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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18584-h.zip b/18584-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..dd45bd1 --- /dev/null +++ b/18584-h.zip diff --git a/18584-h/18584-h.htm b/18584-h/18584-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..952091f --- /dev/null +++ b/18584-h/18584-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2499 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Edge of the Knife, by H. Beam Piper + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold; text-align:center;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + .tr { text-align: center; + margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; margin-top: 5%; margin-bottom: 5%; padding: 2em; background-color: #f6f2f2; color: black; border: solid black 1px;} + + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Edge of the Knife, by Henry Beam Piper + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Edge of the Knife + +Author: Henry Beam Piper + +Release Date: June 14, 2006 [EBook #18584] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EDGE OF THE KNIFE *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p class="tr">Transcriber's note: <br /> + This etext was produced from Amazing Stories, May 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the copyright on this publication was renewed.</p> + +<p><img src="images/image_01.jpg" alt="Illustration" width="400" height="265" /></p> + + + + +<h1>THE EDGE<br /> + + +OF THE<br /> + + +KNIFE</h1> + +<h2>By H. BEAM PIPER</h2> +<hr style="width:65%" /> + +<p><i>This story was rejected by two top-flight science-fiction editors for +the same reason: "Too hot to handle." "Too dangerous for our book." +We'd like to know whether or not the readers of</i> Amazing Stories +<i>agree. Drop us a line after you've read it.</i></p> +<hr style="width:65%" /> + +<p>Chalmers stopped talking abruptly, warned by the sudden attentiveness +of the class in front of him. They were all staring; even Guellick, in +the fourth row, was almost half awake. Then one of them, taking his +silence as an invitation to questions found his voice.</p> + +<p>"You say Khalid ib'n Hussein's been assassinated?" he asked +incredulously. "When did that happen?"</p> + + + + <div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_02.jpg" alt="There was no past—no future—only a great chaotic +NOW." width="250" height="677" /></div> + <div class="figcenter"><img src="images/image_03.jpg" alt="There was no past—no future—only a great chaotic +NOW." width="400" height="554" /></div> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p class="caption">There was no past—no future—only a great chaotic +NOW.</p> + +<p>"In 1973, at Basra." There was a touch of impatience in his voice; +surely they ought to know that much. "He was shot, while leaving the +Parliament Building, by an Egyptian Arab named Mohammed Noureed, +with an old U. S. Army M3 submachine-gun. Noureed killed two of +Khalid's guards and wounded another before he was overpowered. He was +lynched on the spot by the crowd; stoned to death. Ostensibly, he and +his accomplices were religious fanatics; however, there can be no +doubt whatever that the murder was inspired, at least indirectly, by +the Eastern Axis."</p> + + +<p>The class stirred like a grain-field in the wind. Some looked at him +in blank amazement; some were hastily averting faces red with poorly +suppressed laughter. For a moment he was puzzled, and then realization +hit him like a blow in the stomach-pit. He'd forgotten, again.</p> + +<p>"I didn't see anything in the papers about it," one boy was saying.</p> + +<p>"The newscast, last evening, said Khalid was in Ankara, talking to the +President of Turkey," another offered.</p> + +<p>"Professor Chalmers, would you tell us just what effect Khalid's death +had upon the Islamic Caliphate and the Middle Eastern situation in +general?" a third voice asked with exaggerated solemnity. That was +Kendrick, the class humorist; the question was pure baiting.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mr. Kendrick, I'm afraid it's a little too early to assess the +full results of a thing like that, if they can ever be fully assessed. +For instance, who, in 1911, could have predicted all the consequences +of the pistol-shot at Sarajevo? Who, even today, can guess what the +history of the world would have been had Zangarra not missed Franklin +Roosevelt in 1932? There's always that if."</p> + +<p>He went on talking safe generalities as he glanced covertly at his +watch. Only five minutes to the end of the period; thank heaven he +hadn't made that slip at the beginning of the class. "For instance, +tomorrow, when we take up the events in India from the First World War +to the end of British rule, we will be largely concerned with another +victim of the assassin's bullet, Mohandas K. Gandhi. You may ask +yourselves, then, by how much that bullet altered the history of the +Indian sub-continent. A word of warning, however: The events we will +be discussing will be either contemporary with or prior to what was +discussed today. I hope that you're all keeping your notes properly +dated. It's always easy to become confused in matters of chronology."</p> + +<p>He wished, too late, that he hadn't said that. It pointed up the very +thing he was trying to play down, and raised a general laugh.</p> + +<p>As soon as the room was empty, he hastened to his desk, snatched +pencil and notepad. This had been a bad one, the worst yet; he hadn't +heard the end of it by any means. He couldn't waste thought on that +now, though. This was all new and important; it had welled up suddenly +and without warning into his conscious mind, and he must get it down +in notes before the "memory"—even mentally, he always put that word +into quotes—was lost. He was still scribbling furiously when the +instructor who would use the room for the next period entered, +followed by a few of his students. Chalmers finished, crammed the +notes into his pocket, and went out into the hall.</p> + +<p>Most of his own Modern History IV class had left the building and were +on their way across the campus for science classes. A few, however, +were joining groups for other classes here in Prescott Hall, and in +every group, they were the center of interest. Sometimes, when they +saw him, they would fall silent until he had passed; sometimes they +didn't, and he caught snatches of conversation.</p> + +<p>"Oh, brother! Did Chalmers really blow his jets this time!" one voice +was saying.</p> + +<p>"Bet he won't be around next year."</p> + +<p>Another quartet, with their heads together, were talking more +seriously.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm not majoring in History, myself, but I think it's an +outrage that some people's diplomas are going to depend on grades +given by a lunatic!"</p> + +<p>"Mine will, and I'm not going to stand for it. My old man's president +of the Alumni Association, and...."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>That was something he had not thought of, before. It gave him an ugly +start. He was still thinking about it as he turned into the side hall +to the History Department offices and entered the cubicle he shared +with a colleague. The colleague, old Pottgeiter, Medieval History, was +emerging in a rush; short, rotund, gray-bearded, his arms full of +books and papers, oblivious, as usual, to anything that had happened +since the Battle of Bosworth or the Fall of Constantinople. Chalmers +stepped quickly out of his way and entered behind him. Marjorie +Fenner, the secretary they also shared, was tidying up the old man's +desk.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Doctor Chalmers." She looked at him keenly for a +moment. "They give you a bad time again in Modern Four?"</p> + +<p>Good Lord, did he show it that plainly? In any case, it was no use +trying to kid Marjorie. She'd hear the whole story before the end of +the day.</p> + +<p>"Gave myself a bad time."</p> + + + +<p>Marjorie, still fussing with Pottgeiter's desk, was about to say +something in reply. Instead, she exclaimed in exasperation.</p> + +<p>"Ohhh! That man! He's forgotten his notes again!" She gathered some +papers from Pottgeiter's desk, rushing across the room and out the +door with them.</p> + +<p>For a while, he sat motionless, the books and notes for General +European History II untouched in front of him. This was going to raise +hell. It hadn't been the first slip he'd made, either; that thought +kept recurring to him. There had been the time when he had alluded to +the colonies on Mars and Venus. There had been the time he'd mentioned +the secession of Canada from the British Commonwealth, and the time +he'd called the U. N. the Terran Federation. And the time he'd tried +to get a copy of Franchard's <i>Rise and Decline of the System States</i>, +which wouldn't be published until the Twenty-eighth Century, out of +the college library. None of those had drawn much comment, beyond a +few student jokes about the history professor who lived in the future +instead of the past. Now, however, they'd all be remembered, raked up, +exaggerated, and added to what had happened this morning.</p> + +<p>He sighed and sat down at Marjorie's typewriter and began transcribing +his notes. Assassination of Khalid ib'n Hussein, the pro-Western +leader of the newly formed Islamic Caliphate; period of anarchy in the +Middle East; interfactional power-struggles; Turkish intervention. He +wondered how long that would last; Khalid's son, Tallal ib'n Khalid, +was at school in England when his father was—would be—killed. He +would return, and eventually take his father's place, in time to bring +the Caliphate into the Terran Federation when the general war came. +There were some notes on that already; the war would result from an +attempt by the Indian Communists to seize East Pakistan. The trouble +was that he so seldom "remembered" an exact date. His "memory" of the +year of Khalid's assassination was an exception.</p> + +<p>Nineteen seventy-three—why, that was this year. He looked at the +calendar. October 16, 1973. At very most, the Arab statesman had two +and a half months to live. Would there be any possible way in which he +could give a credible warning? He doubted it. Even if there were, he +questioned whether he should—for that matter, whether he +<i>could</i>—interfere....</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>He always lunched at the Faculty Club; today was no time to call +attention to himself by breaking an established routine. As he +entered, trying to avoid either a furtive slink or a chip-on-shoulder +swagger, the crowd in the lobby stopped talking abruptly, then began +again on an obviously changed subject. The word had gotten around, +apparently. Handley, the head of the Latin Department, greeted him +with a distantly polite nod. Pompous old owl; regarded himself, for +some reason, as a sort of unofficial Dean of the Faculty. Probably +didn't want to be seen fraternizing with controversial characters. +One of the younger men, with a thin face and a mop of unruly hair, +advanced to meet him as he came in, as cordial as Handley was remote.</p> + +<p>"Oh, hello, Ed!" he greeted, clapping a hand on Chalmers' shoulder. "I +was hoping I'd run into you. Can you have dinner with us this +evening?" He was sincere.</p> + +<p>"Well, thanks, Leonard. I'd like to, but I have a lot of work. Could +you give me a rain-check?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, surely. My wife was wishing you'd come around, but I know how it +is. Some other evening?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed." He guided Fitch toward the dining-room door and nodded +toward a table. "This doesn't look too crowded; let's sit here."</p> + +<p>After lunch, he stopped in at his office. Marjorie Fenner was there, +taking dictation from Pottgeiter; she nodded to him as he entered, but +she had no summons to the president's office.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The summons was waiting for him, the next morning, when he entered the +office after Modern History IV, a few minutes past ten.</p> + +<p>"Doctor Whitburn just phoned," Marjorie said. "He'd like to see you, +as soon as you have a vacant period."</p> + +<p>"Which means right away. I shan't keep him waiting."</p> + +<p>She started to say something, swallowed it, and then asked if he +needed anything typed up for General European II.</p> + +<p>"No, I have everything ready." He pocketed the pipe he had filled on +entering, and went out.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The president of Blanley College sat hunched forward at his desk; he +had rounded shoulders and round, pudgy fists and a round, bald head. +He seemed to be expecting his visitor to stand at attention in front +of him. Chalmers got the pipe out of his pocket, sat down in the +desk-side chair, and snapped his lighter.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Doctor Whitburn," he said very pleasantly.</p> + +<p>Whitburn's scowl deepened. "I hope I don't have to tell you why I +wanted to see you," he began.</p> + +<p>"I have an idea." Chalmers puffed until the pipe was drawing +satisfactorily. "It might help you get started if you did, though."</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose, at that, that you realize the full effect of your +performance, yesterday morning, in Modern History Four," Whitburn +replied. "I don't suppose you know, for instance, that I had to +intervene at the last moment and suppress an editorial in the <i>Black +and Green</i>, derisively critical of you and your teaching methods, and, +by implication, of the administration of this college. You didn't hear +about that, did you? No, living as you do in the future, you +wouldn't."</p> + +<p>"If the students who edit the <i>Black and Green</i> are dissatisfied with +anything here, I'd imagine they ought to say so," Chalmers commented. +"Isn't that what they teach in the journalism classes, that the +purpose of journalism is to speak for the dissatisfied? Why make +exception?"</p> + +<p>"I should think you'd be grateful to me for trying to keep your +behavior from being made a subject of public ridicule among your +students. Why, this editorial which I suppressed actually went so far +as to question your sanity!"</p> + +<p>"I should suppose it might have sounded a good deal like that, to +them. Of course, I have been preoccupied, lately, with an imaginative +projection of present trends into the future. I'll quite freely admit +that I should have kept my extracurricular work separate from my +class and lecture work, but...."</p> + +<p>"That's no excuse, even if I were sure it were true! What you did, +while engaged in the serious teaching of history, was to indulge in a +farrago of nonsense, obvious as such to any child, and damage not only +your own standing with your class but the standing of Blanley College +as well. Doctor Chalmers, if this were the first incident of the kind +it would be bad enough, but it isn't. You've done things like this +before, and I've warned you before. I assumed, then, that you were +merely showing the effects of overwork, and I offered you a vacation, +which you refused to take. Well, this is the limit. I'm compelled to +request your immediate resignation."</p> + +<p>Chalmers laughed. "A moment ago, you accused me of living in the +future. It seems you're living in the past. Evidently you haven't +heard about the Higher Education Faculty Tenure Act of 1963, or such +things as tenure-contracts. Well, for your information, I have one; +you signed it yourself, in case you've forgotten. If you want my +resignation, you'll have to show cause, in a court of law, why my +contract should be voided, and I don't think a slip of the tongue is +a reason for voiding a contract that any court would accept."</p> + + + +<p>Whitburn's face reddened. "You don't, don't you? Well, maybe it isn't, +but insanity is. It's a very good reason for voiding a contract +voidable on grounds of unfitness or incapacity to teach."</p> + +<p>He had been expecting, and mentally shrinking from, just that. Now +that it was out, however, he felt relieved. He gave another short +laugh.</p> + +<p>"You're willing to go into open court, covered by reporters from +papers you can't control as you do this student sheet here, and +testify that for the past twelve years you've had an insane professor +on your faculty?"</p> + +<p>"You're.... You're trying to blackmail me?" Whitburn demanded, half +rising.</p> + +<p>"It isn't blackmail to tell a man that a bomb he's going to throw will +blow up in his hand." Chalmers glanced quickly at his watch. "Now, +Doctor Whitburn, if you have nothing further to discuss, I have a +class in a few minutes. If you'll excuse me...."</p> + +<p>He rose. For a moment, he stood facing Whitburn; when the college +president said nothing, he inclined his head politely and turned, +going out.</p> + +<p>Whitburn's secretary gave the impression of having seated herself +hastily at her desk the second before he opened the door. She watched +him, round-eyed, as he went out into the hall.</p> + +<p>He reached his own office ten minutes before time for the next class. +Marjorie was typing something for Pottgeiter; he merely nodded to her, +and picked up the phone. The call would have to go through the school +exchange, and he had a suspicion that Whitburn kept a check on outside +calls. That might not hurt any, he thought, dialing a number.</p> + +<p>"Attorney Weill's office," the girl who answered said.</p> + +<p>"Edward Chalmers. Is Mr. Weill in?"</p> + +<p>She'd find out. He was; he answered in a few seconds.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Stanly; Ed Chalmers. I think I'm going to need a little help. +I'm having some trouble with President Whitburn, here at the college. +A matter involving the validity of my tenure-contract. I don't want to +go into it over this line. Have you anything on for lunch?"</p> + +<p>"No, I haven't. When and where?" the lawyer asked.</p> + +<p>He thought for a moment. Nowhere too close the campus, but not too far +away.</p> + +<p>"How about the Continental; Fontainbleu Room? Say twelve-fifteen."</p> + +<p>"That'll be all right. Be seeing you."</p> + +<p>Marjorie looked at him curiously as he gathered up the things he +needed for the next class.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Stanly Weill had a thin dark-eyed face. He was frowning as he set down +his coffee-cup.</p> + +<p>"Ed, you ought to know better than to try to kid your lawyer," he +said. "You say Whitburn's trying to force you to resign. With your +contract, he can't do that, not without good and sufficient cause, and +under the Faculty Tenure Law, that means something just an inch short +of murder in the first degree. Now, what's Whitburn got on you?"</p> + +<p>Beat around the bush and try to build a background, or come out with +it at once and fill in the details afterward? He debated mentally for +a moment, then decided upon the latter course.</p> + +<p>"Well, it happens that I have the ability to prehend future events. I +can, by concentrating, bring into my mind the history of the world, at +least in general outline, for the next five thousand years. Whitburn +thinks I'm crazy, mainly because I get confused at times and forget +that something I know about hasn't happened yet."</p> + +<p>Weill snatched the cigarette from his mouth to keep from swallowing +it. As it was, he choked on a mouthful of smoke and coughed violently, +then sat back in the booth-seat, staring speechlessly.</p> + +<p>"It started a little over three years ago," Chalmers continued. "Just +after New Year's, 1970. I was getting up a series of seminars for some +of my postgraduate students on extrapolation of present social and +political trends to the middle of the next century, and I began to +find that I was getting some very fixed and definite ideas of what the +world of 2050 to 2070 would be like. Completely unified world, +abolition of all national states under a single world sovereignty, +colonies on Mars and Venus, that sort of thing. Some of these ideas +didn't seem quite logical; a number of them were complete reversals of +present trends, and a lot seemed to depend on arbitrary and +unpredictable factors. Mind, this was before the first rocket landed +on the Moon, when the whole moon-rocket and lunar-base project was a +triple-top secret. But I knew, in the spring of 1970, that the first +unmanned rocket would be called the <i>Kilroy</i>, and that it would be +launched some time in 1971. You remember, when the news was released, +it was stated that the rocket hadn't been christened until the day +before it was launched, when somebody remembered that old +'Kilroy-was-here' thing from the Second World War. Well, I knew about +it over a year in advance."</p> + + +<p>Weill had been listening in silence. He had a naturally skeptical +face; his present expression mightn't really mean that he didn't +believe what he was hearing.</p> + +<p>"How'd you get all this stuff? In dreams?"</p> + +<p>Chalmers shook his head. "It just came to me. I'd be sitting reading, +or eating dinner, or talking to one of my classes, and the first thing +I'd know, something out of the future would come bubbling up in me. It +just kept pushing up into my conscious mind. I wouldn't have an idea +of something one minute, and the next it would just be part of my +general historical knowledge; I'd know it as positively as I know that +Columbus discovered America in. 1492. The only difference is that I +can usually remember where I've read something in past history, but my +future history I know without knowing how I know it."</p> + +<p>"Ah, that's the question!" Weill pounced. "You don't know how you know +it. Look, Ed, we've both studied psychology, elementary psychology at +least. Anybody who has to work with people, these days, has to know +some psychology. What makes you sure that these prophetic impressions +of yours aren't manufactured in your own subconscious mind?"</p> + +<p>"That's what I thought, at first. I thought my subconscious was just +building up this stuff to fill the gaps in what I'd produced from +logical extrapolation. I've always been a stickler for detail," he +added, parenthetically. "It would be natural for me to supply details +for the future. But, as I said, a lot of this stuff is based on +unpredictable and arbitrary factors that can't be inferred from +anything in the present. That left me with the alternatives of +delusion or precognition, and if I ever came near going crazy, it was +before the <i>Kilroy</i> landed and the news was released. After that, I +knew which it was."</p> + +<p>"And yet, you can't explain how you can have real knowledge of a +thing before it happens. Before it exists," Weill said.</p> + + + +<p>"I really don't need to. I'm satisfied with knowing that I know. But +if you want me to furnish a theory, let's say that all these things +really do exist, in the past or in the future, and that the present is +just a moving knife-edge that separates the two. You can't even +indicate the present. By the time you make up your mind to say, 'Now!' +and transmit the impulse to your vocal organs, and utter the word, the +original present moment is part of the past. The knife-edge has gone +over it. Most people think they know only the present; what they know +is the past, which they have already experienced, or read about. The +difference with me is that I can see what's on both sides of the +knife-edge."</p> + +<p>Weill put another cigarette in his mouth and bent his head to the +flame of his lighter. For a moment, he sat motionless, his thin face +rigid.</p> + +<p>"What do you want me to do?" he asked. "I'm a lawyer, not a +psychiatrist."</p> + +<p>"I want a lawyer. This is a legal matter. Whitburn's talking about +voiding my tenure contract. You helped draw it; I have a right to +expect you to help defend it."</p> + +<p>"Ed, have you been talking about this to anybody else?" Weill asked.</p> + +<p>"You're the first person I've mentioned it to. It's not the sort of +thing you'd bring up casually, in a conversation."</p> + +<p>"Then how'd Whitburn get hold of it?"</p> + +<p>"He didn't, not the way I've given it to you. But I made a couple of +slips, now and then. I made a bad one yesterday morning."</p> + +<p>He told Weill about it, and about his session with the president of +the college that morning. The lawyer nodded.