Harry Harrison - The Technicolor Time Machine

By five-thirty the truck was loaded, and by a quarter to six it was back aboard the time platform. Barney checked to make sure that everyone was aboard, then poked his head into Hewett’s control cubby.

“Take it away. Prof, but let me get clear first.”

“Am I to understand that you are not returning with us?”

“Correct. I have a bit of business here. You can unload these people and the supplies, then come back to pick me up in a couple of hours, say about ten o’clock. If I’m not here I’ll ring you on the warehouse phone over there and let you know what’s happening.”

Hewett was feeling waspish. “I seem to be running a specie of temporal taxi, and I am not quite certain that I enjoy it. My understanding was that we would go to the eleventh century to make your film, then return. Instead I seem to be operating a constant shuttle service…”

“Relax, Prof, we’re coming down the home stretch. Do you think I would lose a couple of hours like this if I wasn’t sure of the production? We do one more time jump, finish the picture up and that is that. All over but the shouting.”

Barney stood by the door and watched the platform vanish into the past. Back to the wilds of primitive Canada, chapped lips and cold rain. Let them. He was going to take a couple of hours off, get some business done at the same time, of course, but that wasn’t going to stop him from enjoying himself as well. He couldn’t really relax yet, not until the film was in the can, but the end was in sight and he had been driving himself for months. The first order of business was going to be a first-class, deluxe dinner at Chasen’s, that much at least he owed himself. There was no point in getting to the Fungus Grotto before nine o’clock at the very earliest.

There was an unreality about being back in California, and in the twentieth century. Things seemed to move too fast, there were too many garish colors and the stink of exhaust fumes made his head ache. Rube! Dinner—with drinks before, brandy after and champagne in the middle—helped, and he was feeling no pain when the cab dropped him in front of the club at a little after nine. He even managed not to be offended by the bilious green doorway with the red skulls and crossbones on it.

“Beware,” a sepulchral voice moaned when he pushed open the door. “Beware that all who enter the Fungus Grotto do so at their own risk. Beware…” The recorded voice cut off as he closed the door and felt his way down the ill-lit and black-velvet-lined stairwell. A curtain of glowing plastic bones was the last barrier before the inner sanctum of the club itself. He had been here before, so the novelty of the decor did not impress him. It had not impressed him the first time either, being just a cut above—or below—the ghost house at a carnival. Green lights flickered, rubber cobwebs hung in the comers and the chairs were shaped like giant toadstools. He had the room to himself.

“A Bloody Mary,” he told the vampire-garbed waiter. “Is the Spiderman here yet?”

“I fink he’s in a dressing room,” the creature mumbled around its plastic fangs.

“Tell him I want to see him, Barney Hendrickson of Climactic.”

Spiderman Spinneke arrived before the drink, a lean, black-garbed, scuttling figure with large dark glasses. “Long time no see, man,” he said, letting his dank fingers flap against Barney’s palm. “How’z the pix biz?” he sank into a chair.

“Keeping body and soul together. Tell me, Spider, is it true you scored a couple of films?”

“It is true I did the music for a ragged piece of class-X crap name of Teen-age Beatniks’ Hophead Rumble, but I keep hoping people will forget about it. Why you ask? Can’t be you’re interested in the poor old Spiderman?”

“Might be, Spinneke, just might be. Do you think you could write the music for a picture and record it with your own group?”

“Anything’s possible, Dad. But that takes time, we got commitments.”

“Don’t worry about the time, I’ll fix it so you won’t miss a single show. I thought you might have the right sound for a picture I’m doing, a stirring story of the Vikings. You’ve heard of them?”

“Cert. Hairy cats with axes, go around chopping people.”

“That’s roughly it. Primitive stuff, strong. They have a kind of brass horn and that gave me the idea. An all brass score complete with drums, hammering away with primitive savagery.”

“Real cool.”

“Think you can handle it?”

“A natural.”

“Good. Here’s a C as a down payment.” Barney took five twenties from his billfold and dropped them onto the table. Spiderman’s fingers oozed across the black cloth and absorbed them. “Let’s grab your boys and go around to the studio now and I’ll give you the scoop. You’ll be back here inside an hour.” Where else they would be during that hour of twentieth-century time Barney did not trouble to say.

“No can do. Doody and I just fake up until the rest come in around eleven. After that we’re on until three. We can’t split before then.”

The Bloody Mary slid down smoothly and Barney looked at his watch and convinced himself there was no point in going away and coming back again, and 3 a.m. on Sunday morning would still be okay because they had until Monday to turn the film in. It was all going to work out. Spiderman slid back into the recesses of the club, and at ten Barney got on the phone and talked to Professor Hewett and arranged a new appointment for three, then went back to his table and relaxed, as much as he could relax with the hot tuba, brass section and amplified drums. The Bloody Marys helped.

At two o’clock he stirred himself and went out for a breath of air that wasn’t solid with cigarette smoke and vibrating with wailing rhythms. He even managed to arrange for two cabs to come to the club just after three. Things were working out very well.

It was close to four before they pulled up in front of the warehouse, and Professor Hewett was pacing up and down staring at his watch. “Very precise,” he snapped.

“Not too bad, Prof old boy,” Barney said, slapping him on the back, then turning to help pull the bass drum out of the cab. Then, in single file, they marched into the warehouse, with Doody on the trombone playing “Colonel Bogey.”

“What’s the raft?” Spiderman asked, bleary-eyed and tired.

“Transportation. Just climb aboard. We’ll just be gone a few minutes from here, that I promise.” Barney smiled slyly behind his hand as he said it.

“Enough already,” Spiderman said, pulling the trombone away from Doody’s fluttering lips. Doody kept playing for at least five seconds before he realized he wasn’t making a sound. “Flying on pot,” Spiderman exclaimed.

Hewett snorted as the funerally robed musicians climbed aboard the time platform, then went into the control cubicle to start the vremeatron.

“Is this the waiting room?” Doody asked, following him into the cramped quarters.

“Get out you oaf!” the professor snapped, and Doody mumbled something and tried to oblige. But as he turned, the slide extended from his trombone and swiped along the top row of exposed electronic tubes. Two of them popped and fizzled sparkily.

“Yow!” Doody said, and dropped the instrument. Its brass length fell across the exposed innards of the tubes and sparks jumped as the circuits shorted. All of the lights on the controls went out.

Barney was completely sober in less than a second. He pulled the musician out of the instrument room and herded him, and all the others, to the far end of the platform.

“How is it, Professor?” he asked softly when he came back, but there was no answer. He didn’t ask again but only looked on as Hewett tore off inspection hatches and hurled the broken tubes out of the door.