The Technicolor Time Machine Page 8

  Ottar and his men had seen the jeep often enough before to be accustomed to it, but this was not true of the invading Vikings. They saw what could only have been some sort of bellowing monster approaching, and understandably refused to stand before its charge. They scattered to right and left while Tex skidded the jeep in a tight circle at the water’s edge, knocking down one of the men who hadn’t moved quickly enough. Ottar and his followers rallied behind the jeep and pressed in on the divided enemy. The invaders broke and ran, clambering back into the longship and grabbing up the oars again.

  This was where the engagement should have ended, and it would have if Tex had not been carried away with battle fever. Before the ship had started to move astern he ran to the front of the jeep and pulled a great length of steel cable from the drum under the front bumper. There was a loop at the end and he took this up and clambered up onto the jeep’s hood, spinning it in larger and larger circles as he climbed. His rebel yell was clearly audible above the other shouts as he released the cable. Straight up the loop rose to settle neatly over the dragon’s head onto the high stem post. He gave it a pull to settle it home, then leisurely Jumped down and dropped into the driver’s seat.

  With slow grace the longship began to glide astern as the oars churned up a froth. Tex lit a cigarette and let the cable run out until twenty, thirty feet of it stretched between the ship and the jeep. One of the Vikings aboard the ship was hacking at the steel cable, with no results other than the ruination of the edge of his ax. Tex reached out his shoe and kicked the power takeoff into gear. The cable rose dripping from the water, grew taut and bar-straight, and the longship shuddered through its length and halted. Then, slowly, but steadily, it was dragged back onto the beach. The oars splashed and dug deep into the water to no avail.

  It was all over then but the mopping up. Whatever enthusiasm had carried the raiders ashore had been wiped out by this last maneuver. Weapons splashed over the sides and the men raised their arms in surrender. Only one of them had any fight left, the man in the bow who had been hacking at the cable. With bis ax in one hand, round shield in the other, he jumped ashore and charged the jeep. Tex cocked his revolver and waited, but Ottar joined the fight and cut off the attack. Both men shouted insults at each other as they circled warily at the water’s edge. Tex carefully released the hammer and slid the gun back into its holster when he saw that all other action had stopped as the two champions joined battle.

  Ottar, drenched with perspiration and already elated by the fighting, was working himself into a berserker rage, roaring and biting at the rim of his shield and running forward until the waves were up to his thighs. The invading chieftain stood scant yards away, glowering out from under the edge of his iron helmet, shouting his own guttural insults. Ottar beat the flat of his ax against his shield with thudding sledge blows—then suddenly charged, swinging his ax in a looping blow at the other’s head. The invader’s shield swung up to deflect the ax, but the force of the stroke was so powerful that it drove the man to his knees.

  There was a note of pure joy in Ottar’s bellow as he swung his ax again and again, never slowing, with the relentless measure of a woodsman felling a tree. The invader could not bring his own ax up, in fact he was leaning on his ax arm for support against the rain of blows. Pieces of wood few from the shield and a wave sent spray swirling around them.

  For an instant the rhythm of ax on shield slowed as Ottar swung his weapon high and brought it straight down with all his strength at the other’s head. The shield went up, but could not stop it. The ax glanced from it, scarcely slowed, and hewed down into the Viking’s thigh. He howled with pain and swung his own ax in a backhand blow. Ottar jumped away, dodging it easily, and paused a moment to see the effect of his stroke. The invader struggled to a standing position, with all of his weight on his good leg, and it could be seen that the other was cut halfway through and pouring out blood. At this happy sight Ottar threw away his sword and ax and gave a shout of victory. The wounded Viking tried to attack him, but he dodged away, laughing at the clumsy attempt. All the northmen on shore—and most of the men in the ship— were laughing at the wounded man’s helpless anger. He kept crawling after Ottar, making feebler and feebler attempts to bring down his dancing enemy.

