The Technicolor Time Machine

Barney looked at the low door of the house with complete lack of enthusiasm. It stood partly open and more smoke appeared to be coming from it than was coming out of the chimney. “See that you do watch it,” he said. “I can think of a lot more attractive spots to be shipwrecked.”

“The same idea had occurred to me,” Dallas said quietly and lifted his other hand to show the automatic pistol he was holding. “Ten shots. I never miss.”

Pushing the door wide, Barney stooped and entered the house. The smoke from the smouldering fire was thick around his head, and he was almost grateful, since it served to mask some of the other odors that hung richly in the air. He recognized old fish, tar, locker-room lilac, plus others that he did not want to recognize. For the moment he was almost blind, coming in out of the sun, since the only light here came through the door and some openings that had apparently been kicked in the wall.

“Jaeja, kunningi! pu skalt drekka med mér!”[7]

Ottar’s hoarse voice shivered the air, and, as his eyes adjusted a bit, Barney could make out the men seated around a thick plank table, with Ottar at one end hammering on the boards with his fist.

“He wants you to join him in a drink,” Lyn said. “This is a very important step, hospitality, bread and salt, that sort of thing.”

“Ol!”[8] Ottar bellowed, picking a small barrel up from the stamped earth floor.

“Drink what?” Barney asked, frowning into the darkness.

“Ale. They make it from barley, their staple crop. It is an invention of these north Germanic tribes, the ancestor you might say of our modem beer. Even the word has come down to us, though slightly changed in pronunciation of course—”

“Drekk!”[9] Ottar ordered as he slopped full a horn and handed it to Barney. It really was a cow’s horn, Barney saw, curved and cracked and none too clean. Jens Lyn, the professor and Amory Blestead were also clutching horns. He raised it to his lips and took a sip. It was flat, sour, watery and tasted terrible.

“Good,” he said, hoping his expression could not be seen in the darkness.

“Já, gott ok vel,”[10] Ottar agreed and poured more of the loathsome beverage into Barney’s cup so that it slopped over and ran stickily down his arm inside his sleeve.

“If you think that’s bad,” Amory said hollowly, “wait Until you taste the food.”

“And here it comes now.”

The professor pointed to the end of the room where one of the servants was rooting about in a large wooden chest against the wall. As he straightened up, the man kicked one of the rounded dark mounds that littered the floor there and a pained lowing trembled the air.

“The livestock… ?” Barney could not finish.

“Kept in the house, that’s right,” Amory said. “That’s What adds a certain, subtle fragrance to the air in here.”

The servant, who looked not unlike an uncurried sheepdog, with his long blond hair that fell down and concealed his eyes, trudged over with a lumpish object clutched in each grimy paw and dropped them onto the table before Barney. They cracked against the wood like falling rocks.

“What’s this?” Barney asked, eyeing them suspiciously out of the comer of his eye as he transferred the horn to his other hand and tried to shake the rivulet of ale out of the sleeve of his cashmere jacket.

“The chunk on the left is cheese, a native product, and the other is knaekbrød, hard bread,” Jens Lyn said. “Or is it the other way around?”

Barney tried a nibble of each, or rather clattered his teeth against them, in rum. “That’s great, really great.’ he said, throwing them back onto the table and looking at the glowing dial of his watch. “The light’s going and we should start back soon. I want to talk to you, Amory, outside, if you can tear yourself away from the party.”

“My pleasure,” Amory said, shuddering as he finished most of his hom, then turned the thick dregs out onto the floor.

The sun had dropped behind an icy band of cloud and a cold breeze was blowing in from the sea; Barney shivered and pushed his hands into his jacket pockets.

“I need your help, Amory,” he said. “Draw up a list of everything we’re going to need to shoot this picture on location here. It doesn’t look as though we’ll be able to help ourselves locally with any commissary supplies-”

“Second that motion!”

“So we’ll have to bring it all with us. I want to do all the cutting here, so set up a cutting room in one of the trailers.”

“You’re looking for trouble, Barney. It will be a devil of a job to turn out even a rough cut here. And what about dubbing? Or the musical score?”

“We’ll do the best we can. Hire a composer and couple of musicians, maybe use a local orchestra.”

“I can hear that already.”

“It doesn’t matter if we have to dub most of the sound again. What does matter is bringing back the film in the can…”