The Technicolor Time Machine

“How did it go?” Barney asked Jens Lyn, who climbed from the jeep with much more care than Ottar had shown. In the few minutes he had been away he had grown a three-day beard and developed great black pouches under his bloodshot eyes.

“We found Thorhall easily enough,” he said hoarsely, “and received an enthusiastic reception and had no difficulty purchasing the ship. But we could not leave without a celebration, it went on day and night, and it was more than two days before Ottar fell asleep at the table and we could carry him out and bring him back. Look at bun, still drinking, how does he do it?” Jens shuddered.

“Clean living and plenty of fresh air,” Barney said.

The shouting and happy northern oaths were growing louder and Ottar showed no signs of weakening under the renewed partying pleasures. “It looks like our male lead and all the extras aren’t going to be working today, so we might as well call a meeting and lay our plans for the fuming in Vinland and aboard this ship—what did you call it?”

“A knorr. Nominative, hér er knorrur, accusative, um knorr—”

“Stop! Remember, I don’t tell you how to make movies. I want to take a look at the knorr, she appears steady enough for a camera, and see how many scenes we can use it in. Then we’ll have to make plans for meeting in Vinland, keeping track of the ship somehow. There’s plenty of work to do. We’re over the hump and on the downgrade now—if nothing else goes wrong.”

A gull screamed loudly and Barney quickly reached out and knocked on the stained wood of the knorr’s hull.

12

“I kill you, you mannhundr,[16] throw water in my face!” Ottar shouted.

“Cut,” Barney said, then walked down the deck and banded Ottar a towel. “Your line is, ‘Stay away from that sail—I’ll kill the first man that lays a hand on her. Full sail! I can smell land, I tell you. Don’t give up hope.’ Now that is what you’re supposed to say. There’s nothing at all about water in your speech.”

“He threw the water on purpose,” Ottar said angrily.

“Of course he did. You’re at sea, miles from land, in the middle of a storm, the storm blows the spray into your face. That must happen to you all the time at sea. You don’t get angry every time it happens and call the ocean bad names, now do you?”

“Not at sea. On dry land in front of my house.”

There was no point in explaining again about how they were making a picture, and how the picture was supposed to be real, and how the actors must think of it as being real. He had been over that ground about forty times too often. Movies meant nothing to this chunk of Viking virility. What did mean anything to him? Eating, drinking and the simpler pleasures. And pride.

“I’m surprised that you let a little thing like some water bother you,” Barney said, then turned to the propman. “Give me a full bucket, will you Eddie, right in the kisser.”

“Whatever you say, Mr. Hendrickson.”

Eddie took a long-arm swing and hurled the contents of the bucket into the air stream from the wind machine, which blew the solid spray into Barney’s face.

“Great,” he said, trying to keep his jaw from shaking. “Very refreshing. I don’t mind water in my face.” His smile had a ghastly set to it because he was half frozen to death. The September evenings in the Orkneys were cool enough without the drenching, and now the rushing air cut through his wet clothes like a knife.

“Throw water on me!” Ottar ordered. “I’ll show you about water.”

“Coming up—and don’t forget your lines.” Barney stepped back out of camera range and the projectionist called over to him:

“Reel is almost empty on the back projection, Mr. Hendrickson.”

“Rewind it then, hurry up or we’ll be here all night.”

The heaving, storm-tossed sea vanished from the back-projection screen and the company relaxed. The propmen, their platform next to the knorr, switched on the electric pump to fill their barrel with more sea water. Ottar stood alone, at the steering oar of the beached ship, and frowned angrily at the world. The big spotlights made a brilliantly lit stage of the knorr and the bit of beach beside it; the rest of the world was in darkness.

“Give me a cigarette,” Barney said to his secretary, “mine are soaked.”

“Ready to go now, Mr. Hendrickson,” the projectionist shouted.

“Great. Positions everyone, camera.” The two propmen threw their weight onto the long levers so that the bit of false decking that Ottar stood on pitched and tossed, “Action.”

With jaws clamped, Ottar stared into the teeth of the gale, fighting the steering oar that a man out of sight below was trying to pull out of his hands. “Stay away from the sail!” he shouted. “By Thor I’ll kill any man that touches the sail.” The water sprayed over him and he laughed coldly. “I don’t mind the water—I like water! Full sail—I can smell land. Keep hope!”

“Cut,” Barney ordered.

“He’s a great ad libber,” Charley Chang said. “That wasn’t quite the way I wrote it.”