Read Online The Planet on the Table by Kim Stanley Robinson - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Kim Stanley Robinson
Ads: Link
baroque, it is
byzantine
in its ingenuity!”
“Yes,” she said. “Beautiful, in a way.”
“However,” I pointed out to her, “you have no proof— only this perhaps over-complex theory. You have found no first edition of a book to confirm that the computer-generated volumes add Heidi’s painting, and you have found no physical anachronism in the painting itself.”
Gloomily she clicked her fork against her empty salad bowl, then rose to refill it. “It is a problem,” she admitted. “Also, I have been working on the assumption that Sandor Musgrave discovered evidence of the forgery. But I can’t find it.”
Never let it be said that Nathaniel Sebastian has not performed a vital role in Freya Grindavik’s great feats of detection. I was the first to notice the anachronism of sensibility in Heidi’s painting; and now I had a truly inspired idea. “He was pointing to the patio!” I exclaimed. “Musgrave, in his last moment, struggled to point to the patio!”
“I had observed that,” Freya said, unimpressed.
“But Heidi’s patio—you know—it is formed out of blocks of the Dover cliffs! And thus Musgrave indicated
England
! Is it not possible? The Monet was owned by Englishmen until Heidi purchased it—perhaps Musgrave meant to convey that the original owners were the forgers!”
Freya’s mouth hung open in surprise, and her left eye was squinted shut. I leaped from the window nook in triumph. “I’ve solved it! I’ve solved a mystery at last!”
Freya looked up at me and laughed.
“Come now, Freya, you must admit I have given you the vital clue.”
She stood up, suddenly all business. “Yes, yes, indeed you have. Now out with you Nathaniel, I have work to do.”
“So I did give you the vital clue?” I asked. “Musgrave was indicating the English owners?”
As she ushered me to her door Freya laughed. “As a detective your intuition is matched only by your confidence. Now leave me to work, and I will be in contact with you soon, I assure you.” And with that she urged me into the street, and I was left to consider the case alone.
Freya was true to her word, and only two days after our crucial luncheon she knocked on the door of my town villa. “Come along,” she said. “I’ve asked Arnold Ohman for an appointment; I want to ask him some questions about the Evans family. The city is passing the Monet museum, however, and he asked us to meet him out there.”
I readied myself quickly, and we proceeded to North Station. We arrived just in time lo step across the gap between the two platforms, and then we were on the motionless deck of one of the outlying stations that Terminator is always passing. There we rented a car and sped west, paralleling the dozen massive cylindrical rails along which the city slides. Soon we had left Terminator behind, and when we were seventy or eighty kilometers onto the nightside of Mercury we turned to the north, to Monet Crater.
Terminator’s tracks lie very close to the thirtieth degree of Latitude, in the Northern hemisphere, and Monet Crater is not far from them. We crossed Shakespeare Planitia rapidly, passing between craters named after the great artists, writers, and composers of Earth’s glorious past: traversing a low pass between Brahms and Verdi, looking down at where Degas had crashed into the Brontës. “I think I understand why a modern artist on Mercury might turn to forgery,” Freya said. “We are dwarfed by the past as we are by this landscape.”
“But it is still a crime,” I insisted “If it were done often, we would not be able to distinguish the authentic from the fake.”
Freya did not reply.
I drove our car up a short rise, and we entered the submercurial garage of the Monet museum, which is set deep in the southern rim of the immense crater named after the artist. One long wall of the museum is a window facing out over the crater floor, so that the central knot of peaks is visible, and the curving inner wall
byzantine
in its ingenuity!”
“Yes,” she said. “Beautiful, in a way.”
“However,” I pointed out to her, “you have no proof— only this perhaps over-complex theory. You have found no first edition of a book to confirm that the computer-generated volumes add Heidi’s painting, and you have found no physical anachronism in the painting itself.”
Gloomily she clicked her fork against her empty salad bowl, then rose to refill it. “It is a problem,” she admitted. “Also, I have been working on the assumption that Sandor Musgrave discovered evidence of the forgery. But I can’t find it.”
Never let it be said that Nathaniel Sebastian has not performed a vital role in Freya Grindavik’s great feats of detection. I was the first to notice the anachronism of sensibility in Heidi’s painting; and now I had a truly inspired idea. “He was pointing to the patio!” I exclaimed. “Musgrave, in his last moment, struggled to point to the patio!”
“I had observed that,” Freya said, unimpressed.
“But Heidi’s patio—you know—it is formed out of blocks of the Dover cliffs! And thus Musgrave indicated
England
! Is it not possible? The Monet was owned by Englishmen until Heidi purchased it—perhaps Musgrave meant to convey that the original owners were the forgers!”
Freya’s mouth hung open in surprise, and her left eye was squinted shut. I leaped from the window nook in triumph. “I’ve solved it! I’ve solved a mystery at last!”
Freya looked up at me and laughed.
“Come now, Freya, you must admit I have given you the vital clue.”
She stood up, suddenly all business. “Yes, yes, indeed you have. Now out with you Nathaniel, I have work to do.”
“So I did give you the vital clue?” I asked. “Musgrave was indicating the English owners?”
As she ushered me to her door Freya laughed. “As a detective your intuition is matched only by your confidence. Now leave me to work, and I will be in contact with you soon, I assure you.” And with that she urged me into the street, and I was left to consider the case alone.
Freya was true to her word, and only two days after our crucial luncheon she knocked on the door of my town villa. “Come along,” she said. “I’ve asked Arnold Ohman for an appointment; I want to ask him some questions about the Evans family. The city is passing the Monet museum, however, and he asked us to meet him out there.”
I readied myself quickly, and we proceeded to North Station. We arrived just in time lo step across the gap between the two platforms, and then we were on the motionless deck of one of the outlying stations that Terminator is always passing. There we rented a car and sped west, paralleling the dozen massive cylindrical rails along which the city slides. Soon we had left Terminator behind, and when we were seventy or eighty kilometers onto the nightside of Mercury we turned to the north, to Monet Crater.
Terminator’s tracks lie very close to the thirtieth degree of Latitude, in the Northern hemisphere, and Monet Crater is not far from them. We crossed Shakespeare Planitia rapidly, passing between craters named after the great artists, writers, and composers of Earth’s glorious past: traversing a low pass between Brahms and Verdi, looking down at where Degas had crashed into the Brontës. “I think I understand why a modern artist on Mercury might turn to forgery,” Freya said. “We are dwarfed by the past as we are by this landscape.”
“But it is still a crime,” I insisted “If it were done often, we would not be able to distinguish the authentic from the fake.”
Freya did not reply.
I drove our car up a short rise, and we entered the submercurial garage of the Monet museum, which is set deep in the southern rim of the immense crater named after the artist. One long wall of the museum is a window facing out over the crater floor, so that the central knot of peaks is visible, and the curving inner wall
Similar Books