</p> + +<p>"That was a bad one, but you handled Whitburn the right way," Weill +said. "What he's most afraid of is publicity, getting the college +mixed up in anything controversial, and above all, the reactions of +the trustees and people like that. If Dacre or anybody else makes any +trouble, he'll do his best to cover for you. Not willingly, of course, +but because he'll know that that's the only way he can cover for +himself. I don't think you'll have any more trouble with him. If you +can keep your own nose clean, that is. Can you do that?"</p> + +<p>"I believe so. Yesterday I got careless. I'll not do that again."</p> + +<p>"You'd better not." Weill hesitated for a moment. "I said I was a +lawyer, not a psychiatrist. I'm going to give you some psychiatrist's +advice, though. Forget this whole thing. You say you can bring these +impressions into your conscious mind by concentrating?" He waited +briefly; Chalmers nodded, and he continued: "Well, stop it. Stop +trying to harbor this stuff. It's dangerous, Ed. Stop playing around +with it."</p> + +<p>"You think I'm crazy, too?"</p> + +<p>Weill shook his head impatiently. "I didn't say that. But I'll say, +now, that you're losing your grip on reality. You are constructing a +system of fantasies, and the first thing you know, they will become +your reality, and the world around you will be unreal and illusory. +And that's a state of mental incompetence that I can recognize, as a +lawyer."</p> + +<p>"How about the <i>Kilroy</i>?"</p> + + +<p>Weill looked at him intently. "Ed, are you sure you did have that +experience?" he asked. "I'm not trying to imply that you're +consciously lying to me about that. I am suggesting that you +manufactured a memory of that incident in your subconscious mind, and +are deluding yourself into thinking that you knew about it in advance. +False memory is a fairly common thing, in cases like this. Even the +little psychology I know, I've heard about that. There's been talk +about rockets to the Moon for years. You included something about that +in your future-history fantasy, and then, after the event, you +convinced yourself that you'd known all about it, including the +impromptu christening of the rocket, all along."</p> + + + +<p>A hot retort rose to his lips; he swallowed it hastily. Instead, he +nodded amicably.</p> + +<p>"That's a point worth thinking of. But right now, what I want to know +is, will you represent me in case Whitburn does take this to court and +does try to void my contract?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; as you said, I have an obligation to defend the contracts I +draw up. But you'll have to avoid giving him any further reason for +trying to void it. Don't make any more of these slips. Watch what you +say, in class or out of it. And above all, don't talk about this to +anybody. Don't tell anybody that you can foresee the future, or even +talk about future probabilities. Your business is with the past; +stick to it."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The afternoon passed quietly enough. Word of his defiance of Whitburn +had gotten around among the faculty—Whitburn might have his secretary +scared witless in his office, but not gossipless outside it—though it +hadn't seemed to have leaked down to the students yet. Handley, the +Latin professor, managed to waylay him in a hallway, a hallway Handley +didn't normally use.</p> + +<p>"The tenure-contract system under which we hold our positions here is +one of our most valuable safeguards," he said, after exchanging +greetings. "It was only won after a struggle, in a time of public +animosity toward all intellectuals, and even now, our professional +position would be most insecure without it."</p> + +<p>"Yes. I found that out today, if I hadn't known it when I took part in +the struggle you speak of."</p> + +<p>"It should not be jeopardized," Handley declared.</p> + +<p>"You think I'm jeopardizing it?"</p> + +<p>Handley frowned. He didn't like being pushed out of the safety of +generalization into specific cases.</p> + +<p>"Well, now that you make that point, yes. I do. If Doctor Whitburn +tries to make an issue of ... of what happened yesterday ... and if +the court decides against you, you can see the position all of us will +be in."</p> + +<p>"What do you think I should have done? Given him my resignation when +he demanded it? We have our tenure-contracts, and the system was +instituted to prevent just the sort of arbitrary action Whitburn tried +to take with me today. If he wants to go to court, he'll find that +out."</p> + +<p>"And if he wins, he'll establish a precedent that will threaten the +security of every college and university faculty member in the state. +In any state where there's a tenure law."</p> + +<p>Leonard Fitch, the psychologist, took an opposite attitude. As +Chalmers was leaving the college at the end of the afternoon, Fitch +cut across the campus to intercept him.</p> + +<p>"I heard about the way you stood up to Whitburn this morning, Ed," he +said. "Glad you did it. I only wish I'd done something like that three +years ago.... Think he's going to give you any real trouble?"</p> + +<p>"I doubt it."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm on your side if he does. I won't be the only one, either."</p> + +<p>"Well, thank you, Leonard. It always helps to know that. I don't think +there'll be any more trouble, though."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>He dined alone at his apartment, and sat over his coffee, outlining +his work for the next day. When both were finished, he dallied +indecisively, Weill's words echoing through his mind and raising +doubts. It was possible that he had been manufacturing the whole thing +in his subconscious mind. That was, at least, a more plausible theory +than any he had constructed to explain an ability to produce real +knowledge of the future. Of course, there was that business about the +<i>Kilroy</i>. That had been too close on too many points to be dismissed +as coincidence. Then, again, Weill's words came back to disquiet him. +Had he really gotten that before the event, as he believed, or had he +only imagined, later, that he had?</p> + +<p>There was one way to settle that. He rose quickly and went to the +filing-cabinet where he kept his future-history notes and began +pulling out envelopes. There was nothing about the <i>Kilroy</i> in the +Twentieth Century file, where it should be, although he examined each +sheet of notes carefully. The possibility that his notes on that might +have been filed out of place by mistake occurred to him; he looked in +every other envelope. The notes, as far as they went, were all filed +in order, and each one bore, beside the future date of occurrence, the +date on which the knowledge—or must he call it delusion?—had come to +him. But there was no note on the landing of the first unmanned rocket +on Luna.</p> + + + +<p>He put the notes away and went back to his desk, rummaging through the +drawers, and finding nothing. He searched everywhere in the apartment +where a sheet of paper could have been mislaid, taking all his +books, one by one, from the shelves and leafing through them, even +books he knew he had not touched for more than three years. In the +end, he sat down again at his desk, defeated. The note on the <i>Kilroy</i> +simply did not exist.</p> + +<p>Of course, that didn't settle it, as finding the note would have. He +remembered—or believed he remembered—having gotten that item of +knowledge—or delusion—in 1970, shortly before the end of the school +term. It hadn't been until after the fall opening of school that he +had begun making notes. He could have had the knowledge of the robot +rocket in his mind then, and neglected putting it on paper.</p> + +<p>He undressed, put on his pajamas, poured himself a drink, and went to +bed. Three hours later, still awake, he got up, and poured himself +another, bigger, drink. Somehow, eventually, he fell asleep.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The next morning, he searched his desk and book-case in the office at +school. He had never kept a diary; now he was wishing that he had. +That might have contained something that would be evidence, one way or +the other. All day, he vacillated between conviction of the reality of +his future knowledge and resolution to have no more to do with it. +Once he decided to destroy all the notes he had made, and thought of +making a special study of some facet of history, and writing another +book, to occupy his mind.</p> + +<p>After lunch, he found that more data on the period immediately before +the Thirty Days' War was coming into his consciousness. He resolutely +suppressed it, knowing as he did that it might never come to him +again. That evening, too, he cooked dinner for himself at his +apartment, and laid out his class-work for the next day. He'd better +not stay in, that evening; too much temptation to settle himself by +the living-room fire with his pipe and his notepad and indulge in the +vice he had determined to renounce. After a little debate, he decided +upon a movie; he put on again the suit he had taken off on coming +home, and went out.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The picture, a random choice among the three shows in the +neighborhood, was about Seventeenth Century buccaneers; exciting +action and a sound-track loud with shots and cutlass-clashing. He let +himself be drawn into it completely, and, until it was finished, he +was able to forget both the college and the history of the future. +But, as he walked home, he was struck by the parallel between the +buccaneers of the West Indies and the space-pirates in the days of the +dissolution of the First Galactic Empire, in the Tenth Century of the +Interstellar Era. He hadn't been too clear on that period, and he +found new data rising in his mind; he hurried his steps, almost +running upstairs to his room. It was long after midnight before he had +finished the notes he had begun on his return home.</p> + +<p>Well, that had been a mistake, but he wouldn't make it again. He +determined again to destroy his notes, and began casting about for a +subject which would occupy his mind to the exclusion of the future. +Not the Spanish Conquistadores; that was too much like the early +period of interstellar expansion. He thought for a time of the Sepoy +Mutiny, and then rejected it—he could "remember" something much like +that on one of the planets of the Beta Hydrae system, in the Fourth +Century of the Atomic Era. There were so few things, in the history of +the past, which did not have their counter-parts in the future. That +evening, too, he stayed at home, preparing for his various classes for +the rest of the week and making copious notes on what he would talk +about to each. He needed more whiskey to get to sleep that night.</p> + +<p>Whitburn gave him no more trouble, and if any of the trustees or +influential alumni made any protest about what had happened in Modern +History IV, he heard nothing about it. He managed to conduct his +classes without further incidents, and spent his evenings trying, not +always successfully, to avoid drifting into "memories" of the +future....</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>He came into his office that morning tired and unrefreshed by the few +hours' sleep he had gotten the night before, edgy from the strain, of +trying to adjust his mind to the world of Blanley College in mid-April +of 1973. Pottgeiter hadn't arrived yet, but Marjorie Fenner was +waiting for him; a newspaper in her hand, almost bursting with +excitement.</p> + +<p>"Here; have you seen it, Doctor Chalmers?" she asked as he entered.</p> + +<p>He shook his head. He ought to read the papers more, to keep track of +the advancing knife-edge that divided what he might talk about from +what he wasn't supposed to know, but each morning he seemed to have +less and less time to get ready for work.</p> + +<p>"Well, look! Look at that!"</p> + +<p>She thrust the paper into his hands, still folded, the big, black +headline where he could see it.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><b>KHALID IB'N HUSSEIN ASSASSINATED</b></p> +</div> + +<p>He glanced over the leading paragraphs. Leader of Islamic Caliphate +shot to death in Basra ... leaving Parliament Building for his palace +outside the city ... fanatic, identified as an Egyptian named Mohammed +Noureed ... old American submachine-gun ... two guards killed and a +third seriously wounded ... seized by infuriated mob and stoned to +death on the spot....</p> + +<p>For a moment, he felt guilt, until he realized that nothing he could +have done could have altered the event. The death of Khalid ib'n +Hussein, and all the millions of other deaths that would follow it, +were fixed in the matrix of the space-time continuum. Including, +maybe, the death of an obscure professor of Modern History named +Edward Chalmers.</p> + +<p>"At least, this'll be the end of that silly flap about what happened a +month ago in Modern Four. This is modern history, now; I can talk +about it without a lot of fools yelling their heads off."</p> + +<p>She was staring at him wide-eyed. No doubt horrified at his +cold-blooded attitude toward what was really a shocking and senseless +crime.</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course; the man's dead. So's Julius Caesar, but we've gotten +over being shocked at his murder."</p> + +<p>He would have to talk about it in Modern History IV, he supposed; +explain why Khalid's death was necessary to the policies of the +Eastern Axis, and what the consequences would be. How it would hasten +the complete dissolution of the old U. N., already weakened by the +crisis over the Eastern demands for the demilitarization and +internationalization of the United States Lunar Base, and necessitate +the formation of the Terran Federation, and how it would lead, +eventually, to the Thirty Days' War. No, he couldn't talk about that; +that was on the wrong side of the knife-edge. Have to be careful about +the knife-edge; too easy to cut himself on it.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Nobody in Modern History IV was seated when he entered the room; they +were all crowded between the door and his desk. He stood blinking, +wondering why they were giving him an ovation, and why Kendrick and +Dacre were so abjectly apologetic. Great heavens, did it take the +murder of the greatest Moslem since Saladin to convince people that he +wasn't crazy?</p> + +<p>Before the period was over, Whitburn's secretary entered with a note +in the college president's hand and over his signature; requesting +Chalmers to come to his office immediately and without delay. Just +like that; expected him to walk right out of his class. He was +protesting as he entered the president's office. Whitburn cut him off +short.</p> + +<p>"Doctor Chalmers,"—Whitburn had risen behind his desk as the door +opened—"I certainly hope that you can realize that there was nothing +but the most purely coincidental connection between the event featured +in this morning's newspapers and your performance, a month ago, in +Modern History Four," he began.</p> + +<p>"I realize nothing of the sort. The death of Khalid ib'n Hussein is a +fact of history, unalterably set in its proper place in time-sequence. +It was a fact of history a month ago no less than today."</p> + +<p>"So that's going to be your attitude; that your wild utterances of a +month ago have now been vindicated as fulfilled prophesies? And I +suppose you intend to exploit this—this coincidence—to the utmost. +The involvement of Blanley College in a mess of sensational publicity +means nothing to you, I presume."</p> + +<p>"I haven't any idea what you're talking about."</p> + +<p>"You mean to tell me that you didn't give this story to the local +newspaper, the <i>Valley Times</i>?" Whitburn demanded.</p> + +<p>"I did not. I haven't mentioned the subject to anybody connected with +the <i>Times</i>, or anybody else, for that matter. Except my attorney, a +month ago, when you were threatening to repudiate the contract you +signed with me."</p> + +<p>"I suppose I'm expected to take your word for that?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you are. Unless you care to call me a liar in so many words." He +moved a step closer. Lloyd Whitburn outweighed him by fifty pounds, +but most of the difference was fat. Whitburn must have realized that, +too.</p> + +<p>"No, no; if you say you haven't talked about it to the <i>Valley Times</i>, +that's enough," he said hastily. "But somebody did. A reporter was +here not twenty minutes ago; he refused to say who had given him the +story, but he wanted to question me about it."</p> + +<p>"What did you tell him?"</p> + +<p>"I refused to make any statement whatever. I also called Colonel +Tighlman, the owner of the paper, and asked him, very reasonably, to +suppress the story. I thought that my own position and the importance +of Blanley College to this town entitled me to that much +consideration." Whitburn's face became almost purple. "He ... he +laughed at me!"</p> + + +<p>"Newspaper people don't like to be told to kill stories. Not even by +college presidents. That's only made things worse. Personally, I don't +relish the prospect of having this publicized, any more than you do. I +can assure you that I shall be most guarded if any of the <i>Times</i> +reporters talk to me about it, and if I have time to get back to my +class before the end of the period, I shall ask them, as a personal +favor, not to discuss the matter outside."</p> + +<p>Whitburn didn't take the hint. Instead, he paced back and forth, +storming about the reporter, the newspaper owner, whoever had given +the story to the paper, and finally Chalmers himself. He was livid +with rage.</p> + +<p>"You certainly can't imagine that when you made those remarks in class +you actually possessed any knowledge of a thing that was still a month +in the future," he spluttered. "Why, it's ridiculous! Utterly +preposterous!"</p> + +<p>"Unusual, I'll admit. But the fact remains that I did. I should, of +course, have been more careful, and not confused future with past +events. The students didn't understand...."</p> + +<p>Whitburn half-turned, stopping short.</p> + +<p>"My God, man! You <i>are</i> crazy!" he cried, horrified.</p> + +<p>The period-bell was ringing as he left Whitburn's office; that meant +that the twenty-three students were scattering over the campus, +talking like mad. He shrugged. Keeping them quiet about a thing like +this wouldn't have been possible in any case. When he entered his +office, Stanly Weill was waiting for him. The lawyer drew him out into +the hallway quickly.</p> + +<p>"For God's sake, have you been talking to the papers?" he demanded. +"After what I told you...."</p> + +<p>"No, but somebody has." He told about the call to Whitburn's office, +and the latter's behavior. Weill cursed the college president +bitterly.</p> + +<p>"Any time you want to get a story in the <i>Valley Times</i>, just order +Frank Tighlman not to print it. Well, if you haven't talked, don't."</p> + +<p>"Suppose somebody asks me?"</p> + +<p>"A reporter, no comment. Anybody else, none of his damn business. And +above all, don't let anybody finagle you into making any claims about +knowing the future. I thought we had this under control; now that +it's out in the open, what that fool Whitburn'll do is anybody's +guess."</p> + +<p>Leonard Fitch met him as he entered the Faculty Club, sizzling with +excitement.</p> + +<p>"Ed, this has done it!" he began, jubilantly. "This is one nobody can +laugh off. It's direct proof of precognition, and because of the +prominence of the event, everybody will hear about it. And it simply +can't be dismissed as coincidence...."</p> + +<p>"Whitburn's trying to do that."</p> + +<p>"Whitburn's a fool if he is," another man said calmly. Turning, he saw +that the speaker was Tom Smith, one of the math professors. "I figured +the odds against that being chance. There are a lot of variables that +might affect it one way or another, but ten to the fifteenth power is +what I get for a sort of median figure."</p> + +<p>"Did you give that story to the <i>Valley Times?</i>" he asked Fitch, +suspicion rising and dragging anger up after it.</p> + +<p>"Of course, I did," Fitch said. "I'll admit, I had to go behind your +back and have some of my postgrads get statements from the boys in +your history class, but you wouldn't talk about it yourself...."</p> + + +<p>Tom Smith was standing beside him. He was twenty years younger than +Chalmers, he was an amateur boxer, and he had good reflexes. He caught +Chalmers' arm as it was traveling back for an uppercut, and held it.</p> + +<p>"Take it easy, Ed; you don't want to start a slugfest in here. This is +the Faculty Club; remember?"</p> + +<p>"I won't, Tom; it wouldn't prove anything if I did." He turned to +Fitch. "I won't talk about sending your students to pump mine, but at +least you could have told me before you gave that story out."</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you're sore about," Fitch defended himself. "I +believed in you when everybody else thought you were crazy, and if I +hadn't collected signed and dated statements from your boys, there'd +have been no substantiation. It happens that extrasensory perception +means as much to me as history does to you. I've believed in it ever +since I read about Rhine's work, when I was a kid. I worked in ESP for +a long time. Then I had a chance to get a full professorship by coming +here, and after I did, I found that I couldn't go on with it, because +Whitburn's president here, and he's a stupid old bigot with an +air-locked mind...."</p> + +<p>"Yes." His anger died down as Fitch spoke. "I'm glad Tom stopped me +from making an ass of myself. I can see your side of it." Maybe that +was the curse of the professional intellectual, an ability to see +everybody's side of everything. He thought for a moment. "What else +did you do, beside hand this story to the <i>Valley Times?</i> I'd better +hear all about it."</p> + +<p>"I phoned the secretary of the American Institute of Psionics and +Parapsychology, as soon as I saw this morning's paper. With the +time-difference to the East Coast, I got him just as he reached his +office. He advised me to give the thing the widest possible publicity; +he thought that would advance the recognition and study of +parapsychology. A case like this can't be ignored; it will demand +serious study...."</p> + +<p>"Well, you got your publicity, all right. I'm up to my neck in it."</p> + +<p>There was an uproar outside. The doorman was saying, firmly:</p> + +<p>"This is the Faculty Club, gentlemen; it's for members only. I don't +care if you gentlemen are the press, you simply cannot come in here."</p> + +<p>"We're all up to our necks in it," Smith said. "Leonard, I don't care +what your motives were, you ought to have considered the effect on the +rest of us first."</p> + +<p>"This place will be a madhouse," Handley complained. "How we're going +to get any of these students to keep their minds on their work...."</p> + +<p>"I tell you, I don't know a confounded thing about it," Max +Pottgeiter's voice rose petulantly at the door. "Are you trying to +tell me that Professor Chalmers murdered some Arab? Ridiculous!"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>He ate hastily and without enjoyment, and slipped through the kitchen +and out the back door, cutting between two frat-houses and circling +back to Prescott Hall. On the way, he paused momentarily and chuckled. +The reporters, unable to storm the Faculty Club, had gone off in chase +of other game and had cornered Lloyd Whitburn in front of +Administration Center. They had a jeep with a sound-camera mounted on +it, and were trying to get something for telecast. After gesticulating +angrily, Whitburn broke away from them and dashed up the steps and +into the building. A campus policeman stopped those who tried to +follow.</p> + + + +<p>His only afternoon class was American History III. He got through it +somehow, though the class wasn't able to concentrate on the +Reconstruction and the first election of Grover Cleveland. The halls +were free of reporters, at least, and when it was over he hurried to +the Library, going to the faculty reading-room in the rear, where he +could smoke. There was nobody there but old Max Pottgeiter, smoking a +cigar, his head bent over a book. The Medieval History professor +looked up.