The Technicolor Time Machine

“The dotted line represents sixty degrees north latitude, and you will notice that this parallel is the one Ottar would normally sail to reach Cape Farewell here on the tip of Greenland, sailing due west and estimating the height of the North Star to keep him on the latitude. What we will do is set the gyrocompass so that it always points to Cape Farewell. When the pointer on the repeater dial touches the spot—and they both are luminescent and glow at night—the ship is headed in the right direction. They will be guided right to the tip of Greenland.”

“Where they are going to spend the winter with some of Ottar’s relatives. Fine so far—but what happens in the spring when they have to go on? This sixty-degree course will take them right into Hudson Bay.”

“We will have to reset the compass,” Amory said. “Ottar will wait for us and we’ll put in new batteries and point the compass at the Straight of Belle Isle, right here. He should have enough faith in the instrument by then to follow it—even though his course won’t run along a parallel. However, the East Greenland Current does flow in the same direction and he is familiar with that. He’ll have no trouble reaching either the coast of Labrador or Newfoundland.”

“He’ll find Vinland all right,” Barney said. “But how do we find him?”

“There is a radio responder sealed in with the batteries. It will automatically send back a signal when it detects our radio signal. Then it is a simple matter of our using the radio direction finder.”

“Sounds foolproof. Let’s hope it is.” Barney looked along the low-bulwarked deck and up at the thin mast. “I wouldn’t even want to sail this thing across the bay, but then I’m no Viking. Tomorrow’s the day. We’ve done all the shooting we need to here. Launch the ship in the morning and we’ll run it in and out of the harbor a few times, shoot from the shore and from aboard ship. Then turn on your homing pigeon and let them go. And your gadget better work, Amory, or we’re all going to stay in Vinland and set up housekeeping with the Indians. If I can’t bring back this picture with me there’s just no point in going back.”

Gino popped his head up out of the bailing well like a jack-in-the-box and waved. “They can run it up now, I’m ready.”

Barney turned to Ottar, who leaned negligently on the tiller of the steer-board, and said, “Pass the word, will you.”

The tired seamen grumbled darkly as they heaved once more on the windlass. They had been running the big square sail up and down and tacking about the bay since dawn, while the shiphandling sequences were being shot. As the drum of the windlass turned, the oiled walrus-hide rope creaked through the hole in the top of the mast, hauling up the dead weight of the bulky woolen sail, made even heavier by the seal-hide strips that had been sewed on to give it shape. Gino trained the camera up the mast to film it as it rose.

“The time is late,” Ottar said. “If we sail today we better sail soon.”

“We’re just about finished,” Barney told him. “I want to get a good shot of you leaving the bay, and that can be the last one.”

“You shot that shot this morning, sailing into dawn you said.”

“That was from the shore. Now I want to get you and Slithey at the tiller as you sail from your home into the unknown…”

“No woman at no tiller on my ship.”

“She doesn’t have to steer the thing. She’ll just stand by you, maybe hold your arm, that’s not much to ask.”

Ottar shouted a flood of orders as the sail reached the top of the mast. The halyard that had pulled it up was secured to act as a backstay and unfastened from the drum of the windlass, then the anchor rope was attached in its place. With more heaving—caught on film by Gino—the anchor was hauled up and pulled aboard, a seaweed-hung kilik made from a large stone held in a framework of wooden rods. The ship was beginning to gather way as the wind filled the sail and Barney hurried the camera into position.

“Slithey,” he called out. “Onstage, and make it fast.”

It wasn’t easy to get from the fore to the rear deck of the knorr when she was fully loaded. Since there were no holds, and only two tiny sleeping cabins, not only was the cargo packed on deck, but in and around it were over forty people, six stunted cows and a lashed-down bull, a small flock of sheep, and two goats that stood high on the peak of the cargo. The bellowing, baaing and shouting made it hard to think. Slithey staggered her way through all of this and Barney helped her up onto the tiny deck. She was wearing a white gown with a low-cut kirtle, and looked very attractive with her long blond braids and her cheeks made rosy by the wind.

“Stand up there next to Ottar,” Barney told her, then moved himself out of camera range. “Camera.”

“Good shot of the back of their heads” Gino said.

“Ottar,” Barney shouted, “for Thor’s sake will you turn around, you’re facing the wrong way.”