Infinity Beach - Jack McDevitt [20]
The proprietor noted her interest. “There are only one hundred prints,” he said. “Signed by the artist herself. I can let you have this one at a very reasonable price.”
“Thank you, no,” she said. “But I am interested in Markis Kane. You have his Autumn, I understand?”
“Oh yes. One of his best.” He gazed at Kim, frowned, and sucked in his breath. “That’s remarkable,” he whispered. “Is it really you?” His voice trembled.
Kim had never seen the man before and she was momentarily at a loss to understand his reaction. “Emily,” he said. Solly moved closer to her.
The model for Autumn.
Kim smiled. “No,” she said. “It’s not me.”
Gould stood back to get a better view. He pressed his lips together and nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I’d thought the model had died. Before he did the painting.” He shook his head. “Nevertheless, you are a close match. Are you connected in some way?”
“I’m her sister.”
He pulled his sweater tightly around him, as if to protect from a sudden chill. “I’m sorry. It was thoughtless of me.”
“It’s quite all right, Mr. Gould. It’s been a long time.”
“Yes. Of course.” He studied her. “You’re as lovely as she.”
“Thank you. You’re very kind.”
He paused and collected himself. “As I say, I do have the Autumn. But it’s not for sale.”
Solly glanced at her. He expects to hit us pretty hard.
“It’s for display only,” the proprietor continued. “It’s really quite valuable.”
“May we see it?” asked Kim.
“Of course.” He still did not move, still gazed at Kim’s features.
She wanted to break the paralysis. “Tell me about Markis Kane,” she said.
“We have five originals by him. Other than the Autumn. One of them, Glory, also uses Emily as the model.” He led the way through a door at the rear of the building and turned on the lights. Autumn was set in an exquisite, hand-carved wooden frame, mounted on an easel. More lights blinked on, designed to show the work to maximum effect.
Kim studied it. The woman in the window. The line of frost. The leaf-covered lawn. The ringed world just touching the tops of the trees. The planet was setting. There was no conscious way to make that determination, but she knew it to be true. A couple of crescent moons that she didn’t recall from the online image drifted through the gathering night.
Autumn radiated loss. The trees writhed in a dark wind, the giant planet was painted in October colors, and even its rings suggested dissolution.
Emily looked both beautiful and melancholy.
“He’s pretty good,” Solly commented, “for a pilot.”
“He’s one of the best we’ve had,” said Gould. “The world is just beginning to recognize it.”
Glory was named for the largest of Greenway’s satellites. Emily was posed dreamily against a track of moonlit water. Shoulders bare, one hand laid along her cheek, eyes luminous and thoughtful. It was dated three years before the flight.
Tora was a portrait of Kane’s daughter at about ten. In River Voyage, a handful of rafters try to hang on in rock-strewn white water. Night Passage depicted an interstellar liner passing a cobalt-blue gas giant.
Kim asked for the dates. All four preceded the Hunter incident. “Is it my imagination,” she asked Gould, “or is there a change in tone between his earlier and later work?”
“Oh,” he said, “there very certainly is.” He touched a keyboard. A screen lit up and they were looking at Bringing the Mail, a painting of a freighter crossing a nebula. The freighter was squat and gray, bleak, its running lights casting eerie shadows across the superstructure. The nebula silhouetted the starship, emitting a twilight glow. “This is his last known work.”
“Everything after Mount Hope seems kind of downbeat,” said Solly.
“Oh yes. Beginning with this one.” He brought up a landscape. “His work entered a dark period from which it never really emerged. This is Storm Warning, from 574.” They were looking at distorted trees, ruins in the distance silhouetted