</p> + +<p>"Oh, hello, Chalmers. What the deuce is going on around here? Has +everybody gone suddenly crazy?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Well, they seem to think I have," he said bitterly.</p> + +<p>"They do? Stupid of them. What's all this about some Arab being shot? +I didn't know there were any Arabs around here."</p> + +<p>"Not here. At Basra." He told Pottgeiter what had happened.</p> + +<p>"Well! I'm sorry to hear about that," the old man said. "I have a +friend at Southern California, Bellingham, who knew Khalid very well. +Was in the Middle East doing some research on the Byzantine Empire; +Khalid was most helpful. Bellingham was quite impressed by him; said +he was a wonderful man, and a fine scholar. Why would anybody want to +kill a man like that?"</p> + + + +<p>He explained in general terms. Pottgeiter nodded understandingly: +assassination was a familiar feature of the medieval political +landscape, too. Chalmers went on to elaborate. It was a relief to talk +to somebody like Pottgeiter, who wasn't bothered by the present +moment, but simply boycotted it. Eventually, the period-bell rang. +Pottgeiter looked at his watch, as from conditioned reflex, and then +rose, saying that he had a class and excusing himself. He would have +carried his cigar with him if Chalmers hadn't taken it away from him.</p> + +<p>After Pottgeiter had gone Chalmers opened a book—he didn't notice +what it was—and sat staring unseeing at the pages. So the moving +knife-edge had come down on the end of Khalid ib'n Hussein's life; +what were the events in the next segment of time, and the segments to +follow? There would be bloody fighting all over the Middle East—with +consternation, he remembered that he had been talking about that to +Pottgeiter. The Turkish army would move in and try to restore order. +There would be more trouble in northern Iran, the Indian Communists +would invade Eastern Pakistan, and then the general war, so long +dreaded, would come. How far in the future that was he could not +"remember," nor how the nuclear-weapons stalemate that had so far +prevented it would be broken. He knew that today, and for years +before, nobody had dared start an all-out atomic war. Wars, now, were +marginal skirmishes, like the one in Indonesia, or the steady +underground conflict of subversion and sabotage that had come to be +called the Subwar. And with the United States already in possession of +a powerful Lunar base.... He wished he could "remember" how events +between the murder of Khalid and the Thirty Day's War had been spaced +chronologically. Something of that had come to him, after the incident +in Modern History IV, and he had driven it from his consciousness.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>He didn't dare go home where the reporters would be sure to find him. +He simply left the college, at the end of the school-day, and walked +without conscious direction until darkness gathered. This morning, +when he had seen the paper, he had said, and had actually believed, +that the news of the murder in Basra would put an end to the trouble +that had started a month ago in the Modern History class. It hadn't: +the trouble, it seemed, was only beginning. And with the newspapers, +and Whitburn, and Fitch, it could go on forever....</p> + +<p>It was fully dark, now; his shadow fell ahead of him on the sidewalk, +lengthening as he passed under and beyond a street-light, vanishing as +he entered the stronger light of the one ahead. The windows of a cheap +cafe reminded him that he was hungry, and he entered, going to a table +and ordering something absently. There was a television screen over +the combination bar and lunch-counter. Some kind of a comedy +programme, at which an invisible studio-audience was laughing +immoderately and without apparent cause. The roughly dressed customers +along the counter didn't seem to see any more humor in it than he did. +Then his food arrived on the table and he began to eat without really +tasting it.</p> + +<p>After a while, an alteration in the noises from the television +penetrated his consciousness; a news-program had come on, and he +raised his head. The screen showed a square in an Eastern city; the +voice was saying:</p> + +<p>"... Basra, where Khalid ib'n Hussein was assassinated early this +morning—early afternoon, local time. This is the scene of the crime; +the body of the murderer has been removed, but you can still see the +stones with which he was pelted to death by the mob...."</p> + + +<p>A close-up of the square, still littered with torn-up paving-stones. A +Caliphate army officer, displaying the weapon—it was an old M3, all +right; Chalmers had used one of those things, himself, thirty years +before, and he and his contemporaries had called it a "grease-gun." +There were some recent pictures of Khalid, including one taken as he +left the plane on his return from Ankara. He watched, absorbed; it +was all exactly as he had "remembered" a month ago. It gratified him +to see that his future "memories" were reliable in detail as well as +generality.</p> + +<p>"But the most amazing part of the story comes, not from Basra, but +from Blanley College, in California," the commentator was saying, +"where, it is revealed, the murder of Khalid was foretold, with +uncanny accuracy, a month ago, by a history professor, Doctor Edward +Chalmers...."</p> + +<p>There was a picture of himself, in hat and overcoat, perfectly +motionless, as though a brief moving glimpse were being prolonged. A +glance at the background told him when and where it had been taken—a +year and a half ago, at a convention at Harvard. These telecast people +must save up every inch of old news-film they ever took. There were +views of Blanley campus, and interviews with some of the Modern +History IV boys, including Dacre and Kendrick. That was one of the +things they'd been doing with that jeep-mounted sound-camera, this +afternoon, then. The boys, some brashly, some embarrassedly, were +substantiating the fact that he had, a month ago, described +yesterday's event in detail. There was an interview with Leonard +Fitch; the psychology professor was trying to explain the phenomenon +of precognition in layman's terms, and making heavy going of it. And +there was the mobbing of Whitburn in front of Administration Center. +The college president was shouting denials of every question asked +him, and as he turned and fled, the guffaws of the reporters were +plainly audible.</p> + + + +<p>An argument broke out along the counter.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it! How could anybody know all that about something +before it happened?"</p> + +<p>"Well, you heard that-there professor, what was his name. An' you +heard all them boys...."</p> + +<p>"Ah, college-boys; they'll do anything for a joke!"</p> + +<p>"After refusing to be interviewed for telecast, the president of +Blanley College finally consented to hold a press conference in his +office, from which telecast cameras were barred. He denied the whole +story categorically and stated that the boys in Professor Chalmers' +class had concocted the whole thing as a hoax...."</p> + +<p>"There! See what I told you!"</p> + +<p>"... stating that Professor Chalmers is mentally unsound, and that +he has been trying for years to oust him from his position on the +Blanley faculty but has been unable to do so because of the provisions +of the Faculty Tenure Act of 1963. Most of his remarks were in the +nature of a polemic against this law, generally regarded as the +college professors' bill of rights. It is to be stated here that other +members of the Blanley faculty have unconditionally confirmed the fact +that Doctor Chalmers did make the statements attributed to him a month +ago, long before the death of Khalid ib'n Hussein...."</p> + +<p>"Yah! How about <i>that</i>, now? How'ya gonna get around <i>that</i>?"</p> + +<p>Beckoning the waitress, he paid his check and hurried out. Before he +reached the door, he heard a voice, almost stuttering with excitement:</p> + +<p>"Hey! Look! That's <i>him</i>!"</p> + +<p>He began to run. He was two blocks from the cafe before he slowed to a +walk again.</p> + +<p>That night, he needed three shots of whiskey before he could get to +sleep.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>A delegation from the American Institute of Psionics and +Parapsychology reached Blanley that morning, having taken a +strato-plane from the East Coast. They had academic titles and degrees +that even Lloyd Whitburn couldn't ignore. They talked with Leonard +Fitch, and with the students from Modern History IV, and took +statements. It wasn't until after General European History II that +they caught up with Chalmers—an elderly man, with white hair and a +ruddy face; a young man who looked like a heavy-weight boxer; a +middle-aged man in tweeds who smoked a pipe and looked as though he +ought to be more interested in grouse-shooting and flower-gardening +than in clairvoyance and telepathy. The names of the first two meant +nothing to Chalmers. They were important names in their own field, but +it was not his field. The name of the third, who listened silently, he +did not catch.</p> + +<p>"You understand, gentlemen, that I'm having some difficulties with the +college administration about this," he told them. "President Whitburn +has even gone so far as to challenge my fitness to hold a position +here."</p> + +<p>"We've talked to him," the elderly man said. "It was not a very +satisfactory discussion."</p> + +<p>"President Whitburn's fitness to hold his own position could very +easily be challenged," the young man added pugnaciously.</p> + +<p>"Well, then, you see what my position is. I've consulted my attorney, +Mr. Weill and he has advised me to make absolutely no statements of +any sort about the matter."</p> + + + +<p>"I understand," the eldest of the trio said. "But we're not the press, +or anything like that. We can assure you that anything you tell us +will be absolutely confidential." He looked inquiringly at the +middle-aged man in tweeds, who nodded silently. "We can understand +that the students in your modern history class are telling what is +substantially the truth?"</p> + +<p>"If you're thinking about that hoax statement of Whitburn's, that's a +lot of idiotic drivel!" he said angrily. "I heard some of those boys +on the telecast, last night; except for a few details in which they +were confused, they all stated exactly what they heard me say in class +a month ago."</p> + +<p>"And we assume,"—again he glanced at the man in tweeds—"that you had +no opportunity of knowing anything, at the time, about any actual +plot against Khalid's life?"</p> + +<p>The man in tweeds broke silence for the first time. "You can assume +that. I don't even think this fellow Noureed knew anything about it, +then."</p> + +<p>"Well, we'd like to know, as nearly as you're able to tell us, just +how you became the percipient of this knowledge of the future event of +the death of Khalid ib'n Hussein," the young man began. "Was it +through a dream, or a waking experience; did you visualize, or have an +auditory impression, or did it simply come into your mind...."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, gentlemen." He looked at his watch. "I have to be going +somewhere, at once. In any case, I simply can't discuss the matter +with you. I appreciate your position; I know how I'd feel if data of +historical importance were being withheld from me. However, I trust +that you will appreciate my position and spare me any further +questioning."</p> + +<p>That was all he allowed them to get out of him. They spent another few +minutes being polite to one another; he invited them to lunch at the +Faculty Club, and learned that they were lunching there as Fitch's +guests. They went away trying to hide their disappointment.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The Psionics and Parapsychology people weren't the only delegation to +reach Blanley that day. Enough of the trustees of the college lived in +the San Francisco area to muster a quorum for a meeting the evening +before; a committee, including James Dacre, the father of the boy in +Modern History IV, was appointed to get the facts at first hand; they +arrived about noon. They talked to some of the students, spent some +time closeted with Whitburn, and were seen crossing the campus with +the Parapsychology people. They didn't talk to Chalmers or Fitch. In +the afternoon, Marjorie Fenner told Chalmers that his presence at a +meeting, to be held that evening in Whitburn's office, was requested. +The request, she said, had come from the trustees' committee, not from +Whitburn; she also told him that Fitch would be there. Chalmers +promptly phoned Stanly Weill.</p> + +<p>"I'll be there along with you," the lawyer said. "If this trustees' +committee is running it, they'll realize that this is a matter in +which you're entitled to legal advice. I'll stop by your place and +pick you up.... You haven't been doing any talking, have you?"</p> + +<p>He described the interview with the Psionics and Parapsychology +people.</p> + +<p>"That was all right.... Was there a man with a mustache, in a brown +tweed suit, with them?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I didn't catch his name...."</p> + +<p>"It's Cutler. He's an Army major; Central Intelligence. His crowd's +interested in whether you had any real advance information on this. He +was in to see me, just a while ago. I have the impression he'd like to +see this whole thing played down, so he'll be on our side, more or +less and for the time being. I'll be around to your place about eight; +in the meantime, don't do any more talking than you have to. I hope we +can get this straightened out, this evening. I'll have to go to Reno +in a day or so to see a client there...."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The meeting in Whitburn's office had been set for eight-thirty; Weill +saw to it that they arrived exactly on time. As they got out of his +car at Administration Center and crossed to the steps, Chalmers had +the feeling of going to a duel, accompanied by his second. The +briefcase Weill was carrying may have given him the idea; it was flat +and square-cornered, the size and shape of an old case of dueling +pistols. He commented on it.</p> + +<p>"Sound recorder," Weill said. "Loaded with a four-hour spool. No +matter how long this thing lasts, I'll have a record of it, if I want +to produce one in court."</p> + +<p>Another party was arriving at the same time—the two Psionics and +Parapsychology people and the Intelligence major, who seemed to have +formed a working partnership. They all entered together, after a brief +and guardedly polite exchange of greetings. There were voices raised +in argument inside when they came to Whitburn's office. The college +president was trying to keep Handley, Tom Smith, and Max Pottgeiter +from entering his private room in the rear.</p> + +<p>"It certainly is!" Handley was saying. "As faculty members, any +controversy involving establishment of standards of fitness to teach +under a tenure-contract concerns all of us, because any action taken +in this case may establish a precedent which could affect the validity +of our own contracts."</p> + +<p>A big man with iron-gray hair appeared in the doorway of the private +office behind Whitburn; James Dacre.</p> + +<p>"These gentlemen have a substantial interest in this, Doctor +Whitburn," he said. "If they're here as representatives of the college +faculty, they have every right to be present."</p> + +<p>Whitburn stood aside. Handley, Smith and Pottgeiter went through the +door; the others followed. The other three members of the trustees' +committee were already in the room. A few minutes later, Leonard Fitch +arrived, also carrying a briefcase.</p> + +<p>"Well, everybody seems to be here," Whitburn said, starting toward his +chair behind the desk. "We might as well get this started."</p> + +<p>"Yes. If you'll excuse me, Doctor." Dacre stepped in front of him and +sat down at the desk. "I've been selected as chairman of this +committee; I believe I'm presiding here. Start the recorder, +somebody."</p> + +<p>One of the other trustees went to the sound recorder beside the +desk—a larger but probably not more efficient instrument than the one +Weill had concealed in his briefcase—and flipped a switch. Then he +and his companions dragged up chairs to flank Dacre's, and the rest +seated themselves around the room. Old Pottgeiter took a seat next to +Chalmers. Weill opened the case on his lap, reached inside, and closed +it again.</p> + + + +<p>"What are they trying to do, Ed?" Pottgeiter asked, in a loud whisper. +"Throw you off the faculty? They can't do that, can they?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, Max. We'll see...."</p> + +<p>"This isn't any formal hearing, and nobody's on trial here," Dacre was +saying. "Any action will have to be taken by the board of trustees as +a whole, at a regularly scheduled meeting. All we're trying to do is +find out just what's happened here, and who, if anybody, is +responsible...."</p> + +<p>"Well, there's the man who's responsible!" Whitburn cried, pointing at +Chalmers. "This whole thing grew out of his behavior in class a month +ago, and I'll remind you that at the time I demanded his resignation!"</p> + +<p>"I thought it was Doctor Fitch, here, who gave the story to the +newspapers," one of the trustees, a man with red hair and a thin, +eyeglassed face, objected.</p> + +<p>"Doctor Fitch acted as any scientist should, in making public what he +believed to be an important scientific discovery," the elder of the +two Parapsychology men said. "He believed, and so do we, that he had +discovered a significant instance of precognition—a case of real +prior knowledge of a future event. He made a careful and systematic +record of Professor Chalmers' statements, at least two weeks before +the occurrence of the event to which they referred. It is entirely due +to him that we know exactly what Professor Chalmers said and when he +said it."</p> + +<p>"Yes," his younger colleague added, "and in all my experience I've +never heard anything more preposterous than this man Whitburn's +attempt, yesterday, to deny the fact."</p> + +<p>"Well, we're convinced that Doctor Chalmers did in fact say what he's +alleged to have said, last month," Dacre began.</p> + +<p>"Jim, I think we ought to get that established, for the record," +another of the trustees put in. "Doctor Chalmers, is it true that you +spoke, in the past tense, about the death of Khalid ib'n Hussein in +one of your classes on the sixteenth of last month?"</p> + +<p>Chalmers rose. "Yes, it is. And the next day, I was called into this +room by Doctor Whitburn, who demanded my resignation from the faculty +of this college because of it. Now, what I'd like to know is, why did +Doctor Whitburn, in this same room, deny, yesterday, that I'd said +anything of the sort, and accuse my students of concocting the story +after the event as a hoax."</p> + +<p>"One of them being my son," Dacre added. "I'd like to hear an answer +to that, myself."</p> + +<p>"So would I," Stanly Weill chimed in. "You know, my client has a good +case against Doctor Whitburn for libel."</p> + + + +<p>Chalmers looked around the room. Of the thirteen men around him, only +Whitburn was an enemy. Some of the others were on his side, for one +reason or another, but none of them were friends. Weill was his +lawyer, obeying an obligation to a client which, at bottom, was an +obligation to his own conscience. Handley was afraid of the +possibility that a precedent might be established which would impair +his own tenure-contract. Fitch, and the two men from the Institute of +Psionics and Parapsychology were interested in him as a source of +study-material. Dacre resented a slur upon his son; he and the others +were interested in Blanley College as an institution, almost an +abstraction. And the major in mufti was probably worrying about the +consequences to military security of having a prophet at large. Then a +hand gripped his shoulder, and a voice whispered in his ear:</p> + +<p>"That's good, Ed; don't let them scare you!"</p> + +<p>Old Max Pottgeiter, at least, was a friend.</p> + +<p>"Doctor Whitburn, I'm asking you, and I expect an answer, why did you +make such statements to the press, when you knew perfectly well that +they were false?" Dacre demanded sharply.</p> + + + +<p>"I knew nothing of the kind!" Whitburn blustered, showing, under the +bluster, fear. "Yes, I demanded this man's resignation on the morning +of October Seventeenth, the day after this incident occurred. It had +come to my attention on several occasions that he was making wild and +unreasonable assertions in class, and subjecting himself, and with +himself the whole faculty of this college, to student ridicule. Why, +there was actually an editorial about it written by the student editor +of the campus paper, the <i>Black and Green</i>. I managed to prevent its +publication...." He went on at some length about that. "If I might be +permitted access to the drawers of my own desk," he added with +elephantine sarcasm, "I could show you the editorial in question."</p> + +<p>"You needn't bother; I have a carbon copy," Dacre told him. "We've all +read it. If you did, at the time you suppressed it, you should have +known what Doctor Chalmers said in class."</p> + +<p>"I knew he'd talked a lot of poppycock about a man who was still +living having been shot to death," Whitburn retorted. "And if +something of the sort actually happened, what of it? Somebody's always +taking a shot at one or another of these foreign dictators, and they +can't miss all the time."</p> + +<p>"You claim this was pure coincidence?" Fitch demanded. "A ten-point +coincidence: Event of assassination, year of the event, place, +circumstances, name of assassin, nationality of assassin, manner of +killing, exact type of weapon used, guards killed and wounded along +with Khalid, and fate of the assassin. If that's a simple and +plausible coincidence, so's dealing ten royal flushes in succession in +a poker game. Tom, you figured that out; what did you say the odds +against it were?"</p> + +<p>"Was all that actually stated by Doctor Chalmers a month ago?" one of +the trustees asked, incredulously.</p> + +<p>"It absolutely was. Look here, Mr. Dacre, gentlemen." Fitch came +forward, unzipping his briefcase and pulling out papers. "Here are the +signed statements of each of Doctor Chalmers' twenty-three Modern +History Four students, all made and dated before the assassination. +You can refer to them as you please; they're in alphabetical order. +And here." He unfolded a sheet of graph paper a yard long and almost +as wide. "Here's a tabulated summary of the boys' statements. All +agreed on the first point, the fact of the assassination. All agreed +that the time was sometime this year. Twenty out of twenty-three +agreed on Basra as the place. Why, seven of them even remembered the +name of the assassin. That in itself is remarkable; Doctor Chalmers +has an extremely intelligent and attentive class."</p> + +<p>"They're attentive because they know he's always likely to do +something crazy and make a circus out of himself," Whitburn +interjected.</p> + +<p>"And this isn't the only instance of Doctor Chalmers' precognitive +ability," Fitch continued. "There have been a number of other cases...."</p> + + + +<p>Chalmers jumped to his feet; Stanly Weill rose beside him, shoved the +cased sound-recorder into his hands, and pushed him back into his +seat.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," the lawyer began, quietly but firmly and clearly. "This +is all getting pretty badly out of hand. After all, this isn't an +investigation of the actuality of precognition as a psychic +phenomenon. What I'd like to hear, and what I haven't heard yet, is +Doctor Whitburn's explanation of his contradictory statements that he +knew about my client's alleged remarks on the evening after they were +supposed to have been made and that, at the same time, the whole thing +was a hoax concocted by his students."</p> + +<p>"Are you implying that I'm a liar?" Whitburn bristled.</p> + +<p>"I'm pointing out that you made a pair of contradictory statements, +and I'm asking how you could do that knowingly and honestly," Weill +retorted.