The Technicolor Time Machine

Sure, nothing to it, plenty of time.

Then why was he sweating?

7

“A miracle of logistics, that’s what I call it, Mr. Hendrickson, getting all this done in less than four days,” Betty said, as they walked along the column of trucks and trailers that stretched along the concrete roadway leading to sound stage B.

“That’s not what I would call it,” Barney said, “but I’m always very careful what words I use in front of women. How does the list check out?”

“All systems go. All the departments have turned in their check lists completed and signed. They’ve really done wonderfully.”

“Fine—but where is everybody?”

They had passed almost all the vehicles and Barney realized that, other than a few drivers, he had seen nobody.

“It was after you left last night to get the raw film, and everyone was sitting around and we couldn’t leave and that sort of thing. Well, you know, one thing led to another…”

“No, I don’t know. What sort of things led to what sort of things?”

“It was fun, really, and we did miss you. Charley Chang ordered two cases of beer from the commissary because he said he hadn’t had a beer in a year, and someone else got some drinks and sandwiches, and before you knew it there was a real swinging party going. It went on very late, so I guess they must all be pooped and still asleep in the trailers.”

“Are you sure? Did anyone make a head count?”

“The guards weren’t drinking and they said no one left the area so it must be all right.”

Barney looked at the row of silent trailers and shrugged. “Good enough, I guess. We’ll do a roll call after we arrive and send back for anyone who is missing. Let them sleep during the trip, it’s probably the best way. You better get some sleep yourself if you have been up all night.”

“Thanks, bossman. I’ll be in trailer twelve if you need me.”

The sound of rapid hammering echoed from the gaping doors of the sound stage, where the carpenters were putting the final bit of flooring onto the time platform. Barney stopped just inside the door and lighted a cigarette and tried to work up an enthusiastic attitude toward the jerry-rigged fabrication that was to take the company on location in the Orkneys. A rectangular channel-iron frame had been welded to the professor’s specifications, then floored with heavy planks. As soon as the first bit of planking was down at the front end a windowed control room had been built and Professor Hewett had mounted his enlarged vremeatron—which in addition to being larger seemed to have far more festooned wires and glittering coils than the original—and a heavy-duty diesel motor-generator. Almost two dozen large truck tires had been fastened to the bottom of the platform to absorb any landing shock, a pipe railing had been put along the sides and a rickety-looking pipe structure went across the top to delimit the edges of the time field. The whole thing looked insubstantial and shoddy and Barney decided that the best thing he could do would be not to think about it.

“Start it up,” Professor Hewett said, crawling out from behind his apparatus with a smoking soldering iron in his hand. A grip bent over the diesel engine, which groaned and turned over, then coughed out a cloud of blue exhaust and broke into hammering life.

“How is it going, Prof?” Barney asked through the open door. Hewett turned and blinked at him.

“Mr. Hendrickson, good morning. I presume you are enquiring about the condition of my vremeatron mark two, and I am pleased to answer in the affirmative. It is ready to begin operation at any time, the circuits are all tested and I am ready whenever you are.”

Barney looked at the carpenters, who were hammering home the last boards, then kicked a scrap of wood off the platform. “We’ll leave at once—unless you’ve found a way to beat the return trip trouble?”

Hewett shook his head no. “I have experimented with the vremeatron to see if this barrier can be crossed, but it is impossible. When we return in time we cut an arc through the continuum, using energy to warp our own time lines out of the world time line. The return trip, after a visit in the past, no matter how prolonged the visit, is a reverse voyage along the same time-vector that was established by the original time motion. In a sense the return voyage may be called endotempic, an absorption of time energy, just as the outward or backward voyage was exotempic. Therefore we can no more return to a point in time before the time of our original parting from the world time line, than a dropped ball on rebound can bounce higher than its original point when first dropped. You understand?”

“Not a single word. Could you try it again—in English this time?”

Professor Hewett picked up a clean piece of pine board, licked the tip of his ball-point pen and drew a simple diagram.