 Part 1 of The Edge of the Knife. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Julio Marchini. The Edge of the Knife. By H. B. Piper. Part 1. Chalmers stopped talking abruptly, warned by the sudden attentiveness of the class in front of him. They were all staring, even gullick 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, Halid ibn Hussein's been assassinated? He asked incredulously. When did that happen? 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 Muhammad Nareed with an old US Army M3 submachine gun. Nareed killed two of Halid's guards and wounded another before he was overpowered. He was lynched on the spot by the crowd, stoned to death. Extensibly, 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 asking. The newscast last evening said Halid was in Ankara talking to the President of Turkey, another offered. Professor Chalmers, would you tell us just what effect of Halid's death ahead upon the Islamic Caliphate and the Middle Eastern situation in general? A third voice asked with exaggerated salamity. 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 Zangara 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 the 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 subcontinent. 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, and for the memory, even mentally, he always put that word into quotes, was lost. He was still scribbling furiously, but 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 4 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, that 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, 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 you 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 pot-guider, 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 Fanner, the secretary they also shared, was tidying up the old man's desk. Good morning, Dr. Chalmers. She looked at him keenly for a moment. They gave you a bad time again in modern form? 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 pot-guider's desk, was about to say something in the plot. Instead, she exclaimed in exasperation. Oh, that man! He's forgotten his notes again. She gathered some papers from pot-guider'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, too, untouched in front of him. This was going to raise hell. It hadn't been the first lip 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 UN the Terran Federation. And the time he'd tried to get a copy of Frenchards rise and decline of the system states, which wouldn't be published until the 28th 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 saw and sat down at Marjory's typewriter and began transcribing his notes. Assassination of Halid Ibn 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. Halid's son, Talao Ibn Halid, 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 Halid's assassination was an exception. 1973. Why? That was this year. He looked at the calendar, October 16, 1973. At the 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. 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 a shoulder swagger, the crowd in the lobby stopped talking abruptly. Then began again on an obviously changed subject. The word had gotten around apparently. Handle, the head of the Latin department, greeted him with a distantly polite nod. Pompasodau 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. His cordial as Handle was remote. Oh, hello, Ad. He greeted, clamping a hand on Chalmush's 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 Podguider. She nodded to him as he entered, but she had no summons to the president's offices. The summons was waiting for him the next morning when he entered the office after Modern History 4, a few minutes past 10. Dr. 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 2. No, I have everything ready. He pocketed the pipe he had filled on entry and went out. The president of Blind Leed College sat hunched forward at his desk. He had rounded shoulders and round pudge fists and a round bald head. He seemed to be expecting his visitor to stand at the 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, Dr. Whitburn, he said very pleasantly. Whitburn scowled deep in, I hope I don't have to tell you why I wanted to see you. He began, I have an idea. Chalmers poked 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 4. 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. I am decisively critical of you and your teaching methods and by implication of the administration of this college. You didn't hear about that, did you? Now living as you do in the future, you wouldn't. If the students who it did, the black and green, are dissatisfied with anything here, I'd imagine that they ought to say so. Chalmers commented. 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 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, but there is 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 far-ago of nonsense, obvious as such to any child, and damage not only your own standing with your class, but the standing of Blamley College as well. Dr. Chalmers, if this were the first incident of the kind, it would be bad enough, but it isn't. You've done things like that before, and I 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. The Court of Law. Why my contract should be voided. Now, I don't think a slip of tongue is a reason for voiding a contract that any court would accept. With Burns' face threatened. You're down, 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 12 years, you've had an insane professor on your faculty? 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, Dr. 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, and 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 10 minutes before time for the next class. Marjorie was typing something for podguider. He merely nodded to her and picked up the phone. The call would have to go through the school exchange, and he had his suspicion that Whitburn kept a check on outside calls. That might not hurt any, he thought, dialing a number. Attorney Wiles' office, the girl who answered, said, Edward Chalmers, is Mr. Wile in? She'd find out. He was, he answered in a few seconds. Hello, Stanley. Ed Chalmers, I think I'm going to need a little help. I'm having some trouble with President Whitburn here at the college. I'm out involving the validity of my ten-year 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 to the campus, but not too far away. How about Continental Contain Blue Room, say, 1215? 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. Part 1. Recording by Giulio Marchini, the edge of the knife by H. Bean Piper. Part 2 of The Edge of the Knife. