Harry Harrison: The Technicolor Time Machine

“That’s a pretty good trick,” he said, pointing his light meter. “How’s it done?”

“For details you have to ask the Prof here,” Barney said, gasping over too large a swallow of the whiskey. “Very complex. Something about moving through time.”

“I get it,” Gino said, stopping his diaphragm down to 3.5. “Something like the time zones when you fly from London to New York. The sun doesn’t seem to move and you arrive at the same time you took off.”

“Something like that.”

“Good light. We can get some good color with light like this.”

“If you drive don’t drink,” Dallas said, leaning out to hand the bottle to Tex, who sat behind the wheel in she cab. “One slug and let’s get on the trail, pardner.”

The starter whined the motor to life and, looking out over the cab, Barney saw that they were following the tire tracks of another truck, clearly visible in the damp sand and gravel. Memory pushed up through the layers of fatigue and he hammered on the metal roof of the cab over Tex’s head.

“Blow your horn,” he shouted.

They were coming to the rocky headland and the horn sounded as they swung around it. Barney stumbled over the crates and trod on the sleeping Viking as he rushed to the rear of the truck. There was the rising grumble of another engine as an identical army truck passed them, going in the opposite direction. Barney reached the open rear and clutched the bent-wood canvas support over his head. He had a quick glimpse of himself in the rear of the other truck, white-faced and wide-eyed and gaping like a moron. With a feeling of sadomasochistic pleasure he raised his open hand, thumb to nose, and wiggled his fingers at his shocked other self. The rock headland came in between them.

“Get much traffic around here?” Gino asked.

Ottar sat up, rubbing his side, muttering something foul under his breath. Jens quieted him easily with a lone drag from the bottle as they braked to a sliding stop in the loose gravel.

“Primrose Cottage,” Tex shouted back, “last stop.”

Reeking smoke still drifted down from the chimney hole of the squat, turf house, but there was no one in sight. Weapons and clumsy tools littered the ground. Ottar half fell, half jumped from the truck and bellowed something, then clutched at his head with instant regret.

“Hvar erut per rakka? Komit út!”[6] “Where are you, dogs? Come out!” He held his head again and looked around for the bottle, which Jens Lyn had wisely tucked out of sight. The servants began tremblingly to appear.

“Let’s get moving,” Barney said. “Get these cases unloaded and ask Dr. Lyn where he wants them. Not you, Gino, I want you to come with me.”

They climbed the low hill behind the house, pushing through the short, stubbly grass and almost tripping over a ragged and wild-looking sheep that went baaing down the hill away from them. From the top they had a clear view of the curving bay that swept away from them on both sides, and the vast, slate-gray ocean. A long roller came in, breaking up on the beach, then hissing away again through the pebbles. A grim-looking island with cliff sides that fell straight to the foaming ocean stood in the middle of the bay, and farther off, just a dark blur on the horizon, was another, lower island.

“Pan right around in a circle, 360 degrees, so we can Study it later. Zoom in for a close-up on that island.”

“What about going inland a bit, take a look at the land there?” Gino asked, squinting through the viewfinder.

“Later, if there’s time. But this is going to be a sea picture and with all this free ocean I want to use it.”

“Along the shore then, we should see what’s behind the point there.”

“That’s all right—but don’t go alone. Take Tex or Dallas with you so you stay out of trouble. Don’t get more than a fifteen-minute walk away, so we can find you when we have to leave.” Barney glanced along the shore and noticed the rowboat; he took Gino’s arm and pointed. “There’s an idea. Get Lyn to translate and have a couple of the locals row you offshore a bit. Give me some shots of the way this place looks coming in from the sea…”

“Hey,” Tex said, pulling himself over the brow of the hill, “they want you down at the shack, Barney. Pow-wow of some kind.”

“Just in time, Tex. Stay with Gino here and keep an eye on him.”

“I’ll stick to him like glue. ‘Va buona, eh cumpa’?”

Gino shot him a dark, suspicious look. “ Vui sareste italiano? ”

Tex laughed. “Me? No, I’m Americano, but I got ginzo relatives all around the Bay of Naples.”

“Di Napoli! so’ napoletano pur’io!” Gino shouted happily.

Barney left them enthusiastically pumping hands and discovering mutual relations, and went down to the house. Dallas was sitting on the tailgate of the truck smoking a cigarette held in his cupped hand. “The rest of them are inside,” he said, “and I’m keeping an eye on the shop to make sure we got transportation home. Lyn said to send you in when you come.”

Barney looked at the low door of the house with complete lack of enthusiasm. It stood partly open and more smoke appeared to be coming from it than was coming out of the chimney. “See that you do watch it,” he said. “I can think of a lot more attractive spots to be shipwrecked.”

“The same idea had occurred to me,” Dallas said quietly and lifted his other hand to show the automatic pistol he was holding. “Ten shots. I never miss.”

Pushing the door wide, Barney stooped and entered the house. The smoke from the smouldering fire was thick around his head, and he was almost grateful, since it served to mask some of the other odors that hung richly in the air. He recognized old fish, tar, locker-room lilac, plus others that he did not want to recognize. For the moment he was almost blind, coming in out of the sun, since the only light here came through the door and some openings that had apparently been kicked in the wall.

“ Jæja, kunningi! Þu skalt drekka med mér!”[7] “Ho, my friend! You shall drink with me!”

Ottar’s hoarse voice shivered the air, and, as his eyes adjusted a bit, Barney could make out the men seated around a thick plank table, with Ottar at one end hammering on the boards with his fist.

“He wants you to join him in a drink,” Lyn said. “This is a very important step, hospitality, bread and salt, that sort of thing.”

“Öl!”[8] “Ale!” Ottar bellowed, picking a small barrel up from the stamped earth floor.

“Drink what?” Barney asked, frowning into the darkness.

“Ale. They make it from barley, their staple crop. It is an invention of these north Germanic tribes, the ancestor you might say of our modem beer. Even the word has come down to us, though slightly changed in pronunciation of course—”

“Drekk!”[9] “Drink!” Ottar ordered as he slopped full a horn and handed it to Barney. It really was a cow’s horn, Barney saw, curved and cracked and none too clean. Jens Lyn, the professor and Amory Blestead were also clutching horns. He raised it to his lips and took a sip. It was flat, sour, watery and tasted terrible.

“Good,” he said, hoping his expression could not be seen in the darkness.

“Já, gott ok vel,”[10] “Yes, very good,” Ottar agreed and poured more of the loathsome beverage into Barney’s cup so that it slopped over and ran stickily down his arm inside his sleeve.

“If you think that’s bad,” Amory said hollowly, “wait until you taste the food.”

“And here it comes now.”

The professor pointed to the end of the room where one of the servants was rooting about in a large wooden chest against the wall. As he straightened up, the man kicked one of the rounded dark mounds that littered the floor there and a pained lowing trembled the air.