</p> + +<p>"What I meant," Whitburn began, with exaggerated slowness, as though +speaking to an idiot, "was that yesterday, when those infernal +reporters were badgering me, I really thought that some of Professor +Chalmers' students had gotten together and given the <i>Valley Times</i> an +exaggerated story about his insane maunderings a month ago. I hadn't +imagined that a member of the faculty had been so lacking in loyalty +to the college...."</p> + +<p>"You couldn't imagine anybody with any more intellectual integrity +than you have!" Fitch fairly yelled at him.</p> + +<p>"You're as crazy as Chalmers!" Whitburn yelled back. He turned to the +trustees. "You see the position I'm in, here, with this infernal +Higher Education Faculty Tenure Act? I have a madman on my faculty, +and can I get rid of him? No! I demand his resignation, and he laughs +at me and goes running for his lawyer! And he is a madman! Nobody but +a madman would talk the way he does. You think this Khalid ib'n +Hussein business is the only time he's done anything like this? Why, I +have a list of a dozen occasions when he's done something just as bad, +only he didn't have a lucky coincidence to back him up. Trying to get +books that don't exist out of the library, and then insisting that +they're standard textbooks. Talking about the revolt of the colonies +on Mars and Venus. Talking about something he calls the Terran +Federation, some kind of a world empire. Or something he calls +Operation Triple Cross, that saved the country during some fantastic +war he imagined...."</p> + +<p>"<i>What did you say?</i>"</p> + + + +<p>The question cracked out like a string of pistol shots. Everybody +turned. The quiet man in the brown tweed suit had spoken; now he +looked as though he were very much regretting it.</p> + +<p>"Is there such a thing as Operation Triple Cross?" Fitch was asking.</p> + +<p>"No, no. I never heard anything about that; that wasn't what I meant. +It was this Terran Federation thing," the major said, a trifle too +quickly and too smoothly. He turned to Chalmers. "You never did any +work for PSPB; did you ever talk to anybody who did?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I don't even know what the letters mean," Chalmers replied.</p> + +<p>"Politico-Strategic Planning Board. It's all pretty hush-hush, but +this term Terran Federation is a tentative name for a proposed +organization to take the place of the U. N. if that organization +breaks up. It's nothing particularly important, and it only exists on +paper."</p> + + + +<p>It won't exist only on paper very long, Chalmers thought. He was +wondering what Operation Triple Cross was; he had some notes on it, +but he had forgotten what they were.</p> + +<p>"Maybe he did pick that up from somebody who'd talked indiscreetly," +Whitburn conceded. "But the rest of this tommyrot! Why, he was talking +about how the city of Reno had been destroyed by an explosion and +fire, literally wiped off the map. There's an example for you!"</p> + +<p>He'd forgotten about that, too. It had been a relatively minor +incident in the secret struggle of the Subwar; now he remembered +having made a note about it. He was sure that it followed closely +after the assassination of Khalid ib'n Hussein. He turned quickly to +Weill.</p> + +<p>"Didn't you say you had to go to Reno in a day or so?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Weill hushed him urgently, pointing with his free hand to the +recorder. The exchange prevented him from noticing that Max Pottgeiter +had risen, until the old man was speaking.</p> + +<p>"Are you trying to tell these people that Professor Chalmers is +crazy?" he was demanding. "Why, he has one of the best minds on the +campus. I was talking to him only yesterday, in the back room at the +Library. You know," he went on apologetically, "my subject is Medieval +History; I don't pay much attention to what's going on in the +contemporary world, and I didn't understand, really, what all this +excitement was about. But he explained the whole thing to me, and did +it in terms that I could grasp, drawing some excellent parallels with +the Byzantine Empire and the Crusades. All about the revolt at +Damascus, and the sack of Beirut, and the war between Jordan and Saudi +Arabia, and how the Turkish army intervened, and the invasion of +Pakistan...."</p> + +<p>"When did all this happen?" one of the trustees demanded.</p> + +<p>Pottgeiter started to explain; Chalmers realized, sickly, how much of +his future history he had poured into the trusting ear of the old +medievalist, the day before.</p> + +<p>"Good Lord, man; don't you read the papers at all?" another of the +trustees asked.</p> + +<p>"No! And I don't read inside-dope magazines, or science fiction. I +read carefully substantiated facts. And I know when I'm talking to a +sane and reasonable man. It isn't a common experience, around here."</p> + +<p>Dacre passed a hand over his face. "Doctor Whitburn," he said, "I must +admit that I came to this meeting strongly prejudiced against you, and +I'll further admit that your own behavior here has done very little to +dispel that prejudice. But I'm beginning to get some idea of what you +have to contend with, here at Blanley, and I find that I must make a +lot of allowances. I had no idea.... Simply no idea at all."</p> + +<p>"Look, you're getting a completely distorted picture of this, Mr. +Dacre," Fitch broke in. "It's precisely as I believed; Doctor Chalmers +is an unusually gifted precognitive percipient. You've seen, +gentlemen, how his complicated chain of precognitions about the death +of Khalid has been proven veridical; I'd stake my life that every one +of these precognitions will be similarly verified. And I'll stake my +professional reputation that the man is perfectly sane. Of course, +abnormal psychology and psychopathology aren't my subjects, but...."</p> + +<p>"They're not my subjects, either," Whitburn retorted, "but I know a +lunatic by his ravings."</p> + + + +<p>"Doctor Fitch is taking an entirely proper attitude," Pottgeiter said, +"in pointing out that abnormal psychology is a specialized branch, +outside his own field. I wouldn't dream, myself, of trying to offer a +decisive opinion on some point of Roman, or Babylonian, history. Well, +if the question of Doctor Chalmers' sanity is at issue here, let's +consult somebody who specializes in insanity. I don't believe that +anybody here is qualified even to express an opinion on that subject, +Doctor Whitburn least of all."</p> + +<p>Whitburn turned on him angrily. "Oh, shut up, you doddering old fool!" +he shouted. "Look; there's another of them!" he told the trustees. +"Another deadhead on the faculty that this Tenure Law keeps me from +getting rid of. He's as bad as Chalmers, himself. You just heard that +string of nonsense he was spouting. Why, his courses have been noted +among the students for years as snap courses in which nobody ever has +to do any work...."</p> + +<p>Chalmers was on his feet again, thoroughly angry. Abuse of himself he +could take; talking that way about gentle, learned, old Pottgeiter +was something else.</p> + +<p>"I think Doctor Pottgeiter's said the most reasonable thing I've heard +since I came in here," he declared. "If my sanity is to be questioned, +I insist that it be questioned by somebody qualified to do so."</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/image_42.jpg" alt="Had the sane restrained the insane, or was it the other way around?" width="500" height="375" /><br /> +<span class="caption"> Had the sane restrained the insane, or was it the other way around?</span></div> + +<p>Weill set his recorder on the floor and jumped up beside him, trying +to haul him back into his seat.</p> + +<p>"For God's sake, man! Sit down and shut up!" he hissed.</p> + +<p>Chalmers shook off his hand. "No, I won't shut up! This is the only +way to settle this, once and for all. And when my sanity's been +vindicated, I'm going to sue this fellow...."</p> + +<p>Whitburn started to make some retort, then stopped short. After a +moment, he smiled nastily.</p> + +<p>"Do I understand, Doctor Chalmers, that you would be willing to submit +to psychiatric examination?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Don't agree; you're putting your foot in a trap!" Weill told him +urgently.</p> + +<p>"Of course, I agree, as long as the examination is conducted by a +properly qualified psychiatrist."</p> + +<p>"How about Doctor Hauserman at Northern State Mental Hospital?" +Whitburn asked quickly. "Would you agree to an examination by him?"</p> + +<p>"Excellent!" Fitch exclaimed. "One of the best men in the field. I'd +accept his opinion unreservedly."</p> + +<p>Weill started to object again; Chalmers cut him off. "Doctor Hauserman +will be quite satisfactory to me. The only question is, would he be +available?"</p> + +<p>"I think he would," Dacre said, glancing at his watch. "I wonder if he +could be reached now." He got to his feet. "Telephone in your outer +office, Doctor Whitburn? Fine. If you gentlemen will excuse me...."</p> + + + +<p>It was a good fifteen minutes before he returned, smiling.</p> + +<p>"Well, gentlemen, it's all arranged," he said. "Doctor Hauserman is +quite willing to examine Doctor Chalmers—with the latter's consent, +of course."</p> + +<p>"He'll have it. In writing, if he wishes."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I assured him on that point. He'll be here about noon +tomorrow—it's a hundred and fifty miles from the hospital, but the +doctor flies his own plane—and the examination can start at two in +the afternoon. He seems familiar with the facilities of the +psychology department, here; I assured him that they were at his +disposal. Will that be satisfactory to you, Doctor Chalmers?"</p> + +<p>"I have a class at that time, but one of the instructors can take it +over—if holding classes will be possible around here tomorrow," he +said. "Now, if you gentlemen will pardon me, I think I'll go home and +get some sleep."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Weill came up to the apartment with him. He mixed a couple of drinks +and they went into the living room with them.</p> + +<p>"Just in case you don't know what you've gotten yourself into," Weill +said, "this Hauserman isn't any ordinary couch-pilot; he's the state +psychiatrist. If he gets the idea you aren't sane, he can commit you +to a hospital, and I'll bet that's exactly what Whitburn had in mind +when he suggested him. And I don't trust this man Dacre. I thought he +was on our side, at the start, but that was before your friends got +into the act." He frowned into his drink. "And I don't like the way +that Intelligence major was acting, toward the last. If he thinks you +know something you are not supposed to, a mental hospital may be his +idea of a good place to put you away."</p> + +<p>"You don't think this man Hauserman would allow himself to be +influenced ...? No. You just don't think I'm sane. Do you?"</p> + +<p>"I know what Hauserman'll think. He'll think this future history +business is a classical case of systematized schizoid delusion. I wish +I'd never gotten into this case. I wish I'd never even heard of you! +And another thing; in case you get past Hauserman all right, you can +forget about that damage-suit bluff of mine. You would not stand a +chance with it in court."</p> + +<p>"In spite of what happened to Khalid?"</p> + +<p>"After tomorrow, I won't stay in the same room with anybody who even +mentions that name to me. Well, win or lose, it'll be over tomorrow +and then I can leave here."</p> + +<p>"Did you tell me you were going to Reno?" Chalmers asked. "Don't do +it. You remember Whitburn mentioning how I spoke about an explosion +there? It happened just a couple of days after the murder of Khalid. +There was—will be—a trainload of high explosives in the railroad +yard; it'll be the biggest non-nuclear explosion since the <i>Mont +Blanc</i> blew up in Halifax harbor in World War One...."</p> + +<p>Weill threw his drink into the fire; he must have avoided throwing the +glass in with it by a last-second exercise of self-control.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, after a brief struggle to master himself. "One thing +about the legal profession; you do hear the damnedest things!... Good +night, Professor. And try—please try, for the sake of your poor +harried lawyer—to keep your mouth shut about things like that, at +least till after you get through with Hauserman. And when you're +talking to him, don't, don't, for heaven's sake, <i>don't</i>, volunteer +anything!"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The room was a pleasant, warmly-colored, place. There was a desk, much +like the ones in the classrooms, and six or seven wicker armchairs. A +lot of apparatus had been pushed back along the walls; the dust-covers +were gay cretonne. There was a couch, with more apparatus, similarly +covered, beside it. Hauserman was seated at the desk when Chalmers +entered.</p> + +<p>He rose, and they shook hands. A man of about his own age, +smooth-faced, partially bald. Chalmers tried to guess something of the +man's nature from his face, but could read nothing. A face well +trained to keep its owner's secrets.</p> + +<p>"Something to smoke, Professor," he began, offering his cigarette +case.</p> + +<p>"My pipe, if you don't mind." He got it out and filled it.</p> + +<p>"Any of those chairs," Hauserman said, gesturing toward them.</p> + +<p>They were all arranged to face the desk. He sat down, lighting his +pipe. Hauserman nodded approvingly; he was behaving calmly, and didn't +need being put at ease. They talked at random—at least, Hauserman +tried to make it seem so—for some time about his work, his book about +the French Revolution, current events. He picked his way carefully +through the conversation, alert for traps which the psychiatrist might +be laying for him. Finally, Hauserman said:</p> + +<p>"Would you mind telling me just why you felt it advisable to request a +psychiatric examination, Professor?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't request it. But when the suggestion was made, by one of my +friends, in reply to some aspersions of my sanity, I agreed to it."</p> + +<p>"Good distinction. And why was your sanity questioned? I won't deny +that I had heard of this affair, here, before Mr. Dacre called me, +last evening, but I'd like to hear your version of it."</p> + +<p>He went into that, from the original incident in Modern History IV, +choosing every word carefully, trying to concentrate on making a good +impression upon Hauserman, and at the same time finding that more +"memories" of the future were beginning to seep past the barrier of +his consciousness. He tried to dam them back; when he could not, he +spoke with greater and greater care lest they leak into his speech.</p> + +<p>"I can't recall the exact manner in which I blundered into it. The +fact that I did make such a blunder was because I was talking +extemporaneously and had wandered ahead of my text. I was trying to +show the results of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after the First +World War, and the partition of the Middle East into a loose +collection of Arab states, and the passing of British and other +European spheres of influence following the Second. You know, when you +consider it, the Islamic Caliphate was inevitable; the surprising +thing is that it was created by a man like Khalid...."</p> + +<p>He was talking to gain time, and he suspected that Hauserman knew it. +The "memories" were coming into his mind more and more strongly; it +was impossible to suppress them. The period of anarchy following +Khalid's death would be much briefer, and much more violent, than he +had previously thought. Tallal ib'n Khalid would be flying from +England even now; perhaps he had already left the plane to take refuge +among the black tents of his father's Bedouins. The revolt at Damascus +would break out before the end of the month; before the end of the +year, the whole of Syria and Lebanon would be in bloody chaos, and the +Turkish army would be on the march.</p> + +<p>"Yes. And you allowed yourself to be carried a little beyond the +present moment, into the future, without realizing it? Is that it?"</p> + + + +<p>"Something like that," he replied, wide awake to the trap Hauserman +had set, and fearful that it might be a blind, to disguise the real +trap. "History follows certain patterns. I'm not a Toynbean, by any +manner of means, but any historian can see that certain forces +generally tend to produce similar effects. For instance, space travel +is now a fact; our government has at present a military base on Luna. +Within our lifetimes—certainly within the lifetimes of my +students—there will be explorations and attempts at colonization on +Mars and Venus. You believe that, Doctor?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, unreservedly. I'm not supposed to talk about it, but I did some +work on the Philadelphia Project, myself. I'd say that every major +problem of interplanetary flight had been solved before the first +robot rocket was landed on Luna."</p> + +<p>"Yes. And when Mars and Venus are colonized, there will be the same +historic situations, at least in general shape, as arose when the +European powers were colonizing the New World, or, for that matter, +when the Greek city-states were throwing out colonies across the +Aegean. That's the sort of thing we call projecting the past into the +future through the present."</p> + + + +<p>Hauserman nodded. "But how about the details? Things like the +assassination of a specific personage. How can you extrapolate to a +thing like that?"</p> + +<p>"Well...." More "memories" were coming to the surface; he tried to +crowd them back. "I do my projecting in what you might call +fictionalized form; try to fill in the details from imagination. In +the case of Khalid, I was trying to imagine what would happen if his +influence were suddenly removed from Near Eastern and Middle Eastern, +affairs. I suppose I constructed an imaginary scene of his +assassination...."</p> + +<p>He went on at length. Mohammed and Noureed were common enough names. +The Middle East was full of old U. S. weapons. Stoning was the +traditional method of execution; it diffused responsibility so that no +individual could be singled out for blood-feud vengeance.</p> + +<p>"You have no idea how disturbed I was when the whole thing happened, +exactly as I had described it," he continued. "And worst of all, to +me, was this Intelligence officer showing up; I thought I was really +in for it!"</p> + +<p>"Then you've never really believed that you had real knowledge of the +future?"</p> + +<p>"I'm beginning to, since I've been talking to these Psionics and +Parapsychology people," he laughed. It sounded, he hoped, like a +natural and unaffected laugh. "They seem to be convinced that I +have."</p> + + + +<p>There would be an Eastern-inspired uprising in Azerbaijan by the +middle of the next year; before autumn, the Indian Communists would +make their fatal attempt to seize East Pakistan. The Thirty Days' War +would be the immediate result. By that time, the Lunar Base would be +completed and ready; the enemy missiles would be aimed primarily at +the rocketports from which it was supplied. Delivered without warning, +it should have succeeded—except that every rocketport had its secret +duplicate and triplicate. That was Operation Triple Cross; no wonder +Major Cutler had been so startled at the words, last evening. The +enemy would be utterly overwhelmed under the rain of missiles from +across space, but until the moon-rockets began to fall, the United +States would suffer grievously.</p> + +<p>"Honestly, though, I feel sorry for my friend Fitch," he added. "He's +going to be frightfully let down when some more of my alleged +prophecies misfire on him. But I really haven't been deliberately +deceiving him."</p> + +<p>And Blanley College was at the center of one of the areas which would +receive the worst of the thermonuclear hell to come. And it would be a +little under a year....</p> + +<p>"And that's all there is to it!" Hauserman exclaimed, annoyance in his +voice. "I'm amazed that this man Whitburn allowed a thing like this to +assume the proportions it did. I must say that I seem to have gotten +the story about this business in a very garbled form indeed." He +laughed shortly. "I came here convinced that you were mentally +unbalanced. I hope you won't take that the wrong way, Professor," he +hastened to add. "In my profession, anything can be expected. A good +psychiatrist can never afford to forget how sharp and fine is the +knife-edge."</p> + +<p>"The knife-edge!" The words startled him. He had been thinking, at +that moment, of the knife-edge, slicing moment after moment +relentlessly away from the future, into the past, at each slice coming +closer and closer to the moment when the missiles of the Eastern Axis +would fall. "I didn't know they still resorted to surgery, in mental +cases," he added, trying to cover his break.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no; all that sort of thing is as irrevocably discarded as the +whips and shackles of Bedlam. I meant another kind of knife-edge; the +thin, almost invisible, line which separates sanity from non-sanity. +From madness, to use a deplorable lay expression." Hauserman lit +another cigarette. "Most minds are a lot closer to it than their +owners suspect, too. In fact, Professor, I was so convinced that yours +had passed over it that I brought with me a commitment form, made out +all but my signature, for you." He took it from his pocket and laid it +on the desk. "The modern equivalent of the <i>lettre-de-cachet</i>, I +suppose the author of a book on the French Revolution would call it. I +was all ready to certify you as mentally unsound, and commit you to +Northern State Mental Hospital."</p> + + + +<p>Chalmers sat erect in his chair. He knew where that was; on the other +side of the mountains, in the one part of the state completely +untouched by the H-bombs of the Thirty Days' War. Why, the town +outside which the hospital stood had been a military headquarters +during the period immediately after the bombings, and the center from +which all the rescue work in the state had been directed.</p> + +<p>"And you thought you could commit me to Northern State!" he demanded, +laughing scornfully, and this time he didn't try to make the laugh +sound natural and unaffected. "You—confine <i>me</i>, anywhere? Confine a +poor old history professor's body, yes, but that isn't me. I'm +universal; I exist in all space-time. When this old body I'm wearing +now was writing that book on the French Revolution, I was in Paris, +watching it happen, from the fall of the Bastile to the Ninth +Thermidor. I was in Basra, and saw that crazed tool of the Axis shoot +down Khalid ib'n Hussein—and the professor talked about it a month +before it happened. I have seen empires rise and stretch from star to +star across the Galaxy, and crumble and fall. I have seen...."</p> + +<p>Doctor Hauserman had gotten his pen out of his pocket and was signing +the commitment form with one hand; with the other, he pressed a button +on the desk. A door at the rear opened, and a large young man in a +white jacket entered.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to go away for a while, Professor," Hauserman was telling +him, much later, after he had allowed himself to become calm again. +"For how long, I don't know. Maybe a year or so."</p> + +<p>"You mean to Northern State Mental?"</p> + +<p>"Well.... Yes, Professor. You've had a bad crack-up. I don't suppose +you realize how bad. You've been working too hard; harder than your +nervous system could stand. It's been too much for you."</p> + +<p>"You mean, I'm nuts?"</p> + +<p>"Please, Professor. I deplore that sort of terminology. You've had a +severe psychological breakdown...."</p> + +<p>"Will I be able to have books, and papers, and work a little? I +couldn't bear the prospect of complete idleness."</p> + +<p>"That would be all right, if you didn't work too hard."</p> + +<p>"And could I say good-bye to some of my friends?"</p> + +<p>Hauserman nodded and asked, "Who?"</p> + +<p>"Well, Professor Pottgeiter...."</p> + +<p>"He's outside now. He was inquiring about you."</p> + +<p>"And Stanly Weill, my attorney. Not business; just to say good-bye."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm sorry, Professor. He's not in town, now. He left almost +immediately after.... After...."</p> + +<p>"After he found out I was crazy for sure? Where'd he go?"