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Giulio Marchini, the edge of the knife by H. Bean Piper. Part 2. Stanley Vile 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. Under the faculty tenure law, that means something just an inch short of murder in the first degree. Now what's Wilbur God 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 5,000 years, Whitburn thinks I'm crazy. Mainly because I get confused at times and forget that something I know about hasn't happened yet. Vile 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 3 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 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. Evolution of all national states under a single world's 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. That it would be launched sometime 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. Vile had been listening in silence. He had a naturally skeptical face. His present expression might not 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 and 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 historic 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, Wild Pounds. 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? Well, that's what I thought at first. I thought my subconscious was just building up this stuff to fill the gaps in what I've produced from logical expropriation. I had 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. Well 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. Vile put another cigarette in his mouth and bent his head to the flame of his lighter. For a moment, he said motionless, his thin face ridded. 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? Vile 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 did 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 Vile 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, Vile 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 Dacker 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 better not, Vile hesitated for a moment. I said I was a lawyer, not a psychiatrist. I'm going to give you some psychiatrist 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 the stuff. It's dangerous, Ed. Stop playing around with it. You think I'm crazy, too? Vile 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? Vile 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'm 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. 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 Whitmer does take this to court and does try to avoid 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 avoid it. Don't make any more of these lips. Watch what he 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 Whitless in his office but not gossipless outside it, though it hadn't seemed to have leaked down the students yet. Handley, Latin professor, managed to alay 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 one only 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 Dr. Whitburn tries to make an issue 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 contract and the system was instituted to prevent this 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 10-year law. Leonard Filch, the psychologist, took an opposite attitude. As Chalmers was leaving the college at the end of the afternoon, Filch 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 dalled indecisively, vile 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 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, vile'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 20th century vile 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 at 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 unrest, 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 bookcase 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 classwork for the next day. He better not stay in that evening too much temptation to settle himself by the living room fire with his pile-eep and his notepad and in Joach 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. End of Part 2 Recording by Giulio Marchini The Edge of the Knife by H. B. Piper Part 3 of The Edge of the Knife This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Giulio Marchini The Edge of the Knife by H. B. Piper Part 3 The Picture A random choice among the three shows in the neighborhood was about 17th century buccaneers, exciting action and a soundtrack 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 10th century of the interstellar era. He hadn't been too clear on that period and he found new data rising in his mind. He read his step, 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 conquistadoras. That was too much like the early period of interstellar expansion. He thought for a time of the sapoi mutiny and then rejected it. He could remember something much like that on one of the planets of the better hydrae system in the 4th century of the atomic era. There were so few things in the history of the past which did not have their counterparts in the future. That evening too, he stayed at home, preparing for his various classes every 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 any of the trustees or influential alumni made any protest about what had happened in modern history 4. He heard nothing about it. He managed to conduct his classes without further incidents and spent his evenings trying, not always successfully, engaging 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 Landlake College in mid-April of 1973. Potguider 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, Dr. 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. Halid Ibn 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 Nureed, 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 Ibn 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 will be the end of that silly flap about what happened a month ago in Modern 4. This is modern history now. I can't talk about it without a lot of fools yelling their heads off. She stared 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 4, he's 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 OUN already weakened by the crisis over the eastern demands for the demilitarization and the 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. I have to be careful about the knife edge. Too easy to cut himself on it. Nobody in Modern History 4 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, why Kendrick and Adaker were so objectively apologetic. Great Heavens, did it take the murder of the greatest Muslim 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, expecting him to walk right out of his class. He was protesting as he entered the president's office. Whitburn cut him off short. Dr. 