  Ottar must have realized that this kind of fun could end only in his enemy’s death by bleeding, because he ran in suddenly and hit the man on the back, pushing him face downward into the frothing water. Then, with one foot on the Viking’s ax hand, he seized the man’s head in both hands and ground his face down into the sand and gravel, holding it there despite the frantic writhings until his enemy perished. Drowned in the few inches of bubbling sea. All the men on the beach and in the ship cheered.

  On the hill above there was only a shocked silence, broken by Ruf Hawk, who stumbled away to throw up. Barney noticed for the first time that Gino was back at the camera. “Did you get the fight?” he asked, painfully aware that his voice cracked as he said it.

  “All in here,” Gino said, slapping the film container. “Though from this far away I’m not sure I got all the details.”

  “That’s all for the best,” Barney said. “Let’s wind up the shooting for the day, the light will be going soon and I don’t think anyone wants to work with that around…” He nodded toward the grisly scene on the beach below.

  “Doesn’t bother me,” Slithey said. “Reminds me of the slaugherhouse where my father worked when we lived in Chicago. I used to bring him his lunch every day.”

  “Not all of us have your advantage,” Barney said. “Seven-thirty tomorrow on the dot, we’ll pick up where we left off today.” He started down the hill toward the noisy mob scene below.

  The dead and wounded from both groups had been pulled into a heap above the line of the waves, and the victors were already looting the ship of its supplies, starting with the ale. The surviving attackers had been grouped together under guard and were being harangued by Ottar, who strode back and forth before them, shouting and waving his fists for punctuation. Whatever he said seemed to do the job because, before Barney reached the foot of the hill, the northmen, invaders and defenders both, turned and started toward the house. Only one man remained behind and Ottar struck him a wicked blow on the head with his fist, stretching him on the ground, and two of the housecarls carried him off. Ottar was groping in the sea for his ax when Barney came up.

  “Would you mind telling me what all that was about?” Barney said.

  “Did you see how I hit the leg?” Ottar said; brandishing the retrieved ax over his head. “Hit him. Krasc! Leg next to off.”

  “Very well played, I saw it all. My congratulations. But who was he—and what were they doing here?”

  “He was called Torfi. Whiskey?” The last was added in an exultant shout as Tex dropped the freed cable into the sand and dug a pint bottle out from under the jeep’s seat.

  “Whiskey,” Tex said. “Not your favorite brand, but it’ll do. That’s a great backhand you got with that thing.”

  Ottar rolled his eyes with pleasure, then closed them tight as he raised the pint bottle to his lips and drained it.

  “Wish I could do that,” Tex said enviously.

  Barney waited until the bottle was empty and Ottar had hurled it into the sea with a happy cry before he asked, “This Torfi. What was the trouble with him?”

  The aftereffects of the battle—and the whiskey—hit Ottar at the same time and he sat down suddenly on the pebbles, shaking his great head. “Torfi, the son of Valbrand,” he said as he got his breath back, “the son of Valthjof, the son of Orlyg came to Sviney… Torfi killed the men of Kropp twelve of them together. He also made the killing of the Holesmen, and he was at Hellisfitar, with Hlugi the Black and Sturii the Godi when eighteen cave-living people were killed there. They also burned, in his own house, Audun the son of Smidkel at Bergen.” He stopped and nodded his head sagely as though he felt he had communicated vital information.

  “Well?” Barney asked, puzzl
ed. “What does all that mean?”

  Ottar looked at him and frowned. “Smidkel married Thorodda, my sister.”

  “Of course,” Barney said. “How could I have forgotten that. So this Torfi has been in trouble with your brother-in-law and this means trouble with you, and it all ends up when he tries a bit of manslaughter here. What a way to live. Who were the men with him?”

  Ottar shrugged and climbed to his feet, pulling himself up on the jeep’s front wheel. “Vikings, raiders. Go to raid England. They don’t like Torfi now because he comes here first instead of raiding England. Now they go with me to raid England. They go in my new longship.” He pointed the ax at the dragon ship and roared with laughter.

  “And that one man who didn’t want to join you?”

