“Madonna mia,” Gino said, straightening up from behind the camera and wiping his forehead on his sleeve. “What tempers these people got. Worse than Siciliani.”
“It is nothing but a stupid waste,” Jens said. He was sitting on the ground holding his stomach with both hands. “They were all frightened, just like children, the emotions of children and the bodies of men. So they kill each other. The waste of it all.”
“But it makes good film,” Barney said. “And we’re not here to interfere with the local customs. What happened to you—get kicked in the stomach during the stampede?”
“Not interfere with the local customs, very humorous. You disrupt these people’s lives completely for your cinematic drivel, then you avoid the consequences of your actions…” He grimaced suddenly, with his teeth clamped tightly together. Barney looked down and gaped at the spreading red patch between Lyn’s fingers.
“You’ve been hurt,” he said, unbelievingly, then spun about. “Tex—the first-aid box, quick!”
“Why the concern about me? I saw you looking at that housecarl with the wounded hand—and that did not seem to bother you. The Norse were reputed to sew up their wounds with carpenter’s thread after a battle. Why don’t you get me some thread?”
“Take it easy, Jens, you’ve been hurt. We’ll take care of you.”
Tex ran up with the first-aid box and put it on the ground next to Jens, kneeling at the wounded man’s side.
“What happened?” he asked in a quiet, surprisingly gentle voice.
“It was a spear,” Jens said. “So quickly, I never realized. I was between the man and the boats. He was panicked. I raised my hands, tried to talk to him, then there was just this stab of pain and he was past and gone.”
“Let me look at it. I’ve seen plenty before, bayonet wounds in New Guinea.” His voice was professional and calm, and when he pulled at Jens’ hands they loosened and came away; with a quick slash of his knife he cut open the bloodstained clothing.
“Not bad,” he said, eyeing the red wound. “Nice clean puncture into the guts. Below the stomach and it doesn’t look deep enough to have got at anything else. Hospital case. They’ll sew up the holes, put in some abdominal drains and fill you full of antibiotics. Try and treat it in the field and you’ll be dead of peritonitis in a couple of days.”
“You are being damn frank,” Lyn said, but he smiled.
“Always,” Tex said, taking out a morphine Syrette and cracking it open. “A guy knows what’s going on he don’t complain about the treatment. Helps him, helps everyone else.” He gave the injection with practiced swiftness.
“Are you sure the nurse cannot treat it here? I don’t wish to return yet…”
“Full salary and bonus,” Barney said cheeringly. “And a private room in the hospital—don’t worry about a thing.”
“It is not money I am concerned with, Mr. Hendrickson. Contrary to your beliefs, there are other things in the world beside a buck. It is what I am learning here that counts. One page of my notes is worth more than every reel of your celluloid monstrosity.”
Barney smiled, trying to change the subject. “They don’t make film out of celluloid any more, Doc. Safety film, can’t burn.”
Tex shook sulpha powder onto the wound and applied a pressure bandage.
“You must ask the doctor to come here,” Lyn said, anxiously. “Have his opinion about my leaving. Once I go the film will be finished and I will never return here, never.”
Almost eagerly, as if to remember everything, he looked around at the bay and the houses and the people. Tex caught Barney’s eye, gave a quick, negative shake of the head, and jerked his thumb toward the company camp. “I’m going for the truck, and I’ll pass the word to the Prof to warm up the platform. Someone ought to bandage that Viking’s hand and give him a bottle of penicillin pills.”
“Bring the nurse back with you,” Barney said. “I’ll stay here with Jens.”
“Let me tell you what I have found out, just by chance,” Jens said, laying his hand on Barney’s arm. “I heard Ottar talking to one of his men about the compass repeater on the ship, and they pronounced it their own way, so that it sounded like usas-notra. It shocked me. There is a word in the Icelandic sagas, mentioned more than once, about a navigation instrument that has never been identified. It is called the húsasnotra. Do you understand? It is possible that the word ‘compass repeater’ has entered the language as húsasnotra. If so, then the impact of our arrival in the eleventh century is greater than any of us imagined. All the possibilities of this must be studied. I cannot return now.”
“That’s interesting, what you say, Jens.” Barney looked toward the camp but the truck wasn’t in sight yet. “You ought to write that up, a scientific paper, that sort of thing.”
“Fool! You have no idea what I am talking about. For you the vremeatron exists only as a device to be prostituted to make a trashy film—”
“Don’t be so free with the insults,” Barney said, trying not to lose his temper with the wounded man. “No one was rushing to help Hewett until we gave him the money. If it hadn’t been for this picture you would still have your nose in the books at U.C.L.A. and wouldn’t have a single one of the facts and figures that you think are so important. I don’t run your job down—don’t run down mine. I’ve heard this prostitution thing before, and it doesn’t wash. Wars prostitute scientists, but all the big inventions seem to get made when there’s a war to pay for them.”
“Wars don’t pay for basic research, and that is where the real developments are made.”
“Begging your pardon, but wars keep the enemy and the bombs far enough away so that the basic researchers have the time and the freedom to do their research.”
“A glib answer, but not a satisfactory one. No matter what you say, time travel is being used to produce a cheap picture, and any historical nuggets of truth will be found only by accident.”
“Not quite right,” Barney said, sighing inwardly as he finally heard the truck’s engine. “We haven’t interfered with your research, if anything we’ve helped it. You’ve had a pretty free hand. And in making this picture we have invested in the vremeatron so that it is now a working proposition. With the stuff you already have you should be able to talk any foundation into financing another time platform and letting you research to your heart’s content.”
“I’ll do just that.”
“But not for a while, yet.” The truck braked to a stop nearby. “We have the professor tied up exclusively for a couple of years, just until we get our investment back of course.”
“Of course,” Jens said bitterly, watching them unload a stretcher from the truck. “Profits first and culture be damned.”
“That’s the name of the game,” Barney said, watching as the philologist was carefully slid into the truck. “You can’t stop the world and get off, so you just have to learn to live on it.”
15
“Better to die like men than live like cowards,” Ottar bellowed. “For Odin and Frigg—follow me!” He held his shield before him as he threw the door open, and two arrows thudded into it. Shouting with rage, he spun his ax and charged out of the burning building. Slithey, waving a sword, followed him, as did Val de Carlo, blowing loudly on the lurhorn, then all of the others.
“Cut. Print that!” Barney shouted and dropped down into his safari chair. “That winds it up gang. Go get your lunch so they can pack up the kitchen.”
The propmen were spraying foam onto the trough of burning oil and it stank abominably. All the lights except one went out and Gino had the camera open, taking out the film. Everything was under control. Barney waited until the rush was over, then went outside too. Ottar was sitting on an upended barrel, folding the arrows back into his shield.