Only a Matter of Time

By MattMacBride

It took me several months to track down Larris Caerson.

He was, in my opinion, the greatest artist of the 28th century. The work he'd produced during his generative years was sensational. He invented the subgenre of Space Art known as 'Cosmic Imagery', and the paintings he created were considered modern masterpieces. So it made perfect sense to devote the final thesis for my advanced doctorate to his life and work.

40 years previously, Caerson had been in his late seventies and at the peak of his popularity. His canvases were fetching billions and then he had suddenly dropped off the grid ... and no one knew why. I made it my mission to find out, and to reveal the reason in my dissertation, which turned out to be one essay I would never finish.

***

In case you are not from planet Earth and are unfamiliar with our history, I should first explain that since we achieved the technological singularity in the 22nd century, no human has worked. Hyperintelligent machines took over all mundane tasks formerly performed by people.

This led to the New Renaissance when the arts became the whole purpose of life. Many new and technically advanced art forms were quickly developed and, almost as quickly, discarded when people turned back to the old methods. Writers threw away their computers and picked up fountain pens. Sculptors reverted to hammers and chisels and visual artists replaced pixels with paint brushes.

Painting was my passion, Art History my field of academic study, and the works of Larris Caerson were my inspiration. I found his sweeping vistas of galaxies, nebulas and constellations, both real and imaginary, stunning. The paintings had a three-dimensional quality that drew me in and made me feel as if I was travelling through the cosmos without leaving Earth. And, judging by his renown, most inhabitants of our solar system felt the same.

***

After weeks of probing I had almost come to the conclusion that Caerson must have died, when a chance hit on the university's supercomputer gave me a clue to his whereabouts. I found an ongoing shipping note for an annual delivery of supplies to a Caerson L on a small unnamed protoplanet in the Andromeda Galaxy. After that, things fell into place, and I used an outrageous chunk of my life savings to secure a berth on the next delivery transporter. I wondered how long his billions would last, given the cost of intergalactic shipping, and why he thought it worthwhile.

The robotic transporter had the latest Tachyon Drive and utilized traversable wormholes but it still took seven months to reach the freezing desolate rock that the elderly artist had decided to make his home. As the only human passenger, the cybernetic crew made a big fuss of me. I hoped my idol would be as welcoming, I'd be imposing myself on him uninvited until the next transporter arrived.

***

Caerson's home was a standard terraforming dome as used on dozens of colonized planets. He was standing inside the airlock when I rode in on top of a motorized pallet. I'd seen depictions of early cave-dwelling humans and that's exactly what he looked like. Long grey hair, straggly beard, scrawny body wrapped in a tattered fake fur coat. His deeply lined face reflected every heartbeat of his 120 years.

He pointed at me in horror.

'Who the hell are you?' he yelled.

***

He wouldn't speak to me for two days and I feared for his sanity as he muttered incoherently to himself. He'd been away from civilization and cognitive function preserving drugs for many years. He was irascible and uncommunicative, but, gradually, he began to thaw.

On the third day, he offered me some stew he'd concocted from vegetables he'd grown in the dome's hydroponic garden. By the end of the week, he was asking me about the latest happenings on Earth. After a fortnight he shrugged, said it was a fait accompli, and conceded that we'd just have to make the best of things for the next year.

When I eventually told him why I'd come he went into one of his frequent rages, calling me a damned famewhore, a glory hog and an egomaniac. I let him rant for a couple of days until he eventually calmed down. I was getting used to his mood swings.

'You have millions of fanatical followers who made you rich and famous,' I pointed out one evening. 'Don't you think they deserve to know what happened? Why you suddenly stopped painting?'

Caerson thought about that for a while. He must have been in one of his reflective moods, or maybe he realized he was nearing the end of his life and felt the need to set the record straight.

'Come with me,' he said. 'I want to show you something.'

***

The dome had several compartments I hadn't yet visited and Caerson led me to one that had all the appearance of a geological laboratory. Some of the equipment looked familiar. An X-ray diffraction machine and a spectroscope occupied one bench. On another, a vintage microscope was flanked by several mortars and pestles, items I had only seen in museums. A rack of trays filled with rock samples stood against a partition wall.

'This is what I've been doing for the last 40 years,' Caerson said.

'You're studying geology?'

'No, I'm trying to create chromanova.'

And then he told me the whole story.

***

'The cosmos was my inspiration, the universe my muse. I was always fascinated by the blending of colours, the way nebulas were constantly changing due to the light emitted by dying stars.

At first, I used powerful telescopes to study the vistas of space I wanted to portray, and then, when I became more successful, I took commercial trips to other worlds so I could get more of a sense of the fundamental characteristics of the macrocosm.

My fortune grew until I could afford to lease my own interstellar robotic craft and I began to take long trips on my own, exploring star systems. I had the vessel equipped with a studio so I could paint what I was observing, just like the early landscape painters.

And then, one year, while I was drifting around the edge of Andromeda a few light-years from here, I witnessed something extraordinary. A white dwarf star collapsed in the area I had just started to paint, and when it did, I perceived a new colour.'

I was disappointed; artists were finding new shades and tints every day.

'What sort of colour? Reddish? Bluish?' I shrugged.

'No, you idiot! I mean a completely new colour, Different from any of the known colours!'

'That's impossible,' I laughed. 'All colours are mixtures of the three primaries, red, green and blue!'

'But that's only because of the wavelengths of light emitted by common suns and stars,' he insisted. 'This imploding star emitted a new wavelength. It was unlike any colour seen before.'

I was astounded.

'What was it like?'

'Exquisite, beautiful ... but I can't tell you what it was like,' he shook his head sadly. 'There are no words in any known language to describe it. There's nothing to compare it to. I've still got it in my head but I can't put it into words. That's why I'm here ... trying to create it.'

'But why here?'

'Because after trying on Earth and a few other planets for years, I found out that the rocks on this protoplanet contain a huge variety of minerals, including hundreds that don't exist anywhere else in the universe, so I'm sure that some combination of them will produce the new pigment, which I'm going to call 'chromanova'.'

I didn't need to ask why he'd chosen the name, it was obvious. 'Chroma' was ancient Greek for colour and 'nova' Latin for new.

'How many different combinations have you tried so far?'

Caerson consulted the topmost notebook of a stack lying next to the old microscope.

'43,745,' he told me, 'so I must be getting close. It's only a matter of time.'

***

That was nearly ten years ago and for the last four, I've been alone. My good friend passed away in his sleep one night, never having achieved his dream to create chromanova and reveal it to the universe. I carried his body outside the dome and let him float away into the infinity he loved so much.

I've now reached combination number 55,292 and still haven't seen a new colour, but I'm determined to carry on. It's the least I can do for Larris, my mentor, my inspiration. Because his obsession has become mine and I can't allow his discovery to die with him.

As he said countless times during the few years I knew him. It's only a matter of time.