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 4. He began. I realize nothing of the sort. The death of Khalid Ibn 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 prophecies. And I suppose you intend to exploit this this coincidence to the utmost. The involvement of Blenley 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. Floyd Whitburn outweighed him by 20 pounds. But most of the difference was fat. Whitburn must have realized that to... No, no. If you say you haven't talked about it to the Valley Times, that's enough. He said acely. But somebody did. A reporter was here not 20 minutes ago. He refused to say who had given him that 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 Tigan the owner of the paper and asked him very reasonably to suppress the story. I thought that my own position and the importance of landly college to this town entitled me to that much consideration. Whitburn's face became almost purple. Hey, hey, laugh that may. Newspapers 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 reported 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 who ever had given radio to the paper and finally charmers 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 though I admit but the frack remains that I did. I should of course have been more careful and not in the 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 23 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 Wile 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. Wile cursed the college president bitterly. Anytime you want to get a story on the value times just order Frank Tigmann 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 have this under control now that it's out in the open what the for Whitburn do is anybody's gas. Leonard Fritzch met him as he entered the faculty club sizzling with excitement. Ed thus 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 10 to the 15th power is what I get for a sort of median figure. Did you give the story to the valley times he asked Fritzch suspicion rising and dragging anger up after it. Of course I did Fritzch said I'll admit I had to go behind your back and have some of my post grads 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 20 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 his lugfest in here this is the faculty club remember I won't Tom it wouldn't prove anything if I did he turned to Fritzch I won't talk about sending our 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 Fritzch defended himself. I believed you when everybody else thought you were crazy and if I hadn't collected sign and dated statements from your boys there'd have been no substanciation it happens that extra sensory perception means as much to me as history does to you I've believed in it ever since I read about Ryan'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 Whitmer's president here and he's a stupid old bigot with an airlocked mind yes his anger died down as Fritzch spoke I'm glad Tom stopped me for 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 him the stories of the valley times I'd better hear all about it I phoned the secretary of the American Institute of Scionics 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 a serious study well, you got your publicity all right I'm up to my neck with it there was an uproar outside the door man 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 next in it Smith said Leonard I don't care what your motives were and you ought to have considered the effect on the rest of us first this place will be a madhouse handily 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 Potguider's voice rose petulently at the door are you trying to tell me that Professor Chalmers murdered some Arab? ridiculous end of part 3 recording by Giulio Marchini the edge of the knife by H. Bean Piper part 4 of the edge of the knife this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Giulio Marchini the edge of the knife by H. Bean Piper part 4 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 and chase of other game and had cornered Lloyd Whitburn in front of the 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 3 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 pot-guided 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 everyone 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 pot-guider 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 Halid very well was in the Middle East doing some research on the Byzantine Empire Halid 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 pot-guider nodded understandably 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 pot-guider who wasn't bothered by the present moment but simply boycotted it eventually the period bell rang pot-guider looked at his watch as from conditioned reflex and then rose saying that he had a class and excusing himself he would have carried a cigar with him if Chalmers hadn't taken it away from him after pot-guider 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 Halid ibn Husayn'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 pot-guider 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 are the steady underground conflict there was an explosion in sabotage that had come to be called the sub-war and with the United States already in possession of a powerful lunar base he wished he could remember how events between the murder of Halid and a 30 days war had been spaced chronologically something of that had come to him after the incidents in modern history and he had driven it from his consciousness he didn't dare go home where the reporters would be sure 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 Whitbert 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 streetlight vanishing as he entered the stronger light of the one ahead the windows of a cheap café 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 program 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 aberration 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 Halid ibn 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 30 years before and he and his contemporaries had called it a grease gun there were some recent pictures of Halid 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 vanley college in california the commentator was saying where it is revealed the murder of Halid was foretold with uncanny accuracy a month ago by a history professor Dr. 