Marconi shook his head. “You need a vacation, son,” he said sympathetically. “That was a long time ago. Hundreds of years, maybe.”
“But where did the people go?” Ross persisted desperately. “All of the city was inhabited hundreds of years ago—the city was twice as big as it is now. How come?”
Marconi shrugged. “Dunno.”
Ross collapsed. “Don’t know. You don’t know, I don’t know, nobody knows. Only thing is, I care! I’m curious. Marconi, I get—well, moody. Depressed. I get to worrying about crazy things. Ghost Town, for one. And why can’t they find a secretary for me? And am I really different from everybody else or do I just think so—and doesn’t that mean that I’m insane?”
He laughed. Marconi said warmly, “Ross, you aren’t the only one; don’t ever think you are. I went through it myself. Found the answer, too. You wait, Ross.”
He paused. Ross said suspiciously, “Yeah?”
Marconi tapped the breast pocket with the photo of Lurline. “She’ll come along,” he said.
Ross managed not to sneer in his face. “No,” he said wearily. “Look, I don’t advertise it, but I was married once. I was eighteen, it lasted for a year and I’m the one who walked out. Flat-fee settlement; it took me five years to pay off the loan, but I never regretted it.”
Marconi began gravely, “Sexual incompatibility——”
Ross cut him off with an impatient gesture. “In that department,” he said, “it so happens she was a genius. But——”