Harry Harrison: The Technicolor Time Machine

“Sure,” Ottar said. “That’s me.”

“What do you mean that’s me?” Barney asked, blinking rapidly.

“Thorfinn Karlsefni, son of Thord Horsehead, son of Thorhild Rjupa, daughter of Thord Gellir…”

“Your name is Ottar.”

“Sure. Ottar is the name people call me, short name. Real name is Thorfinn Karlsefni, son of Thord…”

“I remember some of the Karlsefni saga,” Charley said.

“I researched it for the script. In the saga he was supposed to have come by way of Iceland and marry a girl by the name of… Gudrid.”

“That’s Slithey’s name in the film,” Barney choked out.

“Wait, that’s not all,” Charley said in a hollow voice. “I remember that Gudrid was supposed to have had a baby in Vinland, and they named him Snorri.”

“Snorey,” Barney said, and felt the hackles rise on the back of his neck. “One of the seven dwarfs from Snow White…”

“I don’t see what everyone is so concerned about,” Professor Hewett said. “We have known for some weeks now about these circles in time. What you are discussing now are the mere mechanical details of a single circle.”

“But the significance, Professor, the significance,” Barney said. “If this is true, then the only reason that the Vikings settled in Vinland is because we decided to make a motion picture showing how the Vikings settled in Vinland.”

“It’s as good a reason as any other,” the Professor said calmly.

“It just takes a little getting used to, that’s all,” Barney muttered.

Everyone said afterward that it was a very memorable party and it lasted right through until dawn and very little work got done the next day. But the pressure was off and there was no need for the overwhelming majority of the company now. They filtered away a few at a time, some for a holiday on Old Catalina, though roost of them wanted to go straight home. They left, waving their pay cards happily, and lights burned all night in the payroll department of Climactic Studios.

When the film was completed to Barney’s satisfaction and a print had been made and was in the cans, there were only a handful of people left in the camp, and most of them were the drivers needed to move the company out.

“You’re not going to smell fresh air like this again for a long time,” Dallas said, looking down the hillside at the Viking settlement below.

“I’m going to miss more than that,” Barney said. “I’m just beginning to realize that all I have been thinking about is the film, and now that it’s done, well, this all has been something a lot bigger than any of us realized at the time. You understand?”

“I dig. But you have to remember a lot of Joes only got to see Paris because the government sent them there to kill krauts. Things happen, that’s all, things happen.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Barney chewed at the palm of his hand. “But don’t say it. Sounds too much like the Prof’s circle in time.”

“What’s wrong with your hand?” Dallas asked,

“Looks like a splinter.” Barney said.

“You oughta get the nurse to take it out before she locks up shop.”

“You’re probably right. Pass the word, we start moving out in ten minutes.”

The nurse opened the trailer door a crack and peered out suspiciously. “I’m sorry, everything is locked up.”

“I’m sorry too,” Barney said, “unlock it. This is a medical emergency.”

She sniffed at the scope of the emergency, but unlocked the instrument cabinet. “I can’t reach it with the tweezers,” she said, with what sounded not unlike a note of malice, “so I’ll have to cut just a tiny bit with the scalpel.”

The operation took only a minute and Barney’s thoughts were on more pressing matters until she dabbed iodine on the tiny cut.

“Ouch,” he said.

“Now that could not have hurt, Mr. Hendrickson, not a big man like you.” She rummaged through another cabinet. “I’m sorry, but all the Band-Aids are gone, so I’ll have to wrap a little gauze around that, just for the time being.”

She had looped two turns of the bandage around his palm before he realized what was happening and burst out laughing.

“A splinter!” he said, and looked down and realized that he had put his best twill slacks on that morning, and was wearing his horsehide jacket. “I’ll bet you have Mercurochrome here, in fact I’ll guarantee it!”

“What a curious thing to say, of course I have.”

“Then wrap this bandage on well, nice and big. I’ll show him, that sadistic S.O.B.”

“What? Who… ?”

“Me, that’s who. I treated me like that and now I’m going to get even with myself. I thinks I can treat me like that!”

The nurse did not say anything else after that, and wrapped the bandage wide and bulky the way he asked, nor did she protest when he dumped so much Mercurochrome over it so that it dropped onto her clean floor. When Barney left, chuckling to himself, she locked the door behind him.

“You hurt?” Ottar asked.

“Not really,” Barney said, and reached over so that this time Ottar crushed his left hand. “Take it easy and watch out for the Indians.”

“Not afraid of them! We’ve cut plenty of hardwood, get a fortune in Iceland. You bring Gudrid back?”

“In a couple of minutes, your time, but what happens then is up to her. So long, Ottar.”

“Far heill,[23] “Good-bye.” Barney. You make another movie and pay with Jack Daniels.”

“I may do just that.”

It was the last trip and everyone else was gone and the time platform sat in the middle of an acre of flattened grass and muddy wheel tracks. The cans of film were in the pickup, the only vehicle on the platform, and Dallas was at the wheel with a red-eyed and sodden Slithey sitting beside him.

“Take it away,” Barney shouted to Professor Hewett, and he took one last lungful of fresh air.

Professor Hewett dropped the truck and the others off on Friday, and only Barney and the cans of film rode the loop in time back to the Monday morning of the same week.

“Leave me plenty of time, Prof,” he said. “I have to get to L.M.’s office by ten-thirty.”

When he arrived he phoned, then had to wait at the sound stage until the page arrived with the handcart. They loaded the film on and it was already twenty past ten.

“Bring this to L.M.’s office,” Barney said. “I’ll go on ahead with reel one.”

Barney walked fast, and as he turned the last comer he saw a familiar, hang-dog figure plodding up the steps. He smiled wickedly and followed himself down the hall right up to L.M.’s door, and the figure m front never looked back. Barney waited until he had actually pushed the door open before reaching over his shoulder and pulling his hand away.

“Don’t go in there,” he said.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the earlier Barney shouted, then took one look at him and collapsed like a second-rate actor in a ninth-rate horror film, all shaking limbs and popping eyes.

“A very nice take,” Barney said. “Maybe you should be acting in films, not directing them.”

“You’re… me…” The idiot figure burbled.

“Very observant,” Barney said, then remembered the diagram. He would be glad to get rid of that. “Hold this a sec,” he said, and shoved the can of film into the other’s arms. He couldn’t reach into his pocket with his gorily bandaged hand so he had to grope around with his left hand and dig his wallet out. The other Barney just held the can and mumbled to himself until Barney pulled it back and pushed the diagram into his hand.

“What happened to my hand—your hand?” the horrified other Barney asked.

I should tell you Barney thought to himself, then saw that the page was coming with the handcart and he opened the door for him.