The Edge of the Knife

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.

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?"

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.