Harry Harrison: The Technicolor Time Machine

“So Monday—but what difference does it make? Frankly, I’m puzzled,” L.M. said, and knitted his brow and looked puzzled.

“It makes this difference, L.M. On Monday I will bring you the new picture in the can. A picture that will have to gross two, three million on length, width of screen and color alone.”

“But you can’t!”

“But we can. You’re forgetting about the vremeatron. This gadget works. Remember last night when you thought we had all gone for about ten minutes?” L.M nodded reluctantly. “That was how long we were gone from here and now. But we were an hour or more in the Viking times. We could do it again. Take the company and everything we need back there to shoot the picture, and use just as much time as we need to do it right before we came back.”

“You mean… ?”

“Correct. When we come back with the film in the can we need only have been gone ten minutes as far as you’re concerned.”

“Why didn’t they ever think of this before?” L.M. gasped with happy appreciation.

“For a lot of reasons…”

“Do you mean to tell me…” Sam leaned so far forward in his chair that he was almost out of it, and the hint of some expression, perhaps a smile?, touched his face. “Do you mean that we will have to pay production costs for just ten minutes?”

“I do not mean that,” Barney snapped. “I can tell you in advance that there are going to be some headaches for bookkeeping. However, to cheer you up, I can guarantee that we can shoot on location—with more extras—for about one-tenth the cost of filming in Spain.”

Sam’s eyes glittered. “I don’t know the details of this project, L.M., but some of the factors make very good sense.”

“Can you do it, Barney? Pull this thing off?”

“I can do it if you give me all the help I ask for and no questions. This is Tuesday. I see no reason why we can’t have everything we need sewn up by Saturday.” He counted off on his fingers. “We’ll have to get the contracts signed with the principals, get enough raw film to last for all the shooting, the technicians, at least two extra cameras…” He began to mumble to himself as he ran through all they might possibly need. “Yes,” he said finally, “we can do it.”

“Still, I don’t know,” L.M. said pensively. “It’s a wild idea.”

The future teetered on the balance and Barney groped desperately for inspiration.

“Just one more thing,” he said. “If we’re on location for, say, six months, everyone has to be paid six months’ salary. But we rent the cameras and sound equipment, all of the expensive hardware, we will only have to pay for a few days rental fees for them.”

“Barney,” L.M. said, sitting up straight in his chair, “you’ve got yourself a deal.”

“You haven’t heard the last of Cinecittá yet, Mr. Hendrickson.”

“Barney.”

“Not yet, Barney, not by a long shot. The new realism came out of Italy after the war, then the kitchen-sink film that the British picked up. But you’ll see, Rome ain’t dead yet. Guys like me come over here to Hollywood for a bit, pick up some techniques—”

“Pick up some loot.”

“…can’t deny that, Barney, working for the Yankee dollar. But you know, you’re not going to get much on color this time of day.” He swung the 8-mm Bolex that hung on a thong from his wrist. “I should have loaded this HP with Tri-X. It’s five in the afternoon.”

“Don’t worry, Gino, you’ll have plenty of light, take my word for that.” He looked up as the warehouse door opened and Amory Blestead came in. “Over here, Amory,” he said. “This is our cameraman, Gino Cappo. Amory Blestead, technical adviser.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Amory said, shaking hands, “I always wondered how you got those repulsive effects in Autumn Love.”

“You mean in Porco Mondo? Those weren’t effects. That’s just the way that part of Yugoslavia looks.”

“Christ!” He turned to Barney. “Dallas told me to tell you they’ll be down with Ottar in about five minutes.”

“About time. We’ll have the Prof warm his machine up.”

Barney climbed painfully into the back of the army truck and dropped onto the boxes. He had managed to grab about an hour’s sleep on the couch in his office before another urgent message from L.M. had dragged him awake and up to L.M.’s office for an extended wrangle over budgeting. The pace was beginning to tell.

“I have recalibrated all my instruments,” Professor Hewett said, tapping happily on a dial face, “so that now I can guarantee the utmost precision temporally arid geographically in all future time transports.”

“Wonderful. See if you can recalibrate us to arrive just after our last trip, close to the same time, the same day, The light was good—”

The door crashed open, and loud, guttural singing filled the warehouse. Ottar stumbled in with Jens Lyn and Dallas Levy each clutching one of his arms, holding him up rather than restraining him, since he was obviously roaring drunk. Tex Antonelli came behind them wheeling a handtruck loaded with packing cases. It needed all three of them to heave the Viking up into the truck, where he passed out, mumbling happily to himseli. They piled the boxes in around him.

“What’s all this?” Barney asked.

“Trade goods,” Lyn said, pushing the crate labeled JACK DANIELS in over the tailgate. “Ottar signed the contract. I was very surprised to discover an Icelandic notary public here—”

“You can find anything in Hollywood.”

“And Ottar agreed to study English once he was back in his own house. He has developed a decided taste for distilled beverages and we agreed on a payment of one bottle of whiskey a day for every day of study.”

“Couldn’t you have fobbed him off with some rotgut?” Barney asked as a second crate of Jack Daniels slid into the truck. “I can see myself trying to justify this on the gyp sheet.”

“We did try,” Dallas said, shoving in a third case. “Slipped him some Old Overcoat 95 per cent grain neutral spirits, but it was no sale. He developed an educated palate early. Two months, five cases, that’s the bargain.”

Jens Lyn climbed in and Barney admired his knee-high engineer’s boots, puttees, many-pocketed hunting jacket and sheath knife. “Why the Jungle Jim outfit?” he asked.

“A simple matter of survival and creature comfort,” Lyn said, making room for the sleeping bag and a packing crate that Dallas pushed up to him. “I have DDT for the body lice that are sure to abound, halazone tablets for the drinking water and a quantity of tinned food. The diet of the time is restricted, and I am sure unwholesome to modem tastes. Therefore I have taken a few simple precautions.”

“Fair enough,” Barney said. “Climb m and lock up the tailgate, let’s get rolling.”

Though the vremeatron still whined and crackled with the same intensity, there was no longer the tension there had been on the first trip. The conditioned reflexes of mechanized man took over and the voyage through time became just as commonplace as a ride in a high-speed elevator, a trip in a jet plane, a descent in a submarine or a blast-off in a rocket. Only Gino, the newcomer, showed some apprehension, darting rapid glances at the bank of electronic gadgetry and the sealed warehouse. But in the face of the others’ calm—Barney managed to doze off Airing the transition while Dallas and the Danish philologist quarreled over the opening of one of the whiskey bottles and the resultant loss thereby of a day’s English lessons—he relaxed a little. When the transition did occur he half rose, startled, but sat down again when the bottle was passed to him, though his eyes did widen considerably when the ice-blue sky appeared outside and the tang of salt spray filled the truck.