  “One Haki, brother of Torfi. I make him a slave. Sell him back to his family.”

  “I gotta give these guys credit,” Tex said. “No beating about the bush.”

  “You can say that again,” Barney said, looking in open wonder at the Viking, who at that moment seemed a giant of a man in every way. “Climb into the jeep, Ottar, we’ll drive you back to the house.”

  “Ottar ride the cheap,” he said enthusiastically, throwing his ax and shield in, then climbing over the side.

  “Not in the driver’s seat,” Tex told him. “That comes much later.”

  The supplies looted from the longship had included a dozen kegs of ale, most of which had been broached in front of the house, where a victory celebration was already in progress. There seemed to be no ill will held toward the former invaders, who mixed with the victors and matched them drink for drink. Haki, who had been tied hand and foot and flung under a bench, seemed to be the only one who wasn’t enjoying himself. A hubbub of welcoming shouts heralded Ottar’s appearance, and he went at once to the nearest barrel that had a knocked-in head, plunging his cupped hands into the ale and drinking from them. As the shouting died away a rumbling exhaust could be heard and Barney turned to see one of the film company pickups come bouncing along the beach. It skidded to a stop in a rain of fine gravel and Dallas leaned out.

  “We been trying to contact you on the radio for ten minutes, maybe more,” he said.

  Barney looked down at the radio and saw that all the power had been turned off. “There’s nothing wrong here,” he said. “I just made a mistake and switched this thing off.”

  “Well there’s plenty wrong at the camp, that’s why we’ve been trying to call you—”

  “What! What do you mean?”

  “It’s Ruf Hawk. He came back all excited, wasn’t looking where he was going. He tripped over a sheep, you know them dirty gray ones, they look just like rocks. Anyway he fell over it and broke his leg.”

  “Are you trying to tell me that—on the third day of shooting this picture—that my leading man has broken his leg?”

  Dallas looked him straight in the eyes, not without a certain sympathy, and slowly nodded his head.

  9

  There was a crowd around the door of Ruf Hawk’s trailer and Barney had to push his way through it. “Break it up,” he called out. “This is no side show. Let me through.”

  Ruf lay on the bed, his skin grayish and beaded with sweat, still wearing the Viking costume. His right leg was wrapped below the knee with white bandages, now stained red with blood. The nurse stood by the head of the bed, uniformed and efficient.

  “How is he?” Barney asked. “Is it serious?”

  “About as serious as a broken leg can be,” the nurse told him. “Mr. Hawk has suffered a compound fracture of his tibia, that is to say that his lower leg has been broken below the knee and the end of the bone has come through the skin.”

  Ruf, with his eyes closed, moaned histrionically at this description.

  “That doesn’t sound too bad,” Barney said desperately. “You can set the bone, he’ll be up and around pretty quickly…”

  “Mr. Hendrickson,” the nurse said in a frigid voice, “I am not a doctor and therefore do not give medical treatments to patients. I have administered first aid, I have placed a sterile bandage over the wound to prevent contamination and have given the patient an injection to alleviate the pain. I have done my duty. I would now like to inquire when the doctor will arrive?”

  “The doctor, of course, he’ll take care of this. Is my secretary here?”

  “Yes, Mr. Hendrickson,” she said from the doorway.

  “Betty—use the pickup outside, Tex will drive you. Find Professor Hewett and tell him to take you back to the studio on the platform, and not to waste one second on the trip, he’ll know what I mean. Find the company doctor and bring him here just as fast as you can.”

  “No doctor, take me back… take me back…” Ruf said, and groaned again.

  “Get going, Betty. Fast.” He turned to Ruf, smiling broadly, and patted the actor on the shoulder. “Now don’t you worry your head for an instant. No cost will be spared and all the wonders of modem medicine are going to be at your service. They do great things these days, metal pins in the bones, you know, they’ll have you walking as good as new…”

  “No. I don’t want to do this picture. This finishes it, I bet it says so in my contract. I want to go home.”

