“No painting?” she said, horrified.
She considered sadly what Peter’s existence would become without painting. He’d lost so much already.
“Mertons, you have to intervene. The man has paint in his blood. I’ve never seen him without a sketch pad within arm’s reach. You told me yourself he painted nonstop after he was dead. Oh, Mertons. He won’t have Ursula, he won’t have me. You can’t take painting away. You can’t do this to him.”
“It’s not me. It’s the Guild. They’ve had it up to here. First you and the time tube, then Peter and his damned quest.
They’re tired of being ignored.”
She looked at the laptop and back at Mertons.
“What about a deal?”
“A deal? What deal?”
“Is the Guild as good as its word? If they promise to do something, wil they?”
“It is the Afterlife.” He gazed at her narrowly.
“The time tube,” she said. “I’l give it up. Show you the source. You can dig it up or drop dynamite down it or whatever it is you do to eradicate it.”
“And in return?”
“In return, you guarantee Peter the life of a painter.”
Mertons stroked his chin. “The life of a painter, eh?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t guarantee he’l be at the top of his profession. I can’t guarantee he’l be rich.”
“So long as he can paint, Mertons. He has to be able to paint.”
He frowned.
“What?” she asked. “What is the problem?”
“It’s not a problem, per se.” He gave her a worried look.
“I hope, Miss Stratford, you are not thinking he could be reborn here? You have to see that Peter wil enter his new life as a babe, not as a man. By the time he is thirty, you would be, wel —”
“No, Mertons. I wasn’t thinking that.” Such a thought had crossed her mind, but now even that possibility had been quashed.
“There is one more thing. You won’t be able to use the tube as a way to shortcut your book research anymore.”
“I’m not going to write the book. Peter’s life wil go unrecorded, at least by me.”
A flash of something—amusement? understanding?—
rose in his eyes. “I see.”
“And in any case, when it started I only intended to buy the book, not travel through—” She caught herself. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t be able to write, especial y if we’re talking fiction. I’m a researcher, and a novel’s like building a campfire. With a few good facts and the right spark, I can make a blaze that’l knock your socks off.”
He grinned. “I’l consider my socks forewarned. And that’s what you’l do?” he asked careful y.
When Peter is gone, she thought. The part Mertons chose not to utter. God, don’t let it be soon. “Yes.” She smiled with considerably more optimism than she felt.
“It’s damned decent of you to do this for him. I’m pretty sure I can convince the Guild to take the offer.”
“Real y?”
“I’m afraid you put a scare in them. An unregulated time tube is a very dangerous thing.”
“I don’t suppose there’l be an artist’s life in my after-life
—or success in any profession, I’m betting.”
“No, you’d better grab whatever joy you can now.
Though,” he added with a grave face, “you never know what can change. That’s why life is so interesting. You may do something so good or so helpful that it makes everyone up there forget you were ever a burr in their side.”
“Me, the writer of hot fictography, or me, the naked model spread out like some lascivious Artforum centerfold?”
He chuckled, and she decided the sight of Mertons laughing was not one to be missed.
“You know,” he said, “being entertained brings people immense happiness. Don’t underestimate the redemptive power of being able to do that.”
She smiled. “Thank you, Mertons. I won’t.”
“So …” He clapped his hands together. “Where is it? Is it in this room? Is the book here?”
She waved a finger back and forth. “Oh, no, no, no.
Promise first. Tube later. I’ve learned how you people work.”
He sighed. “I’l head out and be back before you know it.”
“Hey, um, take your time? Like, take the long way, maybe with a stopover in the Paleolithic era? I hear they have unbelievable cave art.”
Mertons tucked the notebook into his jacket pocket. “I’l do my best, Miss Stratford. I can’t put off the Guild forever.
Once they agree to
