The Technicolor Time Machine

you up here before you go.”

They stood in the waist of the ship, near the big mast, and Barney kicked the deck with his heel.

“Can this thing really make it to North America?” he asked.

“There is no doubt of it,” Jens Lyn said. “These Norse knorr were better ocean- going vessels—and faster ones—than the ones Columbus had, or the Spanish and British ships that sailed to the new world five hundred years later. The history of these ships is well recorded in the sagas.”

“Remember, we’ve come to doubt some of the sagas of late?”

“There is other evidence. In 1932 a replica of one of these craft, just sixty feet long, made the westward passage along one of the routes Columbus used—and improved on Columbus’ best time by over 30 per cent. There are many misconceptions about these vessels, for instance it is believed that they could only run before the wind with their large, square sail. Yet they could—they can—sail within five points of the wind. In fact, most interesting, the point of sailing is called beita, from which we derive the modem term of ‘beating’ up to windward.”

“I’ll take your word for it. What’s that stench?”

“The cargo,” Jens said, pointing to the large mounds with tight-lashed coverings that stood along the deck. “These ships do not have holds, so all the cargo is carried on deck.”

“What’s the cargo—Limburger cheese?”

“No, mostly food, cattle feed, ale, that sort of thing. The odor comes from the hide tarpaulins that are waterproofed with seal-oil tar and butter.”

“Very ingenious.” Barney pointed into the dark mouth of the open well behind the mast. “What happened to the hand pump you were going to install here? This ship has to get to Vinland or we have no picture. I want every precaution taken to make sure of that. Amory said a pump would be an improvement—so where is it?”

“Ottar refused to have it,” Jens said. “He was very suspicious of it and was afraid it would break and he wouldn’t know how to fix it. You can say one thing for the system they use, one man standing in the well and filling a bucket and another throwing it overboard with this wooden arm, it may be crude but it always works.”

“As long as they have buckets and men, which I’m sure they’ll have enough of. All right, I’ll buy that. I don’t want to teach Ottar his business—I just want to make sure he gets there. Where is this navigation thing you rigged, Amory?”

“It’s sealed inside the hull where it can’t be tampered with, and there’s just a simple dial topside for the steersman to look at.”

“Will it work?”

“I don’t see why not. These northmen are very good navigators in their own right. Their sea passages are usually very short so they set their course and sail from a landmark astern to one ahead. They know how the ocean currents run and the habits of the sea birds so they can follow them to land. In addition to which they can estimate their latitude very closely by the height of the North Star above the horizon. Any assistance we give them should fit within the system they already use, so it can be an additional help—but one that wouldn’t cause a tragedy if it failed. The most obvious aid would seem to be a simple magnetic compass, but that would be too foreign to them, and a compass is particularly difficult to use this far north where there are so many magnetic anomalies and where the difference between true north and magnetic north is so marked.”

“That was what you didn’t do. So what did you do?”

“Sealed a gyrocompass into the stem up against the hull here, along with a load of new long-life nicad batteries. We’ll turn it on when they leave and it should run at least a month before the batteries poop out. The gyrocompass is one of the new microminiaturized, no-tumble, no-precession things developed for rockets. Then right here, set into the rail by the steersman, is the compass repeater.”

Barney looked in through the thick glass covering at the white arrow clearly visible against the black dial. The dial was completely blank except for a single large white spot. “I hope this means more to Ottar than it does to me,” he said.

“He likes it a great deal,” Amory said. “In fact he is quite enthusiastic. Maybe if I draw a sketch it would be clearer.” He took a felt-tipped pen and a notepad from his pocket and quickly made a simple drawing.

“The dotted line represents sixty degrees north latitude, and you will notice that this parallel is the one Ottar would normally sail to reach Cape Farewell here on the tip of Greenland, sailing due west and estimating the height of the North Star to keep him on the latitude. What we will do is set the gyrocompass so that it always points to Cape Farewell. When the pointer on the repeater dial touches the spot—and they both are luminescent and glow at night—the ship is headed in the right direction. They will be guided right to the tip of Greenland.”

“Where they are going to spend the winter with some of Ottar’s relatives. Fine so far—but what happens in the spring when they have to go on? This sixty-degree course will take them right into Hudson Bay.”

“We will have to reset the compass,” Amory said. “Ottar will wait for us and we’ll put in new batteries and point the compass at the Straight of Belle Isle, right here. He should have enough faith in the instrument by then to follow it—even though his course won’t run along a parallel. However, the East Greenland Current does flow in the same direction and he is familiar with that. He’ll have no trouble reaching either the coast of Labrador or Newfoundland.”

“He’ll find Vinland all right,” Barney said. “But how do we find him?”

“There is a radio responder sealed in with the batteries. It will automatically send back a signal when it detects our radio signal. Then it is a simple matter of our using the radio direction finder.”

“Sounds foolproof. Let’s hope it is.” Barney looked along the low-bulwarked deck and up at the thin mast. “I wouldn’t even want to sail this thing across the bay, but then I’m no Viking. Tomorrow’s the day. We’ve done all the shooting we need to here. Launch the ship in the morning and we’ll run it in and out of the harbor a few times, shoot from the shore and from aboard ship. Then turn on your homing pigeon and let them go. And your gadget better work, Amory, or we’re all going to stay in Vinland and set up housekeeping with the Indians. If I can’t bring back this picture with me there’s just no point in going back.”

Gino popped his head up out of the bailing well like a jack-in-the-box and waved. “They can run it up now, I’m ready.”

Barney turned to Ottar, who leaned negligently on the tiller of the steer-board, and said, “Pass the word, will you.”

The tired seamen grumbled darkly as they heaved once more on the windlass. They had been running the big square sail up and down and tacking about the bay since dawn, while the shiphandling sequences were being shot. As the drum of the windlass turned, the oiled walrus-hide rope creaked through the hole in the top of the mast, hauling up the dead weight of the bulky woolen sail, made even heavier by the seal-hide strips that had been sewed on to give it shape. Gino trained the camera up the mast to film it as it rose.

“The time is late,” Ottar said. “If we sail today we better sail soon.”

“We’re just about finished,” Barney told him. “I want to get a good shot of you leaving the bay, and that can be the last one.”

“You shot that shot this morning, sailing into dawn you said.”

“That was from the shore. Now I want to get you and Slithey at the tiller as you sail from your home into the unknown…”

“No woman at no tiller on my ship.”

“She doesn’t have to steer the thing. She’ll just stand by you, maybe hold your arm, that’s not much to ask.”

Ottar shouted a flood of orders as the sail reached the top of the mast. The halyard that had pulled it up was secured to act as a backstay and unfastened from the drum of the windlass, then the anchor rope was attached in its place. With more heaving—caught on film by Gino—the anchor was hauled up and pulled aboard, a seaweed- hung kilik made from a large stone held in a framework of wooden rods. The ship was beginning to gather way as the wind filled the sail and Barney hurried the camera into position.

“Slithey,” he called out. “Onstage, and make it fast.”

It wasn’t easy to get from the fore to the rear deck of the knorr when she was fully loaded. Since there were no holds, and only two tiny sleeping cabins, not only was the cargo packed on deck, but in and around it were over forty people, six stunted cows and a lashed-down bull, a small flock of sheep, and two goats that stood high on the peak of the cargo. The bellowing, baaing and shouting made it hard to think. Slithey