took off for oblivion, joyously happy. But behind the scenes, we architects, clapping hands, rubbing palms for the moola, shoved them up! Not the politicians, not the military, not the arms merchants, but the sons of Haussmann and the future sons of Frank Lloyd Wright sent them on there way. Glory hallelujah!»

Hank Gibson exhaled a great gust and sat weighted with an ounce of information and a ton

of confusion, at the head of this table. He stared down its length.

«There were meetings here-«

«In 1932, 1936, 1939 to fester Tokyo, poison Washington for war. And at the same time make sure that San Francisco was built in the best way for a new downfall, and that California cities all up and down the cracks and seams nursed at the mother fault, San Andreas, so when the Big One came, it would rain money for forty days.»

«Son of a bitch,» said Hank Gibson.

«Yes, aren't I? Aren't we? »

«Son of a bitch,» Hank Gibson repeated in a whisper. «Man's wars and God's earthquakes.»

«What a collaboration, eh? All done by the secret government, the government of surprise architects across the world and into the next century.»

The floor shook. The table and the chair and the ceiling did likewise.

«Time?» said Hank Gibson.

Charlie Crowe laughed, glancing at his watch.

''Time. Out!''

They ran for the door, ran down the hall past the doors marked TOKYO and London and Dresden, past the doors marked 1789 and 1870 and 1940 and past the doors marked ARMENIA and MEXICO CITY and SAN Francisco and shot up in the elevator, and along the way, Hank Gibson said:

«Again, why've you told me this?»