</p> + +<p>"To Reno; he took the plane at five o'clock."</p> + +<p>Weill wouldn't have believed, anyhow; no use trying to blame himself +for that. But he was as sure that he would never see Stanly Weill +alive again as he was that the next morning the sun would rise. He +nodded impassively.</p> + +<p>"Sorry he couldn't stay. Can I see Max Pottgeiter alone?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course, Professor."</p> + +<p>Old Pottgeiter came in, his face anguished. "Ed! It isn't true," he +stammered. "I won't believe that it's true."</p> + +<p>"What, Max?"</p> + +<p>"That you're crazy. Nobody can make me believe that."</p> + +<p>He put his hand on the old man's shoulder. "Confidentially, Max, +neither do I. But don't tell anybody I'm not. It's a secret."</p> + + + +<p>Pottgeiter looked troubled. For a moment, he seemed to be wondering if +he mightn't be wrong and Hauserman and Whitburn and the others right.</p> + +<p>"Max, do you believe in me?" he asked. "Do you believe that I knew +about Khalid's assassination a month before it happened?"</p> + +<p>"It's a horribly hard thing to believe," Pottgeiter admitted. "But, +dammit, Ed, you did! I know, medieval history is full of stories +about prophecies being fulfilled. I always thought those stories were +just legends that grew up after the event. And, of course, he's about +a century late for me, but there was Nostradamus. Maybe those old +prophecies weren't just <i>ex post facto</i> legends, after all. Yes. After +Khalid, I'll believe that."</p> + +<p>"All right. I'm saying, now, that in a few days there'll be a bad +explosion at Reno, Nevada. Watch the papers and the telecast for it. +If it happens, that ought to prove it. And you remember what I told +you about the Turks annexing Syria and Lebanon?" The old man nodded. +"When that happens, get away from Blanley. Come up to the town where +Northern State Mental Hospital is, and get yourself a place to live, +and stay there. And try to bring Marjorie Fenner along with you. Will +you do that, Max?"</p> + +<p>"If you say so." His eyes widened. "Something bad's going to happen +here?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Max. Something very bad. You promise me you will?"</p> + +<p>"Of course, Ed. You know, you're the only friend I have around here. +You and Marjorie. I'll come, and bring her along."</p> + +<p>"Here's the key to my apartment." He got it from his pocket and gave +it to Pottgeiter, with instructions. "Everything in the filing cabinet +on the left of my desk. And don't let anybody else see any of it. Keep +it safe for me."</p> + +<p>The large young man in the white coat entered.</p> + + +<h3>THE END</h3> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Edge of the Knife, by Henry Beam Piper + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EDGE OF THE KNIFE *** + +***** This file should be named 18584-h.htm or 18584-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/5/8/18584/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Edge of the Knife + +Author: Henry Beam Piper + +Release Date: June 14, 2006 [EBook #18584] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EDGE OF THE KNIFE *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + Transcriber's note: + + This etext was produced from Amazing Stories, May 1957. Extensive + research did not uncover any evidence that the copyright on this + publication was renewed. + + + + + THE EDGE + + OF THE + + KNIFE + + + + By H. BEAM PIPER + + + + * * * * * + +_This story was rejected by two top-flight science-fiction editors for +the same reason: "Too hot to handle." "Too dangerous for our book." +We'd like to know whether or not the readers of_ Amazing Stories +_agree. Drop us a line after you've read it._ + + * * * * * + + +Chalmers stopped talking abruptly, warned by the sudden attentiveness +of the class in front of him. They were all staring; even Guellick, in +the fourth row, was almost half awake. Then one of them, taking his +silence as an invitation to questions found his voice. + +"You say Khalid ib'n Hussein's been assassinated?" he asked +incredulously. "When did that happen?" + +[Illustration: There was no past--no future--only a great chaotic +NOW.] + +"In 1973, at Basra." There was a touch of impatience in his voice; +surely they ought to know that much. "He was shot, while leaving the +Parliament Building, by an Egyptian Arab named Mohammed Noureed, +with an old U. S. Army M3 submachine-gun. Noureed killed two of +Khalid's guards and wounded another before he was overpowered. He was +lynched on the spot by the crowd; stoned to death. Ostensibly, he and +his accomplices were religious fanatics; however, there can be no +doubt whatever that the murder was inspired, at least indirectly, by +the Eastern Axis." + +The class stirred like a grain-field in the wind. Some looked at him +in blank amazement; some were hastily averting faces red with poorly +suppressed laughter. For a moment he was puzzled, and then realization +hit him like a blow in the stomach-pit. He'd forgotten, again. + +"I didn't see anything in the papers about it," one boy was saying. + +"The newscast, last evening, said Khalid was in Ankara, talking to the +President of Turkey," another offered. + +"Professor Chalmers, would you tell us just what effect Khalid's death +had upon the Islamic Caliphate and the Middle Eastern situation in +general?" a third voice asked with exaggerated solemnity. That was +Kendrick, the class humorist; the question was pure baiting. + +"Well, Mr. Kendrick, I'm afraid it's a little too early to assess the +full results of a thing like that, if they can ever be fully assessed. +For instance, who, in 1911, could have predicted all the consequences +of the pistol-shot at Sarajevo? Who, even today, can guess what the +history of the world would have been had Zangarra not missed Franklin +Roosevelt in 1932? There's always that if." + +He went on talking safe generalities as he glanced covertly at his +watch. Only five minutes to the end of the period; thank heaven he +hadn't made that slip at the beginning of the class. "For instance, +tomorrow, when we take up the events in India from the First World War +to the end of British rule, we will be largely concerned with another +victim of the assassin's bullet, Mohandas K. Gandhi. You may ask +yourselves, then, by how much that bullet altered the history of the +Indian sub-continent. A word of warning, however: The events we will +be discussing will be either contemporary with or prior to what was +discussed today. I hope that you're all keeping your notes properly +dated. It's always easy to become confused in matters of chronology." + +He wished, too late, that he hadn't said that. It pointed up the very +thing he was trying to play down, and raised a general laugh. + +As soon as the room was empty, he hastened to his desk, snatched +pencil and notepad. This had been a bad one, the worst yet; he hadn't +heard the end of it by any means. He couldn't waste thought on that +now, though. This was all new and important; it had welled up suddenly +and without warning into his conscious mind, and he must get it down +in notes before the "memory"--even mentally, he always put that word +into quotes--was lost. He was still scribbling furiously when the +instructor who would use the room for the next period entered, +followed by a few of his students. Chalmers finished, crammed the +notes into his pocket, and went out into the hall. + +Most of his own Modern History IV class had left the building and were +on their way across the campus for science classes. A few, however, +were joining groups for other classes here in Prescott Hall, and in +every group, they were the center of interest. Sometimes, when they +saw him, they would fall silent until he had passed; sometimes they +didn't, and he caught snatches of conversation. + +"Oh, brother! Did Chalmers really blow his jets this time!" one voice +was saying. + +"Bet he won't be around next year." + +Another quartet, with their heads together, were talking more +seriously. + +"Well, I'm not majoring in History, myself, but I think it's an +outrage that some people's diplomas are going to depend on grades +given by a lunatic!" + +"Mine will, and I'm not going to stand for it. My old man's president +of the Alumni Association, and...." + + * * * * * + +That was something he had not thought of, before. It gave him an ugly +start. He was still thinking about it as he turned into the side hall +to the History Department offices and entered the cubicle he shared +with a colleague. The colleague, old Pottgeiter, Medieval History, was +emerging in a rush; short, rotund, gray-bearded, his arms full of +books and papers, oblivious, as usual, to anything that had happened +since the Battle of Bosworth or the Fall of Constantinople. Chalmers +stepped quickly out of his way and entered behind him. Marjorie +Fenner, the secretary they also shared, was tidying up the old man's +desk. + +"Good morning, Doctor Chalmers." She looked at him keenly for a +moment. "They give you a bad time again in Modern Four?" + +Good Lord, did he show it that plainly? In any case, it was no use +trying to kid Marjorie. She'd hear the whole story before the end of +the day. + +"Gave myself a bad time." + +Marjorie, still fussing with Pottgeiter's desk, was about to say +something in reply. Instead, she exclaimed in exasperation. + +"Ohhh! That man! He's forgotten his notes again!" She gathered some +papers from Pottgeiter's desk, rushing across the room and out the +door with them. + +For a while, he sat motionless, the books and notes for General +European History II untouched in front of him. This was going to raise +hell. It hadn't been the first slip he'd made, either; that thought +kept recurring to him. There had been the time when he had alluded to +the colonies on Mars and Venus. There had been the time he'd mentioned +the secession of Canada from the British Commonwealth, and the time +he'd called the U. N. the Terran Federation. And the time he'd tried +to get a copy of Franchard's _Rise and Decline of the System States_, +which wouldn't be published until the Twenty-eighth Century, out of +the college library. None of those had drawn much comment, beyond a +few student jokes about the history professor who lived in the future +instead of the past. Now, however, they'd all be remembered, raked up, +exaggerated, and added to what had happened this morning. + +He sighed and sat down at Marjorie's typewriter and began transcribing +his notes. Assassination of Khalid ib'n Hussein, the pro-Western +leader of the newly formed Islamic Caliphate; period of anarchy in the +Middle East; interfactional power-struggles; Turkish intervention. He +wondered how long that would last; Khalid's son, Tallal ib'n Khalid, +was at school in England when his father was--would be--killed. He +would return, and eventually take his father's place, in time to bring +the Caliphate into the Terran Federation when the general war came. +There were some notes on that already; the war would result from an +attempt by the Indian Communists to seize East Pakistan. The trouble +was that he so seldom "remembered" an exact date. His "memory" of the +year of Khalid's assassination was an exception. + +Nineteen seventy-three--why, that was this year. He looked at the +calendar. October 16, 1973. At very most, the Arab statesman had two +and a half months to live. Would there be any possible way in which he +could give a credible warning? He doubted it. Even if there were, he +questioned whether he should--for that matter, whether he +_could_--interfere.... + + * * * * * + +He always lunched at the Faculty Club; today was no time to call +attention to himself by breaking an established routine. As he +entered, trying to avoid either a furtive slink or a chip-on-shoulder +swagger, the crowd in the lobby stopped talking abruptly, then began +again on an obviously changed subject. The word had gotten around, +apparently. Handley, the head of the Latin Department, greeted him +with a distantly polite nod. Pompous old owl; regarded himself, for +some reason, as a sort of unofficial Dean of the Faculty. Probably +didn't want to be seen fraternizing with controversial characters. +One of the younger men, with a thin face and a mop of unruly hair, +advanced to meet him as he came in, as cordial as Handley was remote. + +"Oh, hello, Ed!" he greeted, clapping a hand on Chalmers' shoulder. "I +was hoping I'd run into you. Can you have dinner with us this +evening?" He was sincere. + +"Well, thanks, Leonard. I'd like to, but I have a lot of work. Could +you give me a rain-check?" + +"Oh, surely. My wife was wishing you'd come around, but I know how it +is. Some other evening?" + +"Yes, indeed." He guided Fitch toward the dining-room door and nodded +toward a table. "This doesn't look too crowded; let's sit here." + +After lunch, he stopped in at his office. Marjorie Fenner was there, +taking dictation from Pottgeiter; she nodded to him as he entered, but +she had no summons to the president's office. + + * * * * * + +The summons was waiting for him, the next morning, when he entered the +office after Modern History IV, a few minutes past ten. + +"Doctor Whitburn just phoned," Marjorie said. "He'd like to see you, +as soon as you have a vacant period." + +"Which means right away. I shan't keep him waiting." + +She started to say something, swallowed it, and then asked if he +needed anything typed up for General European II. + +"No, I have everything ready." He pocketed the pipe he had filled on +entering, and went out. + + * * * * * + +The president of Blanley College sat hunched forward at his desk; he +had rounded shoulders and round, pudgy fists and a round, bald head. +He seemed to be expecting his visitor to stand at attention in front +of him. Chalmers got the pipe out of his pocket, sat down in the +desk-side chair, and snapped his lighter. + +"Good morning, Doctor Whitburn," he said very pleasantly. + +Whitburn's scowl deepened. "I hope I don't have to tell you why I +wanted to see you," he began. + +"I have an idea." Chalmers puffed until the pipe was drawing +satisfactorily. "It might help you get started if you did, though." + +"I don't suppose, at that, that you realize the full effect of your +performance, yesterday morning, in Modern History Four," Whitburn +replied. "I don't suppose you know, for instance, that I had to +intervene at the last moment and suppress an editorial in the _Black +and Green_, derisively critical of you and your teaching methods, and, +by implication, of the administration of this college. You didn't hear +about that, did you? No, living as you do in the future, you +wouldn't." + +"If the students who edit the _Black and Green_ are dissatisfied with +anything here, I'd imagine they ought to say so," Chalmers commented. +"Isn't that what they teach in the journalism classes, that the +purpose of journalism is to speak for the dissatisfied? Why make +exception?" + +"I should think you'd be grateful to me for trying to keep your +behavior from being made a subject of public ridicule among your +students. Why, this editorial which I suppressed actually went so far +as to question your sanity!" + +"I should suppose it might have sounded a good deal like that, to +them. Of course, I have been preoccupied, lately, with an imaginative +projection of present trends into the future. I'll quite freely admit +that I should have kept my extracurricular work separate from my +class and lecture work, but...." + +"That's no excuse, even if I were sure it were true! What you did, +while engaged in the serious teaching of history, was to indulge in a +farrago of nonsense, obvious as such to any child, and damage not only +your own standing with your class but the standing of Blanley College +as well. Doctor Chalmers, if this were the first incident of the kind +it would be bad enough, but it isn't. You've done things like this +before, and I've warned you before. I assumed, then, that you were +merely showing the effects of overwork, and I offered you a vacation, +which you refused to take. Well, this is the limit. I'm compelled to +request your immediate resignation." + +Chalmers laughed. "A moment ago, you accused me of living in the +future. It seems you're living in the past. Evidently you haven't +heard about the Higher Education Faculty Tenure Act of 1963, or such +things as tenure-contracts. Well, for your information, I have one; +you signed it yourself, in case you've forgotten. If you want my +resignation, you'll have to show cause, in a court of law, why my +contract should be voided, and I don't think a slip of the tongue is +a reason for voiding a contract that any court would accept." + +Whitburn's face reddened. "You don't, don't you? Well, maybe it isn't, +but insanity is. It's a very good reason for voiding a contract +voidable on grounds of unfitness or incapacity to teach." + +He had been expecting, and mentally shrinking from, just that. Now +that it was out, however, he felt relieved. He gave another short +laugh. + +"You're willing to go into open court, covered by reporters from +papers you can't control as you do this student sheet here, and +testify that for the past twelve years you've had an insane professor +on your faculty?" + +"You're.... You're trying to blackmail me?" Whitburn demanded, half +rising. + +"It isn't blackmail to tell a man that a bomb he's going to throw will +blow up in his hand." Chalmers glanced quickly at his watch. "Now, +Doctor Whitburn, if you have nothing further to discuss, I have a +class in a few minutes. If you'll excuse me...." + +He rose. For a moment, he stood facing Whitburn; when the college +president said nothing, he inclined his head politely and turned, +going out. + +Whitburn's secretary gave the impression of having seated herself +hastily at her desk the second before he opened the door. She watched +him, round-eyed, as he went out into the hall. + +He reached his own office ten minutes before time for the next class. +Marjorie was typing something for Pottgeiter; he merely nodded to her, +and picked up the phone. The call would have to go through the school +exchange, and he had a suspicion that Whitburn kept a check on outside +calls. That might not hurt any, he thought, dialing a number. + +"Attorney Weill's office," the girl who answered said. + +"Edward Chalmers. Is Mr. Weill in?" + +She'd find out. He was; he answered in a few seconds. + +"Hello, Stanly; Ed Chalmers. I think I'm going to need a little help. +I'm having some trouble with President Whitburn, here at the college. +A matter involving the validity of my tenure-contract. I don't want to +go into it over this line. Have you anything on for lunch?" + +"No, I haven't. When and where?" the lawyer asked. + +He thought for a moment. Nowhere too close the campus, but not too far +away. + +"How about the Continental; Fontainbleu Room? Say twelve-fifteen." + +"That'll be all right. Be seeing you." + +Marjorie looked at him curiously as he gathered up the things he +needed for the next class. + + * * * * * + +Stanly Weill had a thin dark-eyed face. He was frowning as he set down +his coffee-cup. + +"Ed, you ought to know better than to try to kid your lawyer," he +said. "You say Whitburn's trying to force you to resign. With your +contract, he can't do that, not without good and sufficient cause, and +under the Faculty Tenure Law, that means something just an inch short +of murder in the first degree. Now, what's Whitburn got on you?" + +Beat around the bush and try to build a background, or come out with +it at once and fill in the details afterward? He debated mentally for +a moment, then decided upon the latter course. + +"Well, it happens that I have the ability to prehend future events. I +can, by concentrating, bring into my mind the history of the world, at +least in general outline, for the next five thousand years. Whitburn +thinks I'm crazy, mainly because I get confused at times and forget +that something I know about hasn't happened yet." + +Weill snatched the cigarette from his mouth to keep from swallowing +it. As it was, he choked on a mouthful of smoke and coughed violently, +then sat back in the booth-seat, staring speechlessly. + +"It started a little over three years ago," Chalmers continued. "Just +after New Year's, 1970. I was getting up a series of seminars for some +of my postgraduate students on extrapolation of present social and +political trends to the middle of the next century, and I began to +find that I was getting some very fixed and definite ideas of what the +world of 2050 to 2070 would be like. Completely unified world, +abolition of all national states under a single world sovereignty, +colonies on Mars and Venus, that sort of thing. Some of these ideas +didn't seem quite logical; a number of them were complete reversals of +present trends, and a lot seemed to depend on arbitrary and +unpredictable factors. Mind, this was before the first rocket landed +on the Moon, when the whole moon-rocket and lunar-base project was a +triple-top secret. But I knew, in the spring of 1970, that the first +unmanned rocket would be called the _Kilroy_, and that it would be +launched some time in 1971. You remember, when the news was released, +it was stated that the rocket hadn't been christened until the day +before it was launched, when somebody remembered that old +'Kilroy-was-here' thing from the Second World War. Well, I knew about +it over a year in advance." + +Weill had been listening in silence. He had a naturally skeptical +face; his present expression mightn't really mean that he didn't +believe what he was hearing. + +"How'd you get all this stuff? In dreams?" + +Chalmers shook his head. "It just came to me. I'd be sitting reading, +or eating dinner, or talking to one of my classes, and the first thing +I'd know, something out of the future would come bubbling up in me. It +just kept pushing up into my conscious mind. I wouldn't have an idea +of something one minute, and the next it would just be part of my +general historical knowledge; I'd know it as positively as I know that +Columbus discovered America in. 1492. The only difference is that I +can usually remember where I've read something in past history, but my +future history I know without knowing how I know it." + +"Ah, that's the question!" Weill pounced. "You don't know how you know +it. Look, Ed, we've both studied psychology, elementary psychology at +least. Anybody who has to work with people, these days, has to know +some psychology. What makes you sure that these prophetic impressions +of yours aren't manufactured in your own subconscious mind?" + +"That's what I thought, at first. I thought my subconscious was just +building up this stuff to fill the gaps in what I'd produced from +logical extrapolation. I've always been a stickler for detail," he +added, parenthetically. "It would be natural for me to supply details +for the future. But, as I said, a lot of this stuff is based on +unpredictable and arbitrary factors that can't be inferred from +anything in the present. That left me with the alternatives of +delusion or precognition, and if I ever came near going crazy, it was +before the _Kilroy_ landed and the news was released. After that, I +knew which it was." + +"And yet, you can't explain how you can have real knowledge of a +thing before it happens. Before it exists," Weill said. + +"I really don't need to. I'm satisfied with knowing that I know. But +if you want me to furnish a theory, let's say that all these things +really do exist, in the past or in the future, and that the present is +just a moving knife-edge that separates the two. You can't even +indicate the present. By the time you make up your mind to say, 'Now!' +and transmit the impulse to your vocal organs, and utter the word, the +original present moment is part of the past. The knife-edge has gone +over it. Most people think they know only the present; what they know +is the past, which they have already experienced, or read about. The +difference with me is that I can see what's on both sides of the +knife-edge." + +Weill put another cigarette in his mouth and bent his head to the +flame of his lighter. For a moment, he sat motionless, his thin face +rigid. + +"What do you want me to do?" he asked. "I'm a lawyer, not a +psychiatrist." + +"I want a lawyer. This is a legal matter. Whitburn's talking about +voiding my tenure contract. You helped draw it; I have a right to +expect you to help defend it." + +"Ed, have you been talking