«We provoked, guided, steered, influenced the politicians to boil over, one way or t'other, and Paris and the Terror followed, dogged by Napoleon, trailed by the Paris Commune in which Haussmann, taking advantage of the chaos, tore down and rebuilt the City to the madness of some delight of others. Consider Dresden, London, Tokyo, Hiroshima. We architects paid cold cash to get Hitler out of jail in 1922! Then we architect mosquito-pestered the Japanese to invade Manchuria, import junk iron, antagonize Roosevelt, bomb Pearl Harbor. Sure, the Emperor approved, sure the Generals knew delight, sure the kamikazes

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?»

«I'm retiring. The others are gone. We won't use this place again. It'll be gone. Maybe now.

You write the book about all this fabulous stuff, I edit it, we'll grab the money and run.»

«But who'll believe it!?»

«No one. But it's so sensational, everyone will buy. Millions of copies. And no one will investigate, for they're all guilty, city fathers, Chambers of Commerce, real estate salesmen, Army generals who thought they made up and fought their own wars, or made up and built their own cities! Pompous freaks! Here we are. Out.»

They made it out of the elevator and the shack as the next quake came. Both fell and got up, with nervous laughter.

«Good old California, yes? Is my Rolls still there? Yep. No carjackers. In!»

With his hand on the Rolls doorframe, Gibson stared over at his friend. «Does the San Andreas Fault come through this block?»

«You better believe. Wanna go see your home?»

Gibson shut his eyes. «Christ, I'm afraid.»

«Take courage from the insurance policy in your coat pocket. Shall we go?»

«In a moment.» Gibson swallowed hard «What will we name our book?»

«What time is it and date?»

Gibson looked at the sun about to rise. «Early Six-thirty. And the date on my watch reads February fifth.»

«Nineteen ninety-four?»

'Six-thirty a.m. February fifth, 1994.»

'Then that's the title of our book. Or why not

Zaharoff add Richter for the earthquake Richter scale at Cal-Tech. Zaharoff/Richter Mark V? Okay?»

«Okay.»

The doors slammed. The motor roared.

«Do we go home?» «Go fast. Jesus. Fast.» They went.

Fast.

1996 year

Remember? Why, how could they forget? Although they knew him for only a little while, years later his name would arise and they would smile or even laugh and reach out to hold hands, remembering.

Sascha. What a tender, witty comrade, what a sly, hidden individual, what a child of talent; teller of tales, bon vivant, late-night companion, ever-present illumination on foggy noons.

Sascha!

He, whom they had never seen, to whom they spoke often at three a.m. in their small bedroom, away from friends who might roll their eyeballs under their lids, doubting their sanity, hearing his name.

Well, then, who and what was Sascha, and where did they meet or perhaps only dream him, and who were they?

Quickly: they were Maggie and Douglas Spaulding and they lived by the loud sea and the

warm sand and the rickety bridges over the almost dead canals of Venice, California. Though lacking money in the bank or Goodwill furniture in their tiny two-room apartment, they were incredibly happy. He was a writer, and she worked to support him while he finished the great American novel.

Their routine was: she would arrive home each night from downtown Los Angeles and he would have hamburgers waiting or they would walk down the beach to eat hot dogs, spend ten or twenty cents in the Penny Arcade, go home, make love, go to sleep, and repeat the whole wondrous routine the next night: hot dogs, Penny Arcade, love, sleep, work, etc. It was all glorious in that year of being very young and in love; therefore it would go on forever

Until he appeared.

The nameless one. For then he had no name. He had threatened to arrive a few months after their marriage to destroy their economy and scare off the novel, but then he had melted away, leaving only his echo of a threat.

But now the true collision loomed.

One night over a ham omelet with a bottle of cheap red and the conversation loping quietly, leaning on the card table and promising each other grander and more ebullient futures, Maggie suddenly said, «I feel faint.»

«What?» said Douglas Spaulding.

«I've felt funny all day. And I was sick, a little bit, this morning.»

«Oh, my God.» He rose and came around the card table and took her head in his hands and pressed her brow against his side, and looked down at the beautiful part in her hair, suddenly smiling.

«Well, now,» he said, «don't tell me that Sascha is back?»

«Sascha! Who's that?»

«When he arrives, he'll tell us.»

«Where did that name come from?»

«Don't know. It's been in my mind all year.»

«Sascha?» She pressed his hands to her cheeks, laughing. «Sascha!»

«Call the doctor tomorrow,» he said.

«The doctor says Sascha has moved in for light housekeeping,» she said over the phone the next day.

«Great!» He stopped. «I guess.» He considered their bank deposits. «No. First thoughts count. Great! When do we meet the Martian invader?»

«October. He's infinitesimal now, tiny, I can barely hear his voice. But now that he has a name, I hear it. He promises to grow, if we take care.»

«The Fabulous Invalid! Shall I stock up on carrots, spinach, broccoli for what date?»

«Halloween.»

«Impossible!»

«True!»

«People will claim we planned him and my vampire book to arrive that week, things that go bump and cry in the night.»

«Oh, Sascha will surely do that! Happy? »

«Frightened, yes, but happy, Lord, yes. Come home, Mrs. Rabbit, and bring him along!»

It must be explained that Maggie and Douglas Spaulding were best described as crazed roman-tics. Long before the interior christening of Sascha, they, loving Laurel and Hardy, had called each other Stan and Ollie. The machines, the dustbusters and can openers around the apartment, had names, as did various parts of their anatomy, revealed to no one.