Harry Harrison - The Technicolor Time Machine

“All systems go. All the departments have turned in their check lists completed and signed. They’ve really done wonderfully.”

“Fine—but where is everybody?”

They had passed almost all the vehicles and Barney realized that, other than a few drivers, he had seen nobody.

“It was after you left last night to get the raw film, and everyone was sitting around and we couldn’t leave and that sort of thing. Well, you know, one thing led to another…”

“No, I don’t know. What sort of things led to what sort of things?”

“It was fun, really, and we did miss you. Charley Chang ordered two cases of beer from the commissary because he said he hadn’t had a beer in a year, and someone else got some drinks and sandwiches, and before you knew it there was a real swinging party going. It went on very late, so I guess they must all be pooped and still asleep in the trailers.”

“Are you sure? Did anyone make a head count?”

“The guards weren’t drinking and they said no one left the area so it must be all right.”

Barney looked at the row of silent trailers and shrugged. “Good enough, I guess. We’ll do a roll call after we arrive and send back for anyone who is missing. Let them sleep during the trip, it’s probably the best way. You better get some sleep yourself if you have been up all night.”

“Thanks, bossman. I’ll be in trailer twelve if you need me.”

The sound of rapid hammering echoed from the gaping doors of the sound stage, where the carpenters were putting the final bit of flooring onto the time platform. Barney stopped just inside the door and lighted a cigarette and tried to work up an enthusiastic attitude toward the jerry-rigged fabrication that was to take the company on location in the Orkneys. A rectangular channel-iron frame had been welded to the professor’s specifications, then floored with heavy planks. As soon as the first bit of planking was down at the front end a windowed control room had been built and Professor Hewett had mounted his enlarged vremeatron—which in addition to being larger seemed to have far more festooned wires and glittering coils than the original—and a heavy-duty diesel motor-generator. Almost two dozen large truck tires had been fastened to the bottom of the platform to absorb any landing shock, a pipe railing had been put along the sides and a rickety-looking pipe structure went across the top to delimit the edges of the time field. The whole thing looked insubstantial and shoddy and Barney decided that the best thing he could do would be not to think about it.

“Start it up,” Professor Hewett said, crawling out from behind his apparatus with a smoking soldering iron in his hand. A grip bent over the diesel engine, which groaned and turned over, then coughed out a cloud of blue exhaust and broke into hammering life.

“How is it going, Prof?” Barney asked through the open door. Hewett turned and blinked at him.

“Mr. Hendrickson, good morning. I presume you are enquiring about the condition of my vremeatron mark two, and I am pleased to answer in the affirmative. It is ready to begin operation at any time, the circuits are all tested and I am ready whenever you are.”

Barney looked at the carpenters, who were hammering home the last boards, then kicked a scrap of wood off the platform. “We’ll leave at once—unless you’ve found a way to beat the return trip trouble?”

Hewett shook his head no. “I have experimented with the vremeatron to see if this barrier can be crossed, but it is impossible. When we return in time we cut an arc through the continuum, using energy to warp our own time lines out of the world time line. The return trip, after a visit in the past, no matter how prolonged the visit, is a reverse voyage along the same time-vector that was established by the original time motion. In a sense the return voyage may be called endotempic, an absorption of time energy, just as the outward or backward voyage was exotempic. Therefore we can no more return to a point in time before the time of our original parting from the world time line, than a dropped ball on rebound can bounce higher than its original point when first dropped. You understand?”

“Not a single word. Could you try it again—in English this time?”

Professor Hewett picked up a clean piece of pine board, licked the tip of his ball-point pen and drew a simple diagram.

“Examine this,” he said, “and all will be instantly clear. The line A'Z' is the world time line, with A' the past and Z' the future. The point B represents our consciousness, today, our ‘right now’ in time. The line AZ is the time line of the vremeatron making a voyage in time, or our own time lines as we travel with it. You will note that we leave the world line at point B, today, and arc back through the extratemporal continuum to arrive at—say 1000 A.D., at point C. Therefore the arc BC is our voyage. We re-enter the world time line at C and stay for a while, moving with the world line, and the duration of our visit is represented by the line CD. Do you follow?”

“So far,” Barney said, tracing the lines with his fingertip. “So keep talking while I still know what you’re talking about.”

“Surely. Now note the arc DE, our return voyage in time to an instant in time, perhaps just a fraction of a second after the time we orginally left, point B that is. I can control the arrival at point E until it comes just after point B—but I can never arrive before point B. The graph must always read BE, never EB.”

“Why?”

“I am glad you asked that question, because that is the heart of the matter. Look again at the graph and you will note point K. This is the point where are BC crosses arc DE. That point K must exist or it would be impossible to make the return voyage, for K is the interchange of energy point, where the scales of time are balanced. If you put point E between D and B the arcs will not cross, no matter how close they come, the energy will not balance, the trip will not be made.”

Barney unknotted his brows and rubbed the sore spot between his eyes. “All of which adds up,” he said, “to the fact that we can’t come back to a time earlier than the time we left.”

“Precisely.”

“So all the time we have used up this week is gone forever?”

“Correct.”

“So if we want the picture to be completed by ten o’clock Monday morning we have to go back in time and stay there until it is done.”

“I could not have phrased it more succinctly myself.”

“Then let’s get this show on the road since it is already Saturday morning. The carpenters are finished so it’s time to roll.”

The first vehicle in the parade was a jeep: Tex was asleep in the front seat and Dallas in the back. Barney went over and leaned on the horn button, then found himself staring down the barrel of a long six-shooter held in Tex’s quivering grip.

“I got a headache,” Tex said hoarsely, “and I wish you wouldn’t do that.” He reluctantly slid the gun back into the holster.

“Nervy this morning, aren’t we?” Barney said. “What you need is some nice fresh air. Let’s go.”

Tex gunned the jeep to life while Dallas stumbled over to the platform and dragged two metal ramps into place at the back. As soon as the jeep had been driven aboard he pulled the ramps in after it.

“That’s all for the first trip,” Barney said. “We’ll find a level spot and come back for the rest. Take it away, Professor, back to the same landing site as the other trips, but right weeks later.”

Hewett mumbled to himself as he set the dials, then activated the vremeatron. The mark two was an improvement on the original model in that it compacted all the electrocution and nausea symptoms into a single quick twang of sensation—as though the passengers were harp strings plucked by a celestial finger—which was finished almost before it began. The sound stage vanished and salt spray and sharp, clear air took its place. Tex moaned softly and pulled up the zipper on his jacket.