about this to anybody else?" Weill asked. + +"You're the first person I've mentioned it to. It's not the sort of +thing you'd bring up casually, in a conversation." + +"Then how'd Whitburn get hold of it?" + +"He didn't, not the way I've given it to you. But I made a couple of +slips, now and then. I made a bad one yesterday morning." + +He told Weill about it, and about his session with the president of +the college that morning. The lawyer nodded. + +"That was a bad one, but you handled Whitburn the right way," Weill +said. "What he's most afraid of is publicity, getting the college +mixed up in anything controversial, and above all, the reactions of +the trustees and people like that. If Dacre or anybody else makes any +trouble, he'll do his best to cover for you. Not willingly, of course, +but because he'll know that that's the only way he can cover for +himself. I don't think you'll have any more trouble with him. If you +can keep your own nose clean, that is. Can you do that?" + +"I believe so. Yesterday I got careless. I'll not do that again." + +"You'd better not." Weill hesitated for a moment. "I said I was a +lawyer, not a psychiatrist. I'm going to give you some psychiatrist's +advice, though. Forget this whole thing. You say you can bring these +impressions into your conscious mind by concentrating?" He waited +briefly; Chalmers nodded, and he continued: "Well, stop it. Stop +trying to harbor this stuff. It's dangerous, Ed. Stop playing around +with it." + +"You think I'm crazy, too?" + +Weill shook his head impatiently. "I didn't say that. But I'll say, +now, that you're losing your grip on reality. You are constructing a +system of fantasies, and the first thing you know, they will become +your reality, and the world around you will be unreal and illusory. +And that's a state of mental incompetence that I can recognize, as a +lawyer." + +"How about the _Kilroy_?" + +Weill looked at him intently. "Ed, are you sure you did have that +experience?" he asked. "I'm not trying to imply that you're +consciously lying to me about that. I am suggesting that you +manufactured a memory of that incident in your subconscious mind, and +are deluding yourself into thinking that you knew about it in advance. +False memory is a fairly common thing, in cases like this. Even the +little psychology I know, I've heard about that. There's been talk +about rockets to the Moon for years. You included something about that +in your future-history fantasy, and then, after the event, you +convinced yourself that you'd known all about it, including the +impromptu christening of the rocket, all along." + +A hot retort rose to his lips; he swallowed it hastily. Instead, he +nodded amicably. + +"That's a point worth thinking of. But right now, what I want to know +is, will you represent me in case Whitburn does take this to court and +does try to void my contract?" + +"Oh, yes; as you said, I have an obligation to defend the contracts I +draw up. But you'll have to avoid giving him any further reason for +trying to void it. Don't make any more of these slips. Watch what you +say, in class or out of it. And above all, don't talk about this to +anybody. Don't tell anybody that you can foresee the future, or even +talk about future probabilities. Your business is with the past; +stick to it." + + * * * * * + +The afternoon passed quietly enough. Word of his defiance of Whitburn +had gotten around among the faculty--Whitburn might have his secretary +scared witless in his office, but not gossipless outside it--though it +hadn't seemed to have leaked down to the students yet. Handley, the +Latin professor, managed to waylay him in a hallway, a hallway Handley +didn't normally use. + +"The tenure-contract system under which we hold our positions here is +one of our most valuable safeguards," he said, after exchanging +greetings. "It was only won after a struggle, in a time of public +animosity toward all intellectuals, and even now, our professional +position would be most insecure without it." + +"Yes. I found that out today, if I hadn't known it when I took part in +the struggle you speak of." + +"It should not be jeopardized," Handley declared. + +"You think I'm jeopardizing it?" + +Handley frowned. He didn't like being pushed out of the safety of +generalization into specific cases. + +"Well, now that you make that point, yes. I do. If Doctor Whitburn +tries to make an issue of ... of what happened yesterday ... and if +the court decides against you, you can see the position all of us will +be in." + +"What do you think I should have done? Given him my resignation when +he demanded it? We have our tenure-contracts, and the system was +instituted to prevent just the sort of arbitrary action Whitburn tried +to take with me today. If he wants to go to court, he'll find that +out." + +"And if he wins, he'll establish a precedent that will threaten the +security of every college and university faculty member in the state. +In any state where there's a tenure law." + +Leonard Fitch, the psychologist, took an opposite attitude. As +Chalmers was leaving the college at the end of the afternoon, Fitch +cut across the campus to intercept him. + +"I heard about the way you stood up to Whitburn this morning, Ed," he +said. "Glad you did it. I only wish I'd done something like that three +years ago.... Think he's going to give you any real trouble?" + +"I doubt it." + +"Well, I'm on your side if he does. I won't be the only one, either." + +"Well, thank you, Leonard. It always helps to know that. I don't think +there'll be any more trouble, though." + + * * * * * + +He dined alone at his apartment, and sat over his coffee, outlining +his work for the next day. When both were finished, he dallied +indecisively, Weill's words echoing through his mind and raising +doubts. It was possible that he had been manufacturing the whole thing +in his subconscious mind. That was, at least, a more plausible theory +than any he had constructed to explain an ability to produce real +knowledge of the future. Of course, there was that business about the +_Kilroy_. That had been too close on too many points to be dismissed +as coincidence. Then, again, Weill's words came back to disquiet him. +Had he really gotten that before the event, as he believed, or had he +only imagined, later, that he had? + +There was one way to settle that. He rose quickly and went to the +filing-cabinet where he kept his future-history notes and began +pulling out envelopes. There was nothing about the _Kilroy_ in the +Twentieth Century file, where it should be, although he examined each +sheet of notes carefully. The possibility that his notes on that might +have been filed out of place by mistake occurred to him; he looked in +every other envelope. The notes, as far as they went, were all filed +in order, and each one bore, beside the future date of occurrence, the +date on which the knowledge--or must he call it delusion?--had come to +him. But there was no note on the landing of the first unmanned rocket +on Luna. + +He put the notes away and went back to his desk, rummaging through the +drawers, and finding nothing. He searched everywhere in the apartment +where a sheet of paper could have been mislaid, taking all his +books, one by one, from the shelves and leafing through them, even +books he knew he had not touched for more than three years. In the +end, he sat down again at his desk, defeated. The note on the _Kilroy_ +simply did not exist. + +Of course, that didn't settle it, as finding the note would have. He +remembered--or believed he remembered--having gotten that item of +knowledge--or delusion--in 1970, shortly before the end of the school +term. It hadn't been until after the fall opening of school that he +had begun making notes. He could have had the knowledge of the robot +rocket in his mind then, and neglected putting it on paper. + +He undressed, put on his pajamas, poured himself a drink, and went to +bed. Three hours later, still awake, he got up, and poured himself +another, bigger, drink. Somehow, eventually, he fell asleep. + + * * * * * + +The next morning, he searched his desk and book-case in the office at +school. He had never kept a diary; now he was wishing that he had. +That might have contained something that would be evidence, one way or +the other. All day, he vacillated between conviction of the reality of +his future knowledge and resolution to have no more to do with it. +Once he decided to destroy all the notes he had made, and thought of +making a special study of some facet of history, and writing another +book, to occupy his mind. + +After lunch, he found that more data on the period immediately before +the Thirty Days' War was coming into his consciousness. He resolutely +suppressed it, knowing as he did that it might never come to him +again. That evening, too, he cooked dinner for himself at his +apartment, and laid out his class-work for the next day. He'd better +not stay in, that evening; too much temptation to settle himself by +the living-room fire with his pipe and his notepad and indulge in the +vice he had determined to renounce. After a little debate, he decided +upon a movie; he put on again the suit he had taken off on coming +home, and went out. + + * * * * * + +The picture, a random choice among the three shows in the +neighborhood, was about Seventeenth Century buccaneers; exciting +action and a sound-track loud with shots and cutlass-clashing. He let +himself be drawn into it completely, and, until it was finished, he +was able to forget both the college and the history of the future. +But, as he walked home, he was struck by the parallel between the +buccaneers of the West Indies and the space-pirates in the days of the +dissolution of the First Galactic Empire, in the Tenth Century of the +Interstellar Era. He hadn't been too clear on that period, and he +found new data rising in his mind; he hurried his steps, almost +running upstairs to his room. It was long after midnight before he had +finished the notes he had begun on his return home. + +Well, that had been a mistake, but he wouldn't make it again. He +determined again to destroy his notes, and began casting about for a +subject which would occupy his mind to the exclusion of the future. +Not the Spanish Conquistadores; that was too much like the early +period of interstellar expansion. He thought for a time of the Sepoy +Mutiny, and then rejected it--he could "remember" something much like +that on one of the planets of the Beta Hydrae system, in the Fourth +Century of the Atomic Era. There were so few things, in the history of +the past, which did not have their counter-parts in the future. That +evening, too, he stayed at home, preparing for his various classes for +the rest of the week and making copious notes on what he would talk +about to each. He needed more whiskey to get to sleep that night. + +Whitburn gave him no more trouble, and if any of the trustees or +influential alumni made any protest about what had happened in Modern +History IV, he heard nothing about it. He managed to conduct his +classes without further incidents, and spent his evenings trying, not +always successfully, to avoid drifting into "memories" of the +future.... + + * * * * * + +He came into his office that morning tired and unrefreshed by the few +hours' sleep he had gotten the night before, edgy from the strain, of +trying to adjust his mind to the world of Blanley College in mid-April +of 1973. Pottgeiter hadn't arrived yet, but Marjorie Fenner was +waiting for him; a newspaper in her hand, almost bursting with +excitement. + +"Here; have you seen it, Doctor Chalmers?" she asked as he entered. + +He shook his head. He ought to read the papers more, to keep track of +the advancing knife-edge that divided what he might talk about from +what he wasn't supposed to know, but each morning he seemed to have +less and less time to get ready for work. + +"Well, look! Look at that!" + +She thrust the paper into his hands, still folded, the big, black +headline where he could see it. + + KHALID IB'N HUSSEIN ASSASSINATED + +He glanced over the leading paragraphs. Leader of Islamic Caliphate +shot to death in Basra ... leaving Parliament Building for his palace +outside the city ... fanatic, identified as an Egyptian named Mohammed +Noureed ... old American submachine-gun ... two guards killed and a +third seriously wounded ... seized by infuriated mob and stoned to +death on the spot.... + +For a moment, he felt guilt, until he realized that nothing he could +have done could have altered the event. The death of Khalid ib'n +Hussein, and all the millions of other deaths that would follow it, +were fixed in the matrix of the space-time continuum. Including, +maybe, the death of an obscure professor of Modern History named +Edward Chalmers. + +"At least, this'll be the end of that silly flap about what happened a +month ago in Modern Four. This is modern history, now; I can talk +about it without a lot of fools yelling their heads off." + +She was staring at him wide-eyed. No doubt horrified at his +cold-blooded attitude toward what was really a shocking and senseless +crime. + +"Yes, of course; the man's dead. So's Julius Caesar, but we've gotten +over being shocked at his murder." + +He would have to talk about it in Modern History IV, he supposed; +explain why Khalid's death was necessary to the policies of the +Eastern Axis, and what the consequences would be. How it would hasten +the complete dissolution of the old U. N., already weakened by the +crisis over the Eastern demands for the demilitarization and +internationalization of the United States Lunar Base, and necessitate +the formation of the Terran Federation, and how it would lead, +eventually, to the Thirty Days' War. No, he couldn't talk about that; +that was on the wrong side of the knife-edge. Have to be careful about +the knife-edge; too easy to cut himself on it. + + * * * * * + +Nobody in Modern History IV was seated when he entered the room; they +were all crowded between the door and his desk. He stood blinking, +wondering why they were giving him an ovation, and why Kendrick and +Dacre were so abjectly apologetic. Great heavens, did it take the +murder of the greatest Moslem since Saladin to convince people that he +wasn't crazy? + +Before the period was over, Whitburn's secretary entered with a note +in the college president's hand and over his signature; requesting +Chalmers to come to his office immediately and without delay. Just +like that; expected him to walk right out of his class. He was +protesting as he entered the president's office. Whitburn cut him off +short. + +"Doctor Chalmers,"--Whitburn had risen behind his desk as the door +opened--"I certainly hope that you can realize that there was nothing +but the most purely coincidental connection between the event featured +in this morning's newspapers and your performance, a month ago, in +Modern History Four," he began. + +"I realize nothing of the sort. The death of Khalid ib'n Hussein is a +fact of history, unalterably set in its proper place in time-sequence. +It was a fact of history a month ago no less than today." + +"So that's going to be your attitude; that your wild utterances of a +month ago have now been vindicated as fulfilled prophesies? And I +suppose you intend to exploit this--this coincidence--to the utmost. +The involvement of Blanley College in a mess of sensational publicity +means nothing to you, I presume." + +"I haven't any idea what you're talking about." + +"You mean to tell me that you didn't give this story to the local +newspaper, the _Valley Times_?" Whitburn demanded. + +"I did not. I haven't mentioned the subject to anybody connected with +the _Times_, or anybody else, for that matter. Except my attorney, a +month ago, when you were threatening to repudiate the contract you +signed with me." + +"I suppose I'm expected to take your word for that?" + +"Yes, you are. Unless you care to call me a liar in so many words." He +moved a step closer. Lloyd Whitburn outweighed him by fifty pounds, +but most of the difference was fat. Whitburn must have realized that, +too. + +"No, no; if you say you haven't talked about it to the _Valley Times_, +that's enough," he said hastily. "But somebody did. A reporter was +here not twenty minutes ago; he refused to say who had given him the +story, but he wanted to question me about it." + +"What did you tell him?" + +"I refused to make any statement whatever. I also called Colonel +Tighlman, the owner of the paper, and asked him, very reasonably, to +suppress the story. I thought that my own position and the importance +of Blanley College to this town entitled me to that much +consideration." Whitburn's face became almost purple. "He ... he +laughed at me!" + +"Newspaper people don't like to be told to kill stories. Not even by +college presidents. That's only made things worse. Personally, I don't +relish the prospect of having this publicized, any more than you do. I +can assure you that I shall be most guarded if any of the _Times_ +reporters talk to me about it, and if I have time to get back to my +class before the end of the period, I shall ask them, as a personal +favor, not to discuss the matter outside." + +Whitburn didn't take the hint. Instead, he paced back and forth, +storming about the reporter, the newspaper owner, whoever had given +the story to the paper, and finally Chalmers himself. He was livid +with rage. + +"You certainly can't imagine that when you made those remarks in class +you actually possessed any knowledge of a thing that was still a month +in the future," he spluttered. "Why, it's ridiculous! Utterly +preposterous!" + +"Unusual, I'll admit. But the fact remains that I did. I should, of +course, have been more careful, and not confused future with past +events. The students didn't understand...." + +Whitburn half-turned, stopping short. + +"My God, man! You _are_ crazy!" he cried, horrified. + +The period-bell was ringing as he left Whitburn's office; that meant +that the twenty-three students were scattering over the campus, +talking like mad. He shrugged. Keeping them quiet about a thing like +this wouldn't have been possible in any case. When he entered his +office, Stanly Weill was waiting for him. The lawyer drew him out into +the hallway quickly. + +"For God's sake, have you been talking to the papers?" he demanded. +"After what I told you...." + +"No, but somebody has." He told about the call to Whitburn's office, +and the latter's behavior. Weill cursed the college president +bitterly. + +"Any time you want to get a story in the _Valley Times_, just order +Frank Tighlman not to print it. Well, if you haven't talked, don't." + +"Suppose somebody asks me?" + +"A reporter, no comment. Anybody else, none of his damn business. And +above all, don't let anybody finagle you into making any claims about +knowing the future. I thought we had this under control; now that +it's out in the open, what that fool Whitburn'll do is anybody's +guess." + +Leonard Fitch met him as he entered the Faculty Club, sizzling with +excitement. + +"Ed, this has done it!" he began, jubilantly. "This is one nobody can +laugh off. It's direct proof of precognition, and because of the +prominence of the event, everybody will hear about it. And it simply +can't be dismissed as coincidence...." + +"Whitburn's trying to do that." + +"Whitburn's a fool if he is," another man said calmly. Turning, he saw +that the speaker was Tom Smith, one of the math professors. "I figured +the odds against that being chance. There are a lot of variables that +might affect it one way or another, but ten to the fifteenth power is +what I get for a sort of median figure." + +"Did you give that story to the _Valley Times?_" he asked Fitch, +suspicion rising and dragging anger up after it. + +"Of course, I did," Fitch said. "I'll admit, I had to go behind your +back and have some of my postgrads get statements from the boys in +your history class, but you wouldn't talk about it yourself...." + +Tom Smith was standing beside him. He was twenty years younger than +Chalmers, he was an amateur boxer, and he had good reflexes. He caught +Chalmers' arm as it was traveling back for an uppercut, and held it. + +"Take it easy, Ed; you don't want to start a slugfest in here. This is +the Faculty Club; remember?" + +"I won't, Tom; it wouldn't prove anything if I did." He turned to +Fitch. "I won't talk about sending your students to pump mine, but at +least you could have told me before you gave that story out." + +"I don't know what you're sore about," Fitch defended himself. "I +believed in you when everybody else thought you were crazy, and if I +hadn't collected signed and dated statements from your boys, there'd +have been no substantiation. It happens that extrasensory perception +means as much to me as history does to you. I've believed in it ever +since I read about Rhine's work, when I was a kid. I worked in ESP for +a long time. Then I had a chance to get a full professorship by coming +here, and after I did, I found that I couldn't go on with it, because +Whitburn's president here, and he's a stupid old bigot with an +air-locked mind...." + +"Yes." His anger died down as Fitch spoke. "I'm glad Tom stopped me +from making an ass of myself. I can see your side of it." Maybe that +was the curse of the professional intellectual, an ability to see +everybody's side of everything. He thought for a moment. "What else +did you do, beside hand this story to the _Valley Times?