Harry Harrison: The Technicolor Time Machine

“A minute, sure, sure,” Charlie said, looking coldly at the twenty-odd thick volumes.

“Five thousand seven hundred and seventy-three point two eight cubic meters with a loading of twelve thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven point six two kilograms at a power increase of twenty-seven point two per cent,” Professor Hewett suddenly said.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Barney snapped.

“Those are the figures you asked for, the size of load the vremeatron will be able to handle with an increased power supply.”

“Very nice. Now will you translate it into American.”

“Roughly speaking”—Hewett rolled his eyes up and mumbled quickly under his breath—“I would say that a fourteen-ton load could be temporally moved, measuring twelve feet by twelve feet by forty feet.”

“That’s more like it. That should hold anything we might possibly need.”

“Contract,” Betty said, dropping an eight-page multifolded document onto his desk.

“All right,” Barney said, slipping quickly through the crisp sheets. “Get Dallas Levy up here.”

“Miss Tove is waiting outside to see you.”

“Not now! Tell her my leprosy is acting up. And where are those bennies? I’m not going to get through this morning on coffee alone.”

“I’ve rung the dispensary three more times, there seems to be something about a staff shortage today.”

“Those unfeeling bastards. You better get down there and bring them back yourself.”

“Why Barney Hendrickson—it must have been years…”

The hoarse-voiced words hurtled across the office and left silence in their wake. Gossipmongers said that Slithey Tove had the acting ability of a marionette with loose strings, the brain of a chihuahua and the moral standards of Fanny Hill. They were right. Yet these qualities, or lack of qualities, did not explain the success of her pictures. The one quality that Slithey did have, in overabundance, was femaleness, plus the ability to communicate on what must have been a hormone level. She did not generate an aura of sex, but rather one of sexual availability. Which was true enough. This aura was strong enough to carry, scarcely diminished, through all the barriers of film, lenses and projectors to radiate, hot and steaming, from the silver screen. Her pictures made money. Most women didn’t like them. Her aura, now operating unhampered by time, space or celluloid, swept the room like a sensual sonar, clicking with passion unrestrained.

Betty sniffed loudly and swept out of the room, though she had to slow momentarily to get past the actress, who stood sideways in the doorway. It was said, truthfully, that Slithey had the largest bust in Hollywood.

“Slithey…” Barney said, and his voice cracked. Too many cigarettes, of course.

“Barney darling…” she said, as the smoothly hydraulic pistons of her rounded legs propelled her slowly across the office, “it’s been ages since I’ve seen you.”

With her hands on the desk top, she leaned forward and gravity tugged down at the thin fabric of her blouse and at least 98 per cent of her bosom swam into view. Barney felt he was flying upside down into a fleshy Grand Canyon.

“Slithey,” Barney said, springing suddenly to his feet: he had almost fallen into this trap before. “I want to talk to you about this picture we’re planning, but you see I’m busy just now…”

Inadvertently he had taken her arm—which throbbed like a great, hot, beating heart under his fingers as she leaned close. He snatched his hand away.

“If you’ll just hold on a bit, I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”

“I’ll just sit over there against the wall,” the husky-voice said. “I know I won’t be in the way.”

“You want me?” Dallas Levy asked from the open doorway, talking to Barney while his eyes made a careful survey of the actress. Hormone contacted hormone and she inhaled automatically. He slowly smiled.

“Yes,” Barney said, digging the contract out of the litter of papers on his desk. “Take this down to Lyn and tell him to get his friend to sign it. Any trouble?”

“Not since we found out he likes burnt beefsteak and beer. Anytime he starts acting up we slip him another steak and a quart of beer and he forgets his troubles. Eight steaks and eight quarts so far.”

“Get that signature,” Barney said, and his gaze fell accidentally on Slithey, who had oozed into the armchair and crossed her silk-shod legs. Her garters had little pink bows on them…

“What do you say, Charley?” Barney asked, collapsing into his swivel chair and spinning it about. “Any ideas yet?”

Charley Chang raised the thick volume he held in both hands. “I’m on page thirteen of this one and there are a few more books to go.”

“Background material,” Barney told him. “We can-rough out the main story lines now and you can fill in the details later. L.M. suggested a saga, and we can’t go wrong with that. We open in the Orkney Islands around the year 1000 when there is plenty of trouble. You have Norse settlers and Viking raiders and things are really hotting up. Maybe you open with a Viking raid, the dragon ship gliding across the dark waters, you know.”

“Like opening a Western with the bankrobbers silently riding into town?”

“That’s the idea. The hero is the chief Viking, or maybe the head man ashore, you’ll work that out. So there’s some fighting, then some more of the same, so the hero decides to move his bunch to the new world, Vinland, which he has just heard about.”

“Like the winning of the West?”

“Right. Then the voyage, the storm, the shipwreck, the landing, the first settlement, the battle with the Indians. Think big because we’re going to have plenty of extras. End on a high note, looking into the sunset.”

Charley Chang scribbled notes on the flyleaf of the book as Barney talked, nodding his head in agreement. “Just one thing more,” he said, holding up the book. “Some of the names of the guys in this book are really a gas. Listen to this, here’s one called Eyjolf the Foul, who has a friend name of Hergil Hnappraz. And Polarbear Pig, Ragnar Hairybreeks—a million more. We could play this for laughs… ?”

“This is a serious film, Charley, just as serious as any you have ever done from—”

“You’re the boss, Barney. Just a suggestion. But what about the love interest?”

“Work her in early, you know how to do it.”

“That role is made for me, Barney darling,” the voice whispered in his ear as warm arms wrapped him and he began to drown in a sea of resilient flesh.

“Don’t let him sweet-talk you, Slithey,” he heard a muffled voice say. “Barney Hendrickson is my buddy, indeed my old buddy, but a mighty good businessman to boot, shrewd, so no matter what you promise him, I’m sorry to have to say this, I gotta look closely at all contracts before we sign.”

“Ivan,” Barney said, struggling free of the perfumed octopoid embrace, “just take your client aside for a moment then I’ll be with you. I don’t know if we can do business, but at least we can talk.”

Ivan Grissini, who, despite the fact that his lank hair, hawk nose and rumpled, dandruff-speckled suit made him look like a crooked agent, was a crooked agent. He could smell a deal ten miles upwind in a hailstorm and always carried sixteen fountain pens that he filled ritually each morning before leaving for the office.

“Sit over here, baby,” he said, levering Slithey toward the comer with a long-practiced motion. Since she wasn’t stuffed with greenbacks he was immune to her charms. “Barney Hendrickson is a man good as his word, even better.”

The phone rang just as Jens Lyn came in waving the contract. “Ottar cannot sign this,” he said. “It is in English.”