  “Relax, Ruf. Don’t excite yourself, rest. Stay with him, nurse, I’ll get these people out of here. Everything is going to work out fine.” But his words were as hollow as his smile, and he snarled as he cleared the wide-eyed spectators from the trailer and the doorway.

  Less than five minutes passed before the pickup arrived, and the doctor, followed by an orderly with two cases of equipment, came inside.

  “I want everyone but the nurse out of here,” he said.

  Barney started to protest, then shrugged. There was nothing more he could do at this moment. He went out and found Professor Hewett tinkering in the guts of his vremeatron.

  “Don’t disconnect it,” Barney said. “I want this time platform operational twenty-four hours a day in case we need it.”

  “Just securing some of the wiring. I’m afraid a good deal of the circuitry was breadboarded, in the rush you know, and may not be too reliable over an extended period.”

  “How long did this last trip take? I mean, what time of day was it back there when you left?”

  Hewett glanced at the dials. “Give or take a few microseconds, it is now 1435.52 hours, on Saturday—”

  “That’s after half past two in the afternoon! Where did all the time go?”

  “It’s not my doing, I assure you. I waited with the platform—and had a rather unsatisfactory lunch from the vending machines—until the truck came back. I understand the doctor was not on the premises and had to be found and the necessary medical equipment obtained before they could return.”

  Barney rubbed his midriff where the sensation of a cold lump the size of a cannonball was forming. “The completed film is due Monday morning and it is now Saturday afternoon and we’ve shot about three minutes of usable film and my lead is down with a broken leg. Time, we’re running out of time.” He looked strangely at the professor. “Time? Why not time? We have all of it we need, don’t we? You could find a quiet spot, the kind you brought Charley Chang to, and that would take care of Ruf the same way.”

  He ran off excitedly before Hewett could answer, making his way through the company encampment and into Ruf’s trailer without bothering to knock. Ruf’s leg was now in a splint to the hip and the doctor was taking his pulse. The doctor looked sternly at Barney.

  “That door was closed for a reason,” he said.

  “I know, Doctor, and I’ll see that no one comes through it. That’s a fine-looking piece of work, there—would you mind my asking how long it is going to be on?”

  “Just until I get him to the hospital—”

  “That’s very good, very quick!”

  “Where I will take the temporary splint off and put on a plaster cast, and that will be on for at least twelve weeks, absolute minimum. After that the patient will be at lea
st one month on crutches.”

  “Well, that doesn’t sound bad—in fact it sounds good, very good. I’d like you to take good care of that patient, look after him if you would, and enjoy a bit of a holiday at the same time. We’re going to find a nice quiet spot where you can both rest.”

  “I have no idea of what you are talking about, but what you appear to be suggesting is impossible. I have my prac-ice and I could not possibly consider leaving it for twelve weeks—or even twelve hours. I have a very important engagement tonight and I must be going at once. Your secretary assured me that I would be home on time.”

  “Absolutely,” Barney said with calm assurance. He had been over this ground before with Charley and he knew the way. “You’ll be on time for your appointment tonight, and you’ll be at work on Monday and everything will be fine, in addition to which you are going to have a holiday—all expenses paid—and three months’ pay to boot. Doesn’t that sound great? I’ll tell you what happens—”

  “No!” Ruf croaked from the bed, rousing himself enough to shake a fist weakly. “I know what you’re trying to do, but the answer is no. I’m through with this picture, and I’m through with the crazy people out there. I saw what happened on the beach and I don’t want any more part of it.”

  “Now, Ruf—”

  “Don’t try and talk me around, Barney, you’re not changing my mind. I got an out with this leg so I’m washed up with this picture, and even if I didn’t have the leg we’d be through. You can’t make me act.”

  Barney opened his mouth—he had a very nice remark that just described Rufs acting—then with a sudden burst of unaccustomed self-control he clapped it shut again. “We’ll talk about it in the morning, you get a good night’s sleep,” he mumbled between clamped lips, then turned and left before he said any more.