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 forthe same reason: "Too hot to handle." "Too dangerous for our book."We'd like to know whether or not the readers of Amazing Storiesagree. Drop us a line after you've read it.
Chalmers stopped talking abruptly, warned by the sudden attentivenessof the class in front of him. They were all staring; even Guellick, inthe fourth row, was almost half awake. Then one of them, taking hissilence as an invitation to questions found his voice.
"You say Khalid ib'n Hussein's been assassinated?" he askedincredulously. "When did that happen?"
There was no past—no future—only a great chaoticNOW.
"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 theParliament Building, by an Egyptian Arab named Mohammed Noureed,with an old U. S. Army M3 submachine-gun. Noureed killed two ofKhalid's guards and wounded another before he was overpowered. He waslynched on the spot by the crowd; stoned to death. Ostensibly, he andhis accomplices were religious fanatics; however, there can be nodoubt whatever that the murder was inspired, at least indirectly, bythe Eastern Axis."
The class stirred like a grain-field in the wind. Some looked at himin blank amazement; some were hastily averting faces red with poorlysuppressed laughter. For a moment he was puzzled, and then realizationhit 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 thePresident of Turkey," another offered.
"Professor Chalmers, would you tell us just what effect Khalid's deathhad upon the Islamic Caliphate and the Middle Eastern situation ingeneral?" a third voice asked with exaggerated solemnity. That wasKendrick, the class humorist; the question was pure baiting.
"Well, Mr. Kendrick, I'm afraid it's a little too early to assess thefull results of a thing like that, if they can ever be fully assessed.For instance, who, in 1911, could have predicted all the consequencesof the pistol-shot at Sarajevo? Who, even today, can guess what thehistory of the world would have been had Zangarra not missed FranklinRoosevelt in 1932? There's always that if."
He went on talking safe generalities as he glanced covertly at hiswatch. Only five minutes to the end of the period; thank heaven hehadn'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 Warto the end of British rule, we will be largely concerned with anothervictim of the assassin's bullet, Mohandas K. Gandhi. You may askyourselves, then, by how much that bullet altered the history of theIndian sub-continent. A word of warning, however: T