Harry Harrison: The Technicolor Time Machine

“These names! He’s got to go too. I can already hear the big romance scene… kiss me my dearest Thorfinn Karlsefni she whispers. Out. You’re not so hot, Barney.”

“You can’t rewrite history, L.M.”

“What else have we ever done? This is no time to go soft on me, Barney Hendrickson, you who were at one time my best producer and director before the lousy moron-box ruined us all. Get a grip on yourself. The motion pictures are not primarily an educational medium. We are selling entertainment, and if it doesn’t entertain it doesn’t sell. I see it this way. We got this Viking, you call him Benny or Carlo or some other good Viking name, and you do a saga of his adventures…”

“That’s just the word for it, L.M.”

“…like one day fighting, and winning of course, restless, he’s that land. He goes off and finds America then comes back and says I have found America! so they make him the king. Then there is this girl, with long, blond wig hair, who keeps waving to him every time he sails away and promises to return. Only now he is older with a little gray above the ears and some scars, he has suffered, and this time instead of going away he takes the girl with him and together they sail into the sunset to a new life as the first pioneers at Plymouth Rock. Well?”

“Great, as always, L.M. You haven’t lost the touch.” Barney sighed tiredly. Dr. Jens Lyn—whose eyes had been getting wider—made a strangling noise.

“B-but—it is not that way, it is in the records. Even Mr. Hendrickson is not completely correct. It was Leif Ericsson, the son of Eric the Red, who is generally credited with the discovery of Vinland. There are two versions of the chronicle, one in the Hauksbók and the other in the Flateyjarbók—”

“Enough!” L.M. grumbled. “You see what I mean, Barney? Even the history books can’t agree, so with a little bringing together here and there and some touching up we got a story. Who were you thinking of for the leads?”

“If we can get him, Ruf Hawk would be perfect for the Viking. And someone who is really stacked for a girl.”

“Slithey Tove. She’s available and between pictures and for two weeks her crumb of an agent has been in and out of here with deals, so I know she is broke and we can get her cheap. Next you will need a writer, and for that use Charley Chang, we have him on contract. He’s a specialist.”

“On Bible stories, maybe, not historicals,” Barney said doubtfully, “and frankly I didn’t think much of Down from the Cross or the other thing, Walking the Red Sea Waters.”

“Ruined by censorship, that’s all. I okayed the scripts myself and they were great—” He broke off suddenly as a bellowing cry sounded through the wall. “Did you hear that?”

“It’s the Viking,” Tex said. “He was still aching for a fight so we slugged him and chained him to the shower in the executives’ head.”

“What’s this?” L.M. scowled.

“An informant,” Barney told him. “One of the locals. He attacked the truck so we brought him along so that Dr. Lyn could talk to him.”

“Get him in here. He’s just the man we need, someone with local knowledge to answer some questions on production problems. You got to have a local who knows his way around when you are shooting on location.”

Tex and Dallas went out and, after a few minutes of chain rattling and two loud thuds, returned with the slightly glassy-eyed Viking. He stopped in the door when he saw the men waiting in the room, and they had their first clear look at him.

He was big, even without the homed helmet he was almost seven feet tall, and hairy as a bear. Matted blond hair hung below his shoulders, and his flowing moustache vanished into the waves of beard that fell to his chest. His clothing consisted of coarsely woven blouse and breeks held in place by a varied assortment of thick leather straps, and they exuded a rich odor of fish, stale sweat and tar, yet the heavy gold bracelet around his arm did not seem out of place. His eyes were a light, almost transparent, blue, and glared at them from under beetling brows. He was battered and chained, but obviously uncowed and unbeaten, with his chin held high and his shoulders back.

“Welcome to Hollywood,” L.M. said. “Sit down—give him a drink, Barney—and make yourself comfortable. What did you say your name was… ?”

“He doesn’t speak English, L.M.”

L.M. Greenspan’s face fell. “I can’t say I approve of that, Barney. I don’t like working through interpreters, too slow, not reliable.… All right Lyn, do your stuff, ask him his name.”

Jens Lyn mumbled to himself for a moment, going through the Old Norse verb forms, then spoke aloud. “ Hvat heitir maðrinn?”[3] “What is your name?”

The Viking only rumbled deep in his throat and ignored the question.

“What’s the trouble?” L.M. asked impatiently. “I thought you talked his lingo? Can’t he understand you?”

“You must be patient, sir. Old Norse has been a dead language for almost a thousand years and we know of it only through the written word. Icelandic is the modem language that most closely resembles it so I am using the Icelandic intonation and pronunciation—”

“All right, all right. Lectures I don’t need. Make him comfortable and oil him up with a few drinks and let’s get rolling.”

Tex pushed a chair against the back of the Viking’s legs and he sat down, glaring. Barney took a bottle of Jack Daniels from the bar concealed by the fake Rembrandt and poured a highball glass half full. But when he held it out to the Viking the man jerked his head away and rattled the chains that bound his wrists.

“Eitr!”[4] “Poison!” he snarled.

“He thinks that you are trying to poison him,” Lyn said.

“That’s easy to take care of,” Barney said, and raised the glass and took a long drink. This time the Viking allowed the glass to be put to his lips and began to drink, his eyes opening wider and wider as he drained it to the last drop.

“Ooinn ok Frigg!”[5] “Odin and Frigg.” (King and Queen of the Norse gods.) he bellowed happily and shook the tears from his eyes.

“He should like it, at $7.25 a bottle, plus tax,” L.M. said. “You can bet they don’t have that kind of stuff where he comes from. Nor Lifebuoy neither. Ask him again about the name.”

The Viking frowned with concentration while he listened to the question repeated in a variety of ways, and answered readily enough once he understood.

“Ottar,” he said and looked at the bottle longingly.

“Now we’re getting someplace,” L.M. said and looked at the clock on his desk. “We’re also getting onto four o’clock in the morning and I want to get things settled. Ask this Ottar about the rate of exchange—what kind of money do they have, Lyn?”

“Well—they barter mostly, but mention is made of the-silver mark.”

“That’s what we want to know. How many marks to the dollar, and tell him not to give any fancy bank figures. I want the free market price, we’ve been had this way before, and I’ll buy the marks in Tangier if I have to—”

Ottar bellowed and hurled himself out of the chair knocking Barney into a row of potted plants, which collapsed under him, and grabbed up the bourbon bottle. He had it raised to his mouth when Tex hit him with the sap and he slumped unconscious to the floor.

“What’s this?” L.M. shouted. “Murder in my own office? Crazy men I got enough of in the organization, so take this one back where he came from and find one thai speaks English. I don’t want any translators next time.”

“But none of them speak English,” Barney said crossly, pulling fragments of cactus from his sleeve.