The Technicolor Time Machine

Dallas kept triggering the CO₂ cylinder until it finally squawked and died, and it had the desired effect. They could see the big sail narrow, then widen again as it was pushed around, and the white bone of foam appeared at the bow as the ship gathered way. There was no sign of the skin boat, which seemed to have vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.

A few yards offshore the knorr turned and hove to, sail flapping, rocking in the gentle swell. There was a great deal of arm waving and incomprehensible shouting.

“Come on,” Barney shouted. “Come ashore. Why don’t you beach that thing?”

“They must have their reasons,” Amory said. “The kind of shore here or something.”

“Well how do they expect me go get out there?”

“Swim maybe,” Dallas suggested.

“Bright boy. Maybe you ought to dog-paddle over and give them a message.”

“Look,” Amory pointed, “they’ve got a second boat aboard.” The knorr’s own boat, a twenty-foot-long miniature of the mother ship, was still visible on deck, but a smaller boat was being dropped over the side.

“Something familiar about that thing,” Dallas said.

Barney squinted at it. “You’re dead right. It looks just like the one the redskins had.”

Two men climbed into the bobbing craft and began to row toward the shore. Ottar was in the bow, waving his paddle at them, and a few moments later he and his companions beached the skin boat and splashed ashore.

“Welcome to Vinland,” Barney said. “How was the trip?”

“Coast here no good, no grass for the animals, trees no good,” Ottar said. “Did you find a good place?”

“The best, down the coast a few miles, just what you asked for. Any trouble on the crossing from Greenland?”

“Wind the wrong way, very slow. Plenty of floating ice and seal and we saw two skraelling.[17] They were killing seals and tried to row away but we went after them, and when they threw spears we killed them. Ate their seals. Took their boat.”

“I know what you mean, we just met some of their relatives.”

“Where’s this good place you found?”

“Right down the coast, around the headland and past the islands—you can’t miss it. Here, take Amory back in the ship with you, he’ll show you the place.”

“Not me,” Amory said, raising his hands and backing away. “I just look at boats and I get green. My stomach would be turned inside out and I’d be dead three minutes after I left the shore.”

With the regular soldier’s innate capacity to avoid an unpleasant task, Dallas was already on his way up the slope when Barney turned toward him. “I’m a truck driver,” Dallas said. “I’ll be waiting in the cab.”

“All employees, loyal and true,” Barney said coldly. “I get the message, boys, don’t repeat it. All right, Amory, tell the truck driver to get to the camp. We’ll come in the ship as fast as we can and get Ottar’s people ashore, and maybe someday soon we can start making a movie again. Wake up Gino and tell him to get up on the hill, that spot we picked out, and shoot the ship when it comes in. And make sure those tire tracks along the beach are smoothed over.”

“Right, Barney, just as you say. I wish I could go in your place, but me and ships…”

“Yes, sure. Get going.”

Barney got soaked getting into the boat, and the water was so cold it felt as though his legs had been amputated below the knees. The boat, just seal skins stretched over a bent-wood frame, was wobbly and skittered over the water like a great bug and he had to squat in the bottom and hold onto the sides for support. When they reached the knorr he couldn’t get out of the lurching craft and over the high side of the ship until strong hands reached down and hauled him up like a sack of grain.

“Hananu! Sidustu handartökin,”[18] Ottar roared, and his men shouted back happily as they ran to swing the ship about for the last leg of her voyage. Barney retreated to the aft deck so he wouldn’t be trampled in the rush of activity. The seamen were shifting the beitass pole and the women screamed as they scattered out of the way, while the tethered sheep could only protest noisily when they were kicked aside. The crowded deck area resembled a seething farmyard, with the torn-open bundles of fodder and frightened livestock. In the middle of all the hubbub one of the women was hunkered over milking a cow into a wooden bucket. When the ship turned, the wind carried the odor of the bilges to Barney and the barnyard resemblance was even more apparent.

Once they were under way things settled down and even the animals returned quietly to their feed. The following wind not only filled the sail but it drove most of the odors ahead of the ship and the air on the rear deck was fresh and clear. The cutwater at the bow hissed through the long Atlantic swells, churning up a rounded, foaming bow wave that rushed along the sides of the ship. Riding light as a cork over the sea, the knorr was a graceful and practical vessel, at home in her true element.