The Technicolor Time Machine

Barney started to answer him as Dallas threw the switch, and his voice and all the other sounds were instantly obliterated. As the wailing, sense-destroying thunder of the curdler exploded out there, there was nothing else he could do except jam his fingers into his ears and clutch at his head. Dallas nodded with satisfaction and dug smoke and tear-gas grenades out of the other box. With a professional, straight-armed pitch, he began lobbing them over the wall.

With his hands clamped tightly to his head, Barney turned painfully and looked down. In those few seconds the scene had changed completely. The curdler and the bombs were as strange to the Vikings as to the attackers, but their reaction had been their natural one of drawing into an even tighter defensive knot. But not so with the Cape Dorset. They were overwhelmed by panic. The fearful noise tore at their ears. Pillars of choking smoke sprang up all around them and they could not breathe and they could not see. Without conscious thought or decision, they broke and ran for the boats. Where, a minute before, there had been an attacking army, there was now only a mob of fleeing, struggling figures and a scattering of motionless dark bodies on the ground. It was all over. The mob on the beach struggled for possession of the boats and a few last figures stumbled through the clouds of tear gas after them.

Ottar’s men stood together, facing outward and ready to take on all enemies, human or supernatural. The ones who had been blinded by the tear gas were just as ready to fight as the others. Their courage was magnificent.

When Dallas switched off the curdler the silence seemed to beat in waves and Barney’s ears were numb and still filled with that incredible and sense-destroying sound. He slowly let his arms fall and straightened up. The Cape Dorset were vanquished and fleeing, there was no doubt of that: the Viking warriors had lowered their shields as they realized this and were waving their weapons victoriously. Dallas’s voice seemed to come from a great distance, through many layers of cotton batting, as he pointed toward the truck still stationed on the hill above.

“They never bothered the truck or the camp, so Gino must have been grinding away all the time.” He looked down at the laughing northmen, who were tearing the burning wood away from the wall. “There’s your Indian battle, so it looks like there’s your film.”

Barney turned away from the dead and wounded and began to climb shakily down.

18

“This is the sunset we been waiting for, Barney,” Charley Chang said. “Look at those colors.”

“Let’s roll then,” Barney said, glancing around at the film company on the hillside. “Are you ready, Gino?”

“Just about two minutes more,” the cameraman said, peering through the viewfinder of the camera. “Just as soon as that line of clouds moves m front of the sun so I can shoot right into it.”

“Okay, then.” Barney turned to Ottar and Slithey, in their best Viking costumes, Ottar with a rubber scar and gray touches, which were hard to see, on the hair at his temples. “This is the last scene, the really last scene, and we’ve waited until now to get the color right. Everything else is in the can. It’s going to run, one, two, three, but we’re going to shoot it one, three and do two last to get you in silhouette against the sunset. Now in one I want you to walk up the hill, side by side, take it slow, and stop right there at the top where that line is scratched into the ground. You just stand there, looking out to sea, until I shout now, then Slithey you reach out and take Ottar by the arm. That’s the end of the first scene. Then Ottar you put your arm around her waist and I want the two of you to hold it that way, while we dolly back for the closing scene of your figures small against the sunset. Got that?”

They both nodded.

“Ready,” Gino called out.

“One sec more. When I shout cut you stay there on the hill so we can run the camera in and shoot number two, which is the talk. Is that clear?”

It went off well. Ottar was almost a professional by this time. At least he usually followed orders without arguing. They climbed the hill together and looked into the sunset. Boards had been laid over the grass to make a smooth track for the camera dolly to roll along, and the grips, goaded by Barney’s shouted instructions, moved it slowly and smoothly away so the figures of the lovers could fade into the distance.

“Cut!” Barney shouted when the dolly reached the end of the track. “Principals—just hold it on the hill. Let’s move now before the light goes.”

There was a concerted and organized rush. While the camera was being trundled to the top of the hill the sound men were setting up their tape recorder and mikes. Slithey was frowning over her lines while the script girl read Ottar’s aloud to him. The sky was a flaming red as the sun dropped toward the sea.

“Ready,” Gino said.

“Camera,” Barney called out, “and not a sound from anyone, not anyone. Action.”