The Technicolor Time Machine

There were a lot of rustling and grumbled complaints from the other side, but finally the doors swung open again, slower this time, and Ottar looked in. He was scowling fiercely into the camera, then he glanced down at the bed and Ms expression slowly changed. The wrinkled brow smoothed, the comers of his mouth rose into a happy smile and his eyes opened wide. He reached in.

“Cut. That was very good,” Barney said, moving faster than Ottar and grabbing up the bottle of Jack Daniels from the bed. “I’ll save this for you for later. Ow!”

The Viking had him by the wrist, which created a sensation not unlike being caught between the jaws of a hydraulic press, and the bottle fell from his limp fingers. Barney went back into the house rubbing his crashed wrist and wondering if, after all, he hadn’t made a mistake in casting.

Slithey had arrived, and, when the rubber boots, coats and yards of plastic had been removed, she stood and shivered in bare feet and a diaphanous pink nightgown. She wore a flesh-colored body stocking, the garment was low cut and transparent, and the entire effect was devastating.

“Very authentic costuming, very,” Jens Lyn said cuttingly, and left. Ottar sucked happily at the bottle and ignored everyone.

“I’m cold,” Slithey said.

“Rig an electric heater with those lights over the bed,” Barney ordered. “Take forty-three, Slithey, just climb into the sack and close the doors. It’s warm enough in there.”

“I don’t want to catch pea-newmonia.”

“With your insulation, honey, not a chance.”

It was a brief scene, just a few seconds on the screen, but everything takes time when making a film, and before they were finished Ottar had worked halfway down the bottle and was singing happily to himself in one comer.

“Here we go, take fifty-five, you’re on, Ottar, if you wouldn’t mind putting your salary down for a while,” Barney called out.

Much pacified by the whiskey, Ottar tramped over and looked at Slithey sprawled daintily in the oversized bed, covered by a Viking-Navajo blanket.

“She’s tired?” Ottar asked. “Too many lights to sleep.”

“Very keen of you to notice, but we’re still making the film. Here’s what I want you to do.” Barney stood by the side of the bed. “You have just opened the doors, you look down at the girl asleep. Then, slowly, you reach your hand down and touch her hair. She awakes and does a fright take, shrinking away. You laugh and sit on the edge of the bed, and pull her toward you and kiss her. At first she struggles, pushes you away, but then hate turns to love and her arms steal around you and she kisses you too. Your hand slowly goes to her shoulder strap, make sure it’s this one—the other one is glued on—and you slowly slide it over her shoulder. That’s all. We cut there and the rest is left to the public’s imagination and they have good imaginations. So let’s run through it once first.”

It was desperately hard work, since Ottar wasn’t interested in the least and kept looking toward the bottle to make sure no one was touching it, and Barney was sweating as he fought to put the Viking through his wooden paces. The bottle was finally placed in the comer of the bed out of camera range, which at least kept Ottar looking in the right direction most of the time.

Barney took a long drink of chemical-tasting water and one more time stood Ottar on the lines scratched into the dirt floor.

“Here we go,” he said. “We’ll shoot this without sound and I’ll guide you through it. And everyone else shut up, this set sounds like a mah-jongg party. Camera. Here you go, Ottar, you look down, that’s it—not at the damn bottle—you reach out and touch her hair. Slithey wakes up, great, you’re doing fine, sit down now—don’t break the bed! Okay, now you reach out and we have the kiss.”

Ottar’s fingers closed around the bare flesh of Slithey’s arm and his back straightened suddenly and he completely forgot about his bottle. Slithey’s hormone magic worked just as well in the eleventh century as it had in the twentieth. The odor of scented female flesh rose into his nostrils and he did not need Barney’s instructions to pull her close.

“Very good,” Barney called out. “A passionate embrace and a kiss, but you don’t like it, Slithey.”

Slithey was squirming in his grip and beating his massive chest with her clenched fists. She turned her head away and said, “Easy, caveman, take it easy,” then he was kissing her again.

“Great!” Barney shouted. “Writhe all over like that, Slithey, perfect. Force her down to the bed, Ottar. Now the shoulder strap.”

There was the sharp sound of torn fabric.

“Hey—watch what you’re doing!” Slithey called out.

“Forget it,” Barney said. “We can run up a new nighty. This is great. Now you change, Slithey. Hate turns to burning love. Very good…”

“Look what he’s doing!” Amory Blestead said.

“Cut. That’s good. We’ll print that. I said cut… Ottar, take your hand… Slithey—the scene is over!”

“Wow!” one of the grips said enthusiastically.

“Someone stop them!”

“Why—they seem to be enjoying it—and so am I.”