_ I'd better +hear all about it." + +"I phoned the secretary of the American Institute of Psionics and +Parapsychology, as soon as I saw this morning's paper. With the +time-difference to the East Coast, I got him just as he reached his +office. He advised me to give the thing the widest possible publicity; +he thought that would advance the recognition and study of +parapsychology. A case like this can't be ignored; it will demand +serious study...." + +"Well, you got your publicity, all right. I'm up to my neck in it." + +There was an uproar outside. The doorman was saying, firmly: + +"This is the Faculty Club, gentlemen; it's for members only. I don't +care if you gentlemen are the press, you simply cannot come in here." + +"We're all up to our necks in it," Smith said. "Leonard, I don't care +what your motives were, you ought to have considered the effect on the +rest of us first." + +"This place will be a madhouse," Handley complained. "How we're going +to get any of these students to keep their minds on their work...." + +"I tell you, I don't know a confounded thing about it," Max +Pottgeiter's voice rose petulantly at the door. "Are you trying to +tell me that Professor Chalmers murdered some Arab? Ridiculous!" + + * * * * * + +He ate hastily and without enjoyment, and slipped through the kitchen +and out the back door, cutting between two frat-houses and circling +back to Prescott Hall. On the way, he paused momentarily and chuckled. +The reporters, unable to storm the Faculty Club, had gone off in chase +of other game and had cornered Lloyd Whitburn in front of +Administration Center. They had a jeep with a sound-camera mounted on +it, and were trying to get something for telecast. After gesticulating +angrily, Whitburn broke away from them and dashed up the steps and +into the building. A campus policeman stopped those who tried to +follow. + +His only afternoon class was American History III. He got through it +somehow, though the class wasn't able to concentrate on the +Reconstruction and the first election of Grover Cleveland. The halls +were free of reporters, at least, and when it was over he hurried to +the Library, going to the faculty reading-room in the rear, where he +could smoke. There was nobody there but old Max Pottgeiter, smoking a +cigar, his head bent over a book. The Medieval History professor +looked up. + +"Oh, hello, Chalmers. What the deuce is going on around here? Has +everybody gone suddenly crazy?" he asked. + +"Well, they seem to think I have," he said bitterly. + +"They do? Stupid of them. What's all this about some Arab being shot? +I didn't know there were any Arabs around here." + +"Not here. At Basra." He told Pottgeiter what had happened. + +"Well! I'm sorry to hear about that," the old man said. "I have a +friend at Southern California, Bellingham, who knew Khalid very well. +Was in the Middle East doing some research on the Byzantine Empire; +Khalid was most helpful. Bellingham was quite impressed by him; said +he was a wonderful man, and a fine scholar. Why would anybody want to +kill a man like that?" + +He explained in general terms. Pottgeiter nodded understandingly: +assassination was a familiar feature of the medieval political +landscape, too. Chalmers went on to elaborate. It was a relief to talk +to somebody like Pottgeiter, who wasn't bothered by the present +moment, but simply boycotted it. Eventually, the period-bell rang. +Pottgeiter looked at his watch, as from conditioned reflex, and then +rose, saying that he had a class and excusing himself. He would have +carried his cigar with him if Chalmers hadn't taken it away from him. + +After Pottgeiter had gone Chalmers opened a book--he didn't notice +what it was--and sat staring unseeing at the pages. So the moving +knife-edge had come down on the end of Khalid ib'n Hussein's life; +what were the events in the next segment of time, and the segments to +follow? There would be bloody fighting all over the Middle East--with +consternation, he remembered that he had been talking about that to +Pottgeiter. The Turkish army would move in and try to restore order. +There would be more trouble in northern Iran, the Indian Communists +would invade Eastern Pakistan, and then the general war, so long +dreaded, would come. How far in the future that was he could not +"remember," nor how the nuclear-weapons stalemate that had so far +prevented it would be broken. He knew that today, and for years +before, nobody had dared start an all-out atomic war. Wars, now, were +marginal skirmishes, like the one in Indonesia, or the steady +underground conflict of subversion and sabotage that had come to be +called the Subwar. And with the United States already in possession of +a powerful Lunar base.... He wished he could "remember" how events +between the murder of Khalid and the Thirty Day's War had been spaced +chronologically. Something of that had come to him, after the incident +in Modern History IV, and he had driven it from his consciousness. + + * * * * * + +He didn't dare go home where the reporters would be sure to find him. +He simply left the college, at the end of the school-day, and walked +without conscious direction until darkness gathered. This morning, +when he had seen the paper, he had said, and had actually believed, +that the news of the murder in Basra would put an end to the trouble +that had started a month ago in the Modern History class. It hadn't: +the trouble, it seemed, was only beginning. And with the newspapers, +and Whitburn, and Fitch, it could go on forever.... + +It was fully dark, now; his shadow fell ahead of him on the sidewalk, +lengthening as he passed under and beyond a street-light, vanishing as +he entered the stronger light of the one ahead. The windows of a cheap +cafe reminded him that he was hungry, and he entered, going to a table +and ordering something absently. There was a television screen over +the combination bar and lunch-counter. Some kind of a comedy +programme, at which an invisible studio-audience was laughing +immoderately and without apparent cause. The roughly dressed customers +along the counter didn't seem to see any more humor in it than he did. +Then his food arrived on the table and he began to eat without really +tasting it. + +After a while, an alteration in the noises from the television +penetrated his consciousness; a news-program had come on, and he +raised his head. The screen showed a square in an Eastern city; the +voice was saying: + +"... Basra, where Khalid ib'n Hussein was assassinated early this +morning--early afternoon, local time. This is the scene of the crime; +the body of the murderer has been removed, but you can still see the +stones with which he was pelted to death by the mob...." + +A close-up of the square, still littered with torn-up paving-stones. A +Caliphate army officer, displaying the weapon--it was an old M3, all +right; Chalmers had used one of those things, himself, thirty years +before, and he and his contemporaries had called it a "grease-gun." +There were some recent pictures of Khalid, including one taken as he +left the plane on his return from Ankara. He watched, absorbed; it +was all exactly as he had "remembered" a month ago. It gratified him +to see that his future "memories" were reliable in detail as well as +generality. + +"But the most amazing part of the story comes, not from Basra, but +from Blanley College, in California," the commentator was saying, +"where, it is revealed, the murder of Khalid was foretold, with +uncanny accuracy, a month ago, by a history professor, Doctor Edward +Chalmers...." + +There was a picture of himself, in hat and overcoat, perfectly +motionless, as though a brief moving glimpse were being prolonged. A +glance at the background told him when and where it had been taken--a +year and a half ago, at a convention at Harvard. These telecast people +must save up every inch of old news-film they ever took. There were +views of Blanley campus, and interviews with some of the Modern +History IV boys, including Dacre and Kendrick. That was one of the +things they'd been doing with that jeep-mounted sound-camera, this +afternoon, then. The boys, some brashly, some embarrassedly, were +substantiating the fact that he had, a month ago, described +yesterday's event in detail. There was an interview with Leonard +Fitch; the psychology professor was trying to explain the phenomenon +of precognition in layman's terms, and making heavy going of it. And +there was the mobbing of Whitburn in front of Administration Center. +The college president was shouting denials of every question asked +him, and as he turned and fled, the guffaws of the reporters were +plainly audible. + +An argument broke out along the counter. + +"I don't believe it! How could anybody know all that about something +before it happened?" + +"Well, you heard that-there professor, what was his name. An' you +heard all them boys...." + +"Ah, college-boys; they'll do anything for a joke!" + +"After refusing to be interviewed for telecast, the president of +Blanley College finally consented to hold a press conference in his +office, from which telecast cameras were barred. He denied the whole +story categorically and stated that the boys in Professor Chalmers' +class had concocted the whole thing as a hoax...." + +"There! See what I told you!" + +"... stating that Professor Chalmers is mentally unsound, and that +he has been trying for years to oust him from his position on the +Blanley faculty but has been unable to do so because of the provisions +of the Faculty Tenure Act of 1963. Most of his remarks were in the +nature of a polemic against this law, generally regarded as the +college professors' bill of rights. It is to be stated here that other +members of the Blanley faculty have unconditionally confirmed the fact +that Doctor Chalmers did make the statements attributed to him a month +ago, long before the death of Khalid ib'n Hussein...." + +"Yah! How about _that_, now? How'ya gonna get around _that_?" + +Beckoning the waitress, he paid his check and hurried out. Before he +reached the door, he heard a voice, almost stuttering with excitement: + +"Hey! Look! That's _him_!" + +He began to run. He was two blocks from the cafe before he slowed to a +walk again. + +That night, he needed three shots of whiskey before he could get to +sleep. + + * * * * * + +A delegation from the American Institute of Psionics and +Parapsychology reached Blanley that morning, having taken a +strato-plane from the East Coast. They had academic titles and degrees +that even Lloyd Whitburn couldn't ignore. They talked with Leonard +Fitch, and with the students from Modern History IV, and took +statements. It wasn't until after General European History II that +they caught up with Chalmers--an elderly man, with white hair and a +ruddy face; a young man who looked like a heavy-weight boxer; a +middle-aged man in tweeds who smoked a pipe and looked as though he +ought to be more interested in grouse-shooting and flower-gardening +than in clairvoyance and telepathy. The names of the first two meant +nothing to Chalmers. They were important names in their own field, but +it was not his field. The name of the third, who listened silently, he +did not catch. + +"You understand, gentlemen, that I'm having some difficulties with the +college administration about this," he told them. "President Whitburn +has even gone so far as to challenge my fitness to hold a position +here." + +"We've talked to him," the elderly man said. "It was not a very +satisfactory discussion." + +"President Whitburn's fitness to hold his own position could very +easily be challenged," the young man added pugnaciously. + +"Well, then, you see what my position is. I've consulted my attorney, +Mr. Weill and he has advised me to make absolutely no statements of +any sort about the matter." + +"I understand," the eldest of the trio said. "But we're not the press, +or anything like that. We can assure you that anything you tell us +will be absolutely confidential." He looked inquiringly at the +middle-aged man in tweeds, who nodded silently. "We can understand +that the students in your modern history class are telling what is +substantially the truth?" + +"If you're thinking about that hoax statement of Whitburn's, that's a +lot of idiotic drivel!" he said angrily. "I heard some of those boys +on the telecast, last night; except for a few details in which they +were confused, they all stated exactly what they heard me say in class +a month ago." + +"And we assume,"--again he glanced at the man in tweeds--"that you had +no opportunity of knowing anything, at the time, about any actual +plot against Khalid's life?" + +The man in tweeds broke silence for the first time. "You can assume +that. I don't even think this fellow Noureed knew anything about it, +then." + +"Well, we'd like to know, as nearly as you're able to tell us, just +how you became the percipient of this knowledge of the future event of +the death of Khalid ib'n Hussein," the young man began. "Was it +through a dream, or a waking experience; did you visualize, or have an +auditory impression, or did it simply come into your mind...." + +"I'm sorry, gentlemen." He looked at his watch. "I have to be going +somewhere, at once. In any case, I simply can't discuss the matter +with you. I appreciate your position; I know how I'd feel if data of +historical importance were being withheld from me. However, I trust +that you will appreciate my position and spare me any further +questioning." + +That was all he allowed them to get out of him. They spent another few +minutes being polite to one another; he invited them to lunch at the +Faculty Club, and learned that they were lunching there as Fitch's +guests. They went away trying to hide their disappointment. + + * * * * * + +The Psionics and Parapsychology people weren't the only delegation to +reach Blanley that day. Enough of the trustees of the college lived in +the San Francisco area to muster a quorum for a meeting the evening +before; a committee, including James Dacre, the father of the boy in +Modern History IV, was appointed to get the facts at first hand; they +arrived about noon. They talked to some of the students, spent some +time closeted with Whitburn, and were seen crossing the campus with +the Parapsychology people. They didn't talk to Chalmers or Fitch. In +the afternoon, Marjorie Fenner told Chalmers that his presence at a +meeting, to be held that evening in Whitburn's office, was requested. +The request, she said, had come from the trustees' committee, not from +Whitburn; she also told him that Fitch would be there. Chalmers +promptly phoned Stanly Weill. + +"I'll be there along with you," the lawyer said. "If this trustees' +committee is running it, they'll realize that this is a matter in +which you're entitled to legal advice. I'll stop by your place and +pick you up.... You haven't been doing any talking, have you?" + +He described the interview with the Psionics and Parapsychology +people. + +"That was all right.... Was there a man with a mustache, in a brown +tweed suit, with them?" + +"Yes. I didn't catch his name...." + +"It's Cutler. He's an Army major; Central Intelligence. His crowd's +interested in whether you had any real advance information on this. He +was in to see me, just a while ago. I have the impression he'd like to +see this whole thing played down, so he'll be on our side, more or +less and for the time being. I'll be around to your place about eight; +in the meantime, don't do any more talking than you have to. I hope we +can get this straightened out, this evening. I'll have to go to Reno +in a day or so to see a client there...." + + * * * * * + +The meeting in Whitburn's office had been set for eight-thirty; Weill +saw to it that they arrived exactly on time. As they got out of his +car at Administration Center and crossed to the steps, Chalmers had +the feeling of going to a duel, accompanied by his second. The +briefcase Weill was carrying may have given him the idea; it was flat +and square-cornered, the size and shape of an old case of dueling +pistols. He commented on it. + +"Sound recorder," Weill said. "Loaded with a four-hour spool. No +matter how long this thing lasts, I'll have a record of it, if I want +to produce one in court." + +Another party was arriving at the same time--the two Psionics and +Parapsychology people and the Intelligence major, who seemed to have +formed a working partnership. They all entered together, after a brief +and guardedly polite exchange of greetings. There were voices raised +in argument inside when they came to Whitburn's office. The college +president was trying to keep Handley, Tom Smith, and Max Pottgeiter +from entering his private room in the rear. + +"It certainly is!" Handley was saying. "As faculty members, any +controversy involving establishment of standards of fitness to teach +under a tenure-contract concerns all of us, because any action taken +in this case may establish a precedent which could affect the validity +of our own contracts." + +A big man with iron-gray hair appeared in the doorway of the private +office behind Whitburn; James Dacre. + +"These gentlemen have a substantial interest in this, Doctor +Whitburn," he said. "If they're here as representatives of the college +faculty, they have every right to be present." + +Whitburn stood aside. Handley, Smith and Pottgeiter went through the +door; the others followed. The other three members of the trustees' +committee were already in the room. A few minutes later, Leonard Fitch +arrived, also carrying a briefcase. + +"Well, everybody seems to be here," Whitburn said, starting toward his +chair behind the desk. "We might as well get this started." + +"Yes. If you'll excuse me, Doctor." Dacre stepped in front of him and +sat down at the desk. "I've been selected as chairman of this +committee; I believe I'm presiding here. Start the recorder, +somebody." + +One of the other trustees went to the sound recorder beside the +desk--a larger but probably not more efficient instrument than the one +Weill had concealed in his briefcase--and flipped a switch. Then he +and his companions dragged up chairs to flank Dacre's, and the rest +seated themselves around the room. Old Pottgeiter took a seat next to +Chalmers. Weill opened the case on his lap, reached inside, and closed +it again. + +"What are they trying to do, Ed?" Pottgeiter asked, in a loud whisper. +"Throw you off the faculty? They can't do that, can they?" + +"I don't know, Max. We'll see...." + +"This isn't any formal hearing, and nobody's on trial here," Dacre was +saying. "Any action will have to be taken by the board of trustees as +a whole, at a regularly scheduled meeting. All we're trying to do is +find out just what's happened here, and who, if anybody, is +responsible...." + +"Well, there's the man who's responsible!" Whitburn cried, pointing at +Chalmers. "This whole thing grew out of his behavior in class a month +ago, and I'll remind you that at the time I demanded his resignation!" + +"I thought it was Doctor Fitch, here, who gave the story to the +newspapers," one of the trustees, a man with red hair and a thin, +eyeglassed face, objected. + +"Doctor Fitch acted as any scientist should, in making public what he +believed to be an important scientific discovery," the elder of the +two Parapsychology men said. "He believed, and so do we, that he had +discovered a significant instance of precognition--a case of real +prior knowledge of a future event. He made a careful and systematic +record of Professor Chalmers' statements, at least two weeks before +the occurrence of the event to which they referred. It is entirely due +to him that we know exactly what Professor Chalmers said and when he +said it." + +"Yes," his younger colleague added, "and in all my experience I've +never heard anything more preposterous than this man Whitburn's +attempt, yesterday, to deny the fact." + +"Well, we're convinced that Doctor Chalmers did in fact say what he's +alleged to have said, last month," Dacre began. + +"Jim, I think we ought to get that established, for the record," +another of the trustees put in. "Doctor Chalmers, is it true that you +spoke, in the past tense, about the death of Khalid ib'n Hussein in +one of your classes on the sixteenth of last month?" + +Chalmers rose. "Yes, it is. And the next day, I was called into this +room by Doctor Whitburn, who demanded my resignation from the faculty +of this college because of it. Now, what I'd like to know is, why did +Doctor Whitburn, in this same room, deny, yesterday, that I'd said +anything of the sort, and accuse my students of concocting the story +after the event as a hoax." + +"One of them being my son," Dacre added. "I'd like to hear an answer +to that, myself." + +"So would I," Stanly Weill chimed in. "You know, my client has a good +case against Doctor Whitburn for libel." + +Chalmers looked around the room. Of the thirteen men around him, only +Whitburn was an enemy. Some of the others were on his side, for one +reason or another, but none of them were friends. Weill was his +lawyer, obeying an obligation to a client which, at bottom, was an +obligation to his own conscience. Handley was afraid of the +possibility that a precedent might be established which would impair +his own tenure-contract. Fitch, and the two men from the Institute of +Psionics and Parapsychology were interested in him as a source of +study-material. Dacre resented a slur upon his son; he and the others +were interested in Blanley College as an institution, almost an +abstraction. And the major in mufti was probably worrying about the +consequences to military security of having a prophet at large. Then a +hand gripped his shoulder, and a voice whispered in his ear: + +"That's good, Ed; don't let them scare you!" + +Old Max Pottgeiter, at least, was a friend. + +"Doctor Whitburn, I'm asking you, and I expect an answer, why did you +make such statements to the press, when you knew perfectly well that +they were false?" Dacre demanded sharply. + +"I knew nothing of the kind!" Whitburn blustered, showing, under the +bluster, fear. "Yes, I demanded this man's resignation on the morning +of October Seventeenth, the day after this incident occurred. It had +come to my attention on several occasions that he was making wild and +unreasonable assertions in class, and subjecting himself, and with +himself the whole faculty of this college, to student ridicule. Why, +there was actually an editorial about it written by the student editor +of the campus paper, the _Black and Green_. I managed to prevent its +publication...." He went on at some length about that. "If I might be +permitted access to the drawers of my own desk," he added with +elephantine sarcasm, "I could show you the editorial in question." + +"You needn't bother; I have a carbon copy," Dacre told him. "We've all +read it. If you did, at the time you suppressed it, you should have +known what Doctor Chalmers said in class." + +"I knew he'd talked a lot of poppycock about a man who was still +living having been shot to death," Whitburn retorted. "And if +something of the sort actually happened, what of it? Somebody's always +taking a shot at one or another of these foreign dictators, and they +can't miss all the time." + +"You claim this was pure coincidence?" Fitch demanded. "A ten-point +coincidence: Event of assassination, year of the event, place, +circumstances, name of assassin, nationality of assassin, manner of +killing, exact type of weapon used, guards killed and wounded along +with Khalid, and fate of the assassin. If that's a simple and +plausible coincidence, so's dealing ten royal flushes in succession in +a poker game. Tom, you figured that out; what did you say the odds +against it were?" + +"Was all that actually stated by Doctor Chalmers a month ago?" one of +the trustees asked, incredulously. + +"It absolutely was. Look here, Mr. Dacre, gentlemen." Fitch came +forward, unzipping his briefcase and pulling out papers. "Here are the +signed statements of each of Doctor Chalmers' twenty-three Modern +History Four students, all made and dated before the assassination. +You can refer to them as you please; they're in alphabetical order. +And here." He unfolded a sheet of graph paper a yard long and almost +as wide. "Here's a tabulated summary of the boys' statements. All +agreed on the first point, the fact of the assassination. All agreed +that the time was sometime this year. Twenty out of twenty-three +agreed on Basra as the place. Why, seven of them even remembered the +name of the assassin. That in itself is remarkable; Doctor Chalmers +has an extremely intelligent and attentive class." + +"They're attentive because they know he's always likely to do +something crazy and make a circus out of himself," Whitburn +interjected. + +"And this isn't the only instance of Doctor Chalmers' precognitive +ability," Fitch continued. "There have been a number of other cases...." + +Chalmers jumped to his feet; Stanly Weill rose beside him, shoved the +cased sound-recorder into his hands, and pushed him back into his +seat. + +"Gentlemen," the lawyer began, quietly but firmly and clearly. "This +is all getting pretty badly out of hand. After all, this isn't an +investigation of the actuality of precognition as a psychic +phenomenon. What I'd like to hear, and what I haven't heard yet, is +Doctor Whitburn's explanation of his contradictory statements that he +knew about my client's alleged remarks on the evening after they were +supposed to have been made and that, at the same time, the whole thing +was a hoax concocted by his students." + +"Are you implying that I'm a liar?" Whitburn bristled. + +"I'm pointing out that you made a pair of contradictory statements, +and I'm asking how you could do that knowingly and honestly," Weill +retorted. + +"What I meant," Whitburn began, with exaggerated slowness, as though +speaking to an idiot, "was that yesterday, when those infernal +reporters were badgering me, I really thought that some of Professor +Chalmers' students had gotten together and given the _Valley Times_ an +exaggerated story about his insane maunderings a month ago. I hadn't +imagined that a member of the faculty had been so lacking in loyalty +to the college...." + +"You couldn't imagine anybody with any more intellectual integrity +than you have!" Fitch fairly yelled at him. + +"You're as crazy as Chalmers!" Whitburn yelled back. He turned to the +trustees. "You see the position I'm in, here, with this infernal +Higher Education Faculty Tenure Act? I have a madman on my faculty, +and can I get rid of him? No! I demand his resignation, and he laughs +at me and goes running for his lawyer! And he is a madman! Nobody but +a madman would talk the way he does. You think this Khalid ib'n +Hussein business is the only time he's done anything like this? Why, I +have a list of a dozen occasions when he's done something just as bad, +only he didn't have a lucky coincidence to back him up. Trying to get +books that don't exist out of the library, and then insisting that +they're standard textbooks. Talking about the revolt of the colonies +on Mars and Venus. Talking about something he calls the Terran +Federation, some kind of a world empire. Or something he calls +Operation Triple Cross, that saved the country during some fantastic +war he imagined...." + +"_What did you say?