidentally built there? What if I told you w had planned to build them there, on purpose, to be destroyed?»

«Nuts!»

«No, Hank, creative annihilation. We were up to these tricks as far back as the Tang dynasty earthquakewise on the one hand. Citywise? Paris 1789 warwise.»

«We? We? Who's we? »

«Me, Hank, and my cohorts, not in crimson and gold, but good dark cloth and decent ties and fine architectural school graduates. We did it, Hank We built the cities so as to tear them down. To knock them apart with earthquakes or kill their with bombs and war, war and bombs.»

«We? We!? »

«In this room or rooms like it, all across the world, men sat in those chairs on the left and right, with the grand mucky-muck of all architects there where you sit-«

«Architects!»

«You don't think all of those earthquakes, all of those wars, happened by mere accident, pure chance? We did it, Hank, the blueprint urban-plan architects of the world. Not the munitions makers Or politicians, oh, we used them as puppets, marionettes, useful idiots, but we, the superb hired city architects, set out to build and then destroy our pets, our buildings, our cities!»

«For God's sake, how insane! Why?»

«Why? So that every forty, fifty, sixty, ninety years we could start over with fresh projects, new concepts, renewed jobs, cash on the line for everyone – blueprinters, planners, craftsmen, builders, stonemasons, diggers, carpenters, glaziers, gardeners. Knock it all down, start new!»