The Technicolor Time Machine

With the front end of the canvas cover out of the way, a rocky beach was disclosed, a narrow strand between water and rounded cliffs. About a half mile away a headland jutted out and cut off any further view.

“Start her up,” Barney called in through the rear of the cab, “and let’s see what there is further along the beach.”

“Right,” Tex said, pulling the starter. The engine ground over and burst into life. He kicked it into gear and they rumbled slowly down the rocky shingle.

“You want this?” Dallas asked, holding out a holstered revolver on a gunbelt. Barney looked at it distastefully.

“Keep it. I’d probably shoot myself if I tried to play around with one of those things. Give the other one to Tex and hold onto the rifle yourself.”

“Aren’t we going to be armed just in case, for our own protection?” Amory Blestead asked. “I can handle a rifle.”

“Not professionally, and we work to union rules around here. Your job is to help the professor, Amory, The vremeatron is the most important thing here. Tex and Dallas will take care of the armaments—that way we can be sure that there won’t be any accidents.”

“Alt for Satan! Look at that, so beautiful, that I should be seeing this with my own eyes!” Jens Lyn burbled and pointed ahead.

The truck had churned its way around the headland and a small bay opened up before them. A crude, blackened rowboat was pulled up onto the shore, and just above the beach was a miserable-looking building made of clumsily piled turf and stone and covered with a seaweed-thatched roof. There was no one in sight, though smoke was curling up from the chimney hole at one end.

“Where is everybody?” Barney asked.

“It is understandable that the sight and sound of this truck has frightened them and that they have taken refuge in the house,” Lyn said.

“Kill the engine, Tex. Maybe we should have brought some beads or something to trade with the natives?”

“I am afraid that these are not the kind of natives that you are thinking of…”

The rough door of the house crashed open as if to emphasize his words and a man leaped out, howling terribly and waving a broad-bladed ax over his head. He jumped into the air, clashed the ax against a large shield he carried on his left arm, then thundered down the slope toward them. As he approached them with immense bounds they could see the black, horned helmet on his head, and his flowing blond beard and wide moustache. Still roaring indistinctly he began to chew the edge of the shield: foam formed on his lips.

“You can see that he’s obviously afraid, but a Viking hero cannot reveal his fear before the thralls and housecarls, who are undoubtedly watching from concealment in the building. So he works up a berserk rage—”

“Save the lecture, will you, Doc. Dallas, can you and Tex take this guy on, maybe slow him down before he breaks something?”

“Putting a bullet through him will slow him down a lot.”

“No! Positively not. This studio does not indulge in murder, even for self-defense.”

“All right, if that’s the way you want it—but this goes under the personal jeopardy bonus in the contract.”

“I know! I know! Now get out there before—”

Barney was interrupted by a thud, then a tinkling crash followed by even louder howls of victory.

“I can understand what he is saying!” Jens Lyn chortled happily. “He is bragging that he has taken out the monster’s eye…”

“The big slob has chopped off one of the headlights!” Dallas shouted. “Keep him busy, Tex, I’ll be right with you. Draw him away from here.”

Tex Antonelli slid out of the cab and ran down the beach away from the truck, where he was seen by the berserk axman, who instantly began to pursue him. At about fifty yards distance Tex stopped and picked up two fist-sized stones, well rounded by the sea, and bounced one of them in his palm like a baseball, waiting calmly until his raging attacker was closer. At five yards he let fly at the man’s head and, as soon as the shield had been swung up to intercept the stone, he hurled the other at the Viking’s middle. Both stones were in the air at the same time and even as the first one was bounding away from the shield the second caught the man in the pit of the stomach: he sat down with a loud woosh. Tex moved a few feet away and picked up two more stones.

“Bleyoa!”[1] the downed man gasped, shaking his ax.

“Yeah, and you’re one too. C’mon buddy, the bigger they are, the harder they splat.”

“Let’s wrap him up,” Dallas said, coming out from behind the truck and spinning a loop of rope around his head. “The Prof is getting jittery about his gadgets and wants to go back.”

“Okay, I’ll set him up for you.”