_" + +The question cracked out like a string of pistol shots. Everybody +turned. The quiet man in the brown tweed suit had spoken; now he +looked as though he were very much regretting it. + +"Is there such a thing as Operation Triple Cross?" Fitch was asking. + +"No, no. I never heard anything about that; that wasn't what I meant. +It was this Terran Federation thing," the major said, a trifle too +quickly and too smoothly. He turned to Chalmers. "You never did any +work for PSPB; did you ever talk to anybody who did?" he asked. + +"I don't even know what the letters mean," Chalmers replied. + +"Politico-Strategic Planning Board. It's all pretty hush-hush, but +this term Terran Federation is a tentative name for a proposed +organization to take the place of the U. N. if that organization +breaks up. It's nothing particularly important, and it only exists on +paper." + +It won't exist only on paper very long, Chalmers thought. He was +wondering what Operation Triple Cross was; he had some notes on it, +but he had forgotten what they were. + +"Maybe he did pick that up from somebody who'd talked indiscreetly," +Whitburn conceded. "But the rest of this tommyrot! Why, he was talking +about how the city of Reno had been destroyed by an explosion and +fire, literally wiped off the map. There's an example for you!" + +He'd forgotten about that, too. It had been a relatively minor +incident in the secret struggle of the Subwar; now he remembered +having made a note about it. He was sure that it followed closely +after the assassination of Khalid ib'n Hussein. He turned quickly to +Weill. + +"Didn't you say you had to go to Reno in a day or so?" he asked. + +Weill hushed him urgently, pointing with his free hand to the +recorder. The exchange prevented him from noticing that Max Pottgeiter +had risen, until the old man was speaking. + +"Are you trying to tell these people that Professor Chalmers is +crazy?" he was demanding. "Why, he has one of the best minds on the +campus. I was talking to him only yesterday, in the back room at the +Library. You know," he went on apologetically, "my subject is Medieval +History; I don't pay much attention to what's going on in the +contemporary world, and I didn't understand, really, what all this +excitement was about. But he explained the whole thing to me, and did +it in terms that I could grasp, drawing some excellent parallels with +the Byzantine Empire and the Crusades. All about the revolt at +Damascus, and the sack of Beirut, and the war between Jordan and Saudi +Arabia, and how the Turkish army intervened, and the invasion of +Pakistan...." + +"When did all this happen?" one of the trustees demanded. + +Pottgeiter started to explain; Chalmers realized, sickly, how much of +his future history he had poured into the trusting ear of the old +medievalist, the day before. + +"Good Lord, man; don't you read the papers at all?" another of the +trustees asked. + +"No! And I don't read inside-dope magazines, or science fiction. I +read carefully substantiated facts. And I know when I'm talking to a +sane and reasonable man. It isn't a common experience, around here." + +Dacre passed a hand over his face. "Doctor Whitburn," he said, "I must +admit that I came to this meeting strongly prejudiced against you, and +I'll further admit that your own behavior here has done very little to +dispel that prejudice. But I'm beginning to get some idea of what you +have to contend with, here at Blanley, and I find that I must make a +lot of allowances. I had no idea.... Simply no idea at all." + +"Look, you're getting a completely distorted picture of this, Mr. +Dacre," Fitch broke in. "It's precisely as I believed; Doctor Chalmers +is an unusually gifted precognitive percipient. You've seen, +gentlemen, how his complicated chain of precognitions about the death +of Khalid has been proven veridical; I'd stake my life that every one +of these precognitions will be similarly verified. And I'll stake my +professional reputation that the man is perfectly sane. Of course, +abnormal psychology and psychopathology aren't my subjects, but...." + +"They're not my subjects, either," Whitburn retorted, "but I know a +lunatic by his ravings." + +"Doctor Fitch is taking an entirely proper attitude," Pottgeiter said, +"in pointing out that abnormal psychology is a specialized branch, +outside his own field. I wouldn't dream, myself, of trying to offer a +decisive opinion on some point of Roman, or Babylonian, history. Well, +if the question of Doctor Chalmers' sanity is at issue here, let's +consult somebody who specializes in insanity. I don't believe that +anybody here is qualified even to express an opinion on that subject, +Doctor Whitburn least of all." + +Whitburn turned on him angrily. "Oh, shut up, you doddering old fool!" +he shouted. "Look; there's another of them!" he told the trustees. +"Another deadhead on the faculty that this Tenure Law keeps me from +getting rid of. He's as bad as Chalmers, himself. You just heard that +string of nonsense he was spouting. Why, his courses have been noted +among the students for years as snap courses in which nobody ever has +to do any work...." + +Chalmers was on his feet again, thoroughly angry. Abuse of himself he +could take; talking that way about gentle, learned, old Pottgeiter +was something else. + +"I think Doctor Pottgeiter's said the most reasonable thing I've heard +since I came in here," he declared. "If my sanity is to be questioned, +I insist that it be questioned by somebody qualified to do so." + +[Illustration: Had the sane restrained the insane, or was it the other +way around?] + +Weill set his recorder on the floor and jumped up beside him, trying +to haul him back into his seat. + +"For God's sake, man! Sit down and shut up!" he hissed. + +Chalmers shook off his hand. "No, I won't shut up! This is the only +way to settle this, once and for all. And when my sanity's been +vindicated, I'm going to sue this fellow...." + +Whitburn started to make some retort, then stopped short. After a +moment, he smiled nastily. + +"Do I understand, Doctor Chalmers, that you would be willing to submit +to psychiatric examination?" he asked. + +"Don't agree; you're putting your foot in a trap!" Weill told him +urgently. + +"Of course, I agree, as long as the examination is conducted by a +properly qualified psychiatrist." + +"How about Doctor Hauserman at Northern State Mental Hospital?" +Whitburn asked quickly. "Would you agree to an examination by him?" + +"Excellent!" Fitch exclaimed. "One of the best men in the field. I'd +accept his opinion unreservedly." + +Weill started to object again; Chalmers cut him off. "Doctor Hauserman +will be quite satisfactory to me. The only question is, would he be +available?" + +"I think he would," Dacre said, glancing at his watch. "I wonder if he +could be reached now." He got to his feet. "Telephone in your outer +office, Doctor Whitburn? Fine. If you gentlemen will excuse me...." + +It was a good fifteen minutes before he returned, smiling. + +"Well, gentlemen, it's all arranged," he said. "Doctor Hauserman is +quite willing to examine Doctor Chalmers--with the latter's consent, +of course." + +"He'll have it. In writing, if he wishes." + +"Yes, I assured him on that point. He'll be here about noon +tomorrow--it's a hundred and fifty miles from the hospital, but the +doctor flies his own plane--and the examination can start at two in +the afternoon. He seems familiar with the facilities of the +psychology department, here; I assured him that they were at his +disposal. Will that be satisfactory to you, Doctor Chalmers?" + +"I have a class at that time, but one of the instructors can take it +over--if holding classes will be possible around here tomorrow," he +said. "Now, if you gentlemen will pardon me, I think I'll go home and +get some sleep." + + * * * * * + +Weill came up to the apartment with him. He mixed a couple of drinks +and they went into the living room with them. + +"Just in case you don't know what you've gotten yourself into," Weill +said, "this Hauserman isn't any ordinary couch-pilot; he's the state +psychiatrist. If he gets the idea you aren't sane, he can commit you +to a hospital, and I'll bet that's exactly what Whitburn had in mind +when he suggested him. And I don't trust this man Dacre. I thought he +was on our side, at the start, but that was before your friends got +into the act." He frowned into his drink. "And I don't like the way +that Intelligence major was acting, toward the last. If he thinks you +know something you are not supposed to, a mental hospital may be his +idea of a good place to put you away." + +"You don't think this man Hauserman would allow himself to be +influenced ...? No. You just don't think I'm sane. Do you?" + +"I know what Hauserman'll think. He'll think this future history +business is a classical case of systematized schizoid delusion. I wish +I'd never gotten into this case. I wish I'd never even heard of you! +And another thing; in case you get past Hauserman all right, you can +forget about that damage-suit bluff of mine. You would not stand a +chance with it in court." + +"In spite of what happened to Khalid?" + +"After tomorrow, I won't stay in the same room with anybody who even +mentions that name to me. Well, win or lose, it'll be over tomorrow +and then I can leave here." + +"Did you tell me you were going to Reno?" Chalmers asked. "Don't do +it. You remember Whitburn mentioning how I spoke about an explosion +there? It happened just a couple of days after the murder of Khalid. +There was--will be--a trainload of high explosives in the railroad +yard; it'll be the biggest non-nuclear explosion since the _Mont +Blanc_ blew up in Halifax harbor in World War One...." + +Weill threw his drink into the fire; he must have avoided throwing the +glass in with it by a last-second exercise of self-control. + +"Well," he said, after a brief struggle to master himself. "One thing +about the legal profession; you do hear the damnedest things!... Good +night, Professor. And try--please try, for the sake of your poor +harried lawyer--to keep your mouth shut about things like that, at +least till after you get through with Hauserman. And when you're +talking to him, don't, don't, for heaven's sake, _don't_, volunteer +anything!" + + * * * * * + +The room was a pleasant, warmly-colored, place. There was a desk, much +like the ones in the classrooms, and six or seven wicker armchairs. A +lot of apparatus had been pushed back along the walls; the dust-covers +were gay cretonne. There was a couch, with more apparatus, similarly +covered, beside it. Hauserman was seated at the desk when Chalmers +entered. + +He rose, and they shook hands. A man of about his own age, +smooth-faced, partially bald. Chalmers tried to guess something of the +man's nature from his face, but could read nothing. A face well +trained to keep its owner's secrets. + +"Something to smoke, Professor," he began, offering his cigarette +case. + +"My pipe, if you don't mind." He got it out and filled it. + +"Any of those chairs," Hauserman said, gesturing toward them. + +They were all arranged to face the desk. He sat down, lighting his +pipe. Hauserman nodded approvingly; he was behaving calmly, and didn't +need being put at ease. They talked at random--at least, Hauserman +tried to make it seem so--for some time about his work, his book about +the French Revolution, current events. He picked his way carefully +through the conversation, alert for traps which the psychiatrist might +be laying for him. Finally, Hauserman said: + +"Would you mind telling me just why you felt it advisable to request a +psychiatric examination, Professor?" + +"I didn't request it. But when the suggestion was made, by one of my +friends, in reply to some aspersions of my sanity, I agreed to it." + +"Good distinction. And why was your sanity questioned? I won't deny +that I had heard of this affair, here, before Mr. Dacre called me, +last evening, but I'd like to hear your version of it." + +He went into that, from the original incident in Modern History IV, +choosing every word carefully, trying to concentrate on making a good +impression upon Hauserman, and at the same time finding that more +"memories" of the future were beginning to seep past the barrier of +his consciousness. He tried to dam them back; when he could not, he +spoke with greater and greater care lest they leak into his speech. + +"I can't recall the exact manner in which I blundered into it. The +fact that I did make such a blunder was because I was talking +extemporaneously and had wandered ahead of my text. I was trying to +show the results of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after the First +World War, and the partition of the Middle East into a loose +collection of Arab states, and the passing of British and other +European spheres of influence following the Second. You know, when you +consider it, the Islamic Caliphate was inevitable; the surprising +thing is that it was created by a man like Khalid...." + +He was talking to gain time, and he suspected that Hauserman knew it. +The "memories" were coming into his mind more and more strongly; it +was impossible to suppress them. The period of anarchy following +Khalid's death would be much briefer, and much more violent, than he +had previously thought. Tallal ib'n Khalid would be flying from +England even now; perhaps he had already left the plane to take refuge +among the black tents of his father's Bedouins. The revolt at Damascus +would break out before the end of the month; before the end of the +year, the whole of Syria and Lebanon would be in bloody chaos, and the +Turkish army would be on the march. + +"Yes. And you allowed yourself to be carried a little beyond the +present moment, into the future, without realizing it? Is that it?" + +"Something like that," he replied, wide awake to the trap Hauserman +had set, and fearful that it might be a blind, to disguise the real +trap. "History follows certain patterns. I'm not a Toynbean, by any +manner of means, but any historian can see that certain forces +generally tend to produce similar effects. For instance, space travel +is now a fact; our government has at present a military base on Luna. +Within our lifetimes--certainly within the lifetimes of my +students--there will be explorations and attempts at colonization on +Mars and Venus. You believe that, Doctor?" + +"Oh, unreservedly. I'm not supposed to talk about it, but I did some +work on the Philadelphia Project, myself. I'd say that every major +problem of interplanetary flight had been solved before the first +robot rocket was landed on Luna." + +"Yes. And when Mars and Venus are colonized, there will be the same +historic situations, at least in general shape, as arose when the +European powers were colonizing the New World, or, for that matter, +when the Greek city-states were throwing out colonies across the +Aegean. That's the sort of thing we call projecting the past into the +future through the present." + +Hauserman nodded. "But how about the details? Things like the +assassination of a specific personage. How can you extrapolate to a +thing like that?" + +"Well...." More "memories" were coming to the surface; he tried to +crowd them back. "I do my projecting in what you might call +fictionalized form; try to fill in the details from imagination. In +the case of Khalid, I was trying to imagine what would happen if his +influence were suddenly removed from Near Eastern and Middle Eastern, +affairs. I suppose I constructed an imaginary scene of his +assassination...." + +He went on at length. Mohammed and Noureed were common enough names. +The Middle East was full of old U. S. weapons. Stoning was the +traditional method of execution; it diffused responsibility so that no +individual could be singled out for blood-feud vengeance. + +"You have no idea how disturbed I was when the whole thing happened, +exactly as I had described it," he continued. "And worst of all, to +me, was this Intelligence officer showing up; I thought I was really +in for it!" + +"Then you've never really believed that you had real knowledge of the +future?" + +"I'm beginning to, since I've been talking to these Psionics and +Parapsychology people," he laughed. It sounded, he hoped, like a +natural and unaffected laugh. "They seem to be convinced that I +have." + +There would be an Eastern-inspired uprising in Azerbaijan by the +middle of the next year; before autumn, the Indian Communists would +make their fatal attempt to seize East Pakistan. The Thirty Days' War +would be the immediate result. By that time, the Lunar Base would be +completed and ready; the enemy missiles would be aimed primarily at +the rocketports from which it was supplied. Delivered without warning, +it should have succeeded--except that every rocketport had its secret +duplicate and triplicate. That was Operation Triple Cross; no wonder +Major Cutler had been so startled at the words, last evening. The +enemy would be utterly overwhelmed under the rain of missiles from +across space, but until the moon-rockets began to fall, the United +States would suffer grievously. + +"Honestly, though, I feel sorry for my friend Fitch," he added. "He's +going to be frightfully let down when some more of my alleged +prophecies misfire on him. But I really haven't been deliberately +deceiving him." + +And Blanley College was at the center of one of the areas which would +receive the worst of the thermonuclear hell to come. And it would be a +little under a year.... + +"And that's all there is to it!" Hauserman exclaimed, annoyance in his +voice. "I'm amazed that this man Whitburn allowed a thing like this to +assume the proportions it did. I must say that I seem to have gotten +the story about this business in a very garbled form indeed." He +laughed shortly. "I came here convinced that you were mentally +unbalanced. I hope you won't take that the wrong way, Professor," he +hastened to add. "In my profession, anything can be expected. A good +psychiatrist can never afford to forget how sharp and fine is the +knife-edge." + +"The knife-edge!" The words startled him. He had been thinking, at +that moment, of the knife-edge, slicing moment after moment +relentlessly away from the future, into the past, at each slice coming +closer and closer to the moment when the missiles of the Eastern Axis +would fall. "I didn't know they still resorted to surgery, in mental +cases," he added, trying to cover his break. + +"Oh, no; all that sort of thing is as irrevocably discarded as the +whips and shackles of Bedlam. I meant another kind of knife-edge; the +thin, almost invisible, line which separates sanity from non-sanity. +From madness, to use a deplorable lay expression." Hauserman lit +another cigarette. "Most minds are a lot closer to it than their +owners suspect, too. In fact, Professor, I was so convinced that yours +had passed over it that I brought with me a commitment form, made out +all but my signature, for you." He took it from his pocket and laid it +on the desk. "The modern equivalent of the _lettre-de-cachet_, I +suppose the author of a book on the French Revolution would call it. I +was all ready to certify you as mentally unsound, and commit you to +Northern State Mental Hospital." + +Chalmers sat erect in his chair. He knew where that was; on the other +side of the mountains, in the one part of the state completely +untouched by the H-bombs of the Thirty Days' War. Why, the town +outside which the hospital stood had been a military headquarters +during the period immediately after the bombings, and the center from +which all the rescue work in the state had been directed. + +"And you thought you could commit me to Northern State!" he demanded, +laughing scornfully, and this time he didn't try to make the laugh +sound natural and unaffected. "You--confine _me_, anywhere? Confine a +poor old history professor's body, yes, but that isn't me. I'm +universal; I exist in all space-time. When this old body I'm wearing +now was writing that book on the French Revolution, I was in Paris, +watching it happen, from the fall of the Bastile to the Ninth +Thermidor. I was in Basra, and saw that crazed tool of the Axis shoot +down Khalid ib'n Hussein--and the professor talked about it a month +before it happened. I have seen empires rise and stretch from star to +star across the Galaxy, and crumble and fall. I have seen...." + +Doctor Hauserman had gotten his pen out of his pocket and was signing +the commitment form with one hand; with the other, he pressed a button +on the desk. A door at the rear opened, and a large young man in a +white jacket entered. + +"You'll have to go away for a while, Professor," Hauserman was telling +him, much later, after he had allowed himself to become calm again. +"For how long, I don't know. Maybe a year or so." + +"You mean to Northern State Mental?" + +"Well.... Yes, Professor. You've had a bad crack-up. I don't suppose +you realize how bad. You've been working too hard; harder than your +nervous system could stand. It's been too much for you." + +"You mean, I'm nuts?" + +"Please, Professor. I deplore that sort of terminology. You've had a +severe psychological breakdown...." + +"Will I be able to have books, and papers, and work a little? I +couldn't bear the prospect of complete idleness." + +"That would be all right, if you didn't work too hard." + +"And could I say good-bye to some of my friends?" + +Hauserman nodded and asked, "Who?" + +"Well, Professor Pottgeiter...." + +"He's outside now. He was inquiring about you." + +"And Stanly Weill, my attorney. Not business; just to say good-bye." + +"Oh, I'm sorry, Professor. He's not in town, now. He left almost +immediately after.... After...." + +"After he found out I was crazy for sure? Where'd he go?" + +"To Reno; he took the plane at five o'clock." + +Weill wouldn't have believed, anyhow; no use trying to blame himself +for that. But he was as sure that he would never see Stanly Weill +alive again as he was that the next morning the sun would rise. He +nodded impassively. + +"Sorry he couldn't stay. Can I see Max Pottgeiter alone?" + +"Yes, of course, Professor." + +Old Pottgeiter came in, his face anguished. "Ed! It isn't true," he +stammered. "I won't believe that it's true." + +"What, Max?" + +"That you're crazy. Nobody can make me believe that." + +He put his hand on the old man's shoulder. "Confidentially, Max, +neither do I. But don't tell anybody I'm not. It's a secret." + +Pottgeiter looked troubled. For a moment, he seemed to be wondering if +he mightn't be wrong and Hauserman and Whitburn and the others right. + +"Max, do you believe in me?" he asked. "Do you believe that I knew +about Khalid's assassination a month before it happened?" + +"It's a horribly hard thing to believe," Pottgeiter admitted. "But, +dammit, Ed, you did! I know, medieval history is full of stories +about prophecies being fulfilled. I always thought those stories were +just legends that grew up after the event. And, of course, he's about +a century late for me, but there was Nostradamus. Maybe those old +prophecies weren't just _ex post facto_ legends, after all. Yes. After +Khalid, I'll believe that." + +"All right. I'm saying, now, that in a few days there'll be a bad +explosion at Reno, Nevada. Watch the papers and the telecast for it. +If it happens, that ought to prove it. And you remember what I told +you about the Turks annexing Syria and Lebanon?" The old man nodded. +"When that happens, get away from Blanley. Come up to the town where +Northern State Mental Hospital is, and get yourself a place to live, +and stay there. And try to bring Marjorie Fenner along with you. Will +you do that, Max?" + +"If you say so." His eyes widened. "Something bad's going to happen +here?" + +"Yes, Max. Something very bad. You promise me you will?" + +"Of course, Ed. You know, you're the only friend I have around here. +You and Marjorie. I'll come, and bring her along." + +"Here's the key to my apartment." He got it from his pocket and gave +it to Pottgeiter, with instructions. "Everything in the filing cabinet +on the left of my desk. And don't let anybody else see any of it. Keep +it safe for me." + +The large young man in the white coat entered. + + +THE END + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Edge of the Knife, by Henry Beam Piper + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EDGE OF THE KNIFE *** + +***** This file should be named 18584.txt or 18584.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/5/8/18584/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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