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 that 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 vanley campus and interviews with some of the modern history four boys including dakker and kenrick that was one of the things they've been doing with that cheap 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 phenomena 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 and 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 blandley 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 blandley 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 the law generally regarded as the college professor's bill of rights it is to be stated here that other members of the blandley faculty have unconditionally confirmed the fact that Dr. chalmers did make the statements attributed to him a month ago long before the death of Halid ibn Hussein how about that now can I get around that beckoning the waitress he paid his check and hurried out before he reached the door he heard a voice almost thuttering with excitement hey look that's him he began to run he was two blocks from the cafe before he is low 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 parpsychology reached blandley that morning having taken a straddle plane from the east coast they had academic titles and degrees that even hallowed whitburn couldn't ignore they talked with Leonard fitch and with the students from modern history 4 and took statements it wasn't until after general european history 2 that they caught up with chalmers an elderly man with a white hair and a ready face a young man who looked like a heavyweight boxer a middle aged man in tweeds who smoked a pipe and looked as though he ought to be more interested in grouse shouting 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 that 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 pugnitiously well then you see what my position is I've consulted my attorney mr vile 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 tweets 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 dribble he said angrily I heard some of those boys on a telecast last night except for a few details when 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 tweets that you had no opportunity of knowing anything at the time about any actual plot against Halid's life the man in tweets broke silence for the first time you can assume that I don't even think this fellow in the reed 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 recipient of this knowledge of the future event of the death of Halid ibn 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 the 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 they invited them to lunch at the faculty club and learned that they were lunching there as Fitch's guest they went away trying to hide their disappointment the psionics and parapsychology people weren't the only delegation to reach blindly 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 Dacker the father of the boy in modern history 4 was appointed to get the fact at first hand they arrived about noon they talked to some of the students spent time closeted with Whitburn and were seen crossing the campus with the parapsychology people they didn't talk to Chalmers of Fitch in the afternoon Marjorie Fennert told Chalmers that his presence had a meaning to be held that evening and 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 Stanley Weil 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 are 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 psionics and parapsychology people that was alright was there a man with a moustache in a brown tweed suit Whitburn yes I didn't catch his name it's Cutler he's an army major, central intelligence his crowds 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 8 in the meantime don't do any more talking than you have to I hope you can get this straightened out this evening I'll have to go to Reno in a day or so to see a client there end of part 4 recording by Giulio Marchini the edge of the knife by H. Bean Piper part 5 of the edge of the knife this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Giulio Marchini the edge of the knife by H. Bean Piper part 5 the meeting in Whitburn's office had been set for 8.30 Viles sought to it that they arrived exactly on time as they got out of his car at administration center after the steps Chalmers had the feeling of going to a duel accompanied by his second the briefcase Vile 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, Vile said loaded with a 4 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 godly 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 handily Tom Smith and Max Potguider from entering his private room in the rear it certainly is as faculty members any controversy involving establishment of standards of fitness to teach under a 10 year 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 grey hair appeared in the doorway of the private office behind Whitburn James Stacker these gentlemen have a substantial interest in this Dr. 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 Potguider went through the door the others followed the other three members of the trustees committees were already in the room a few minutes later Leonard Fitz arrived also carrying a briefcase well everybody seems to be here Whitburn said starting toward his chair behind the desk they might as well get this started yes if you'll excuse me doctor Dacker 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 Violet had concealed in his briefcase and flipped a switch then he and his companions dragged up cherished flanked Dackers and the rest seated themselves around the room old Potguider took his seat next to Chalmers Violet opened the case on his lap raged inside and closed it again what are they trying to do Ed Potguider 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 Dacker 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 a class a month ago and I'll remind you that at the time I demanded his resignation I thought it was Dr. Fitch here who gave the story to the newspapers one of the trustees a man with a red hair and a thin eyeglassed face objected Dr. Fitch acted as any scientist should and making public what he believed to be an important scientific discovery the elder of the two parapsychology man 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 Dr. Chalmers did in fact say what he's alleged to have said last month that her began Jim I think we ought to get that established for the record another of the trustees put in Dr. Chalmers is it true that you spoke in the past tense about the death of Halid Ibn Hussein in one of your classes on the 16th of last month Chalmers rose yes it is and the next day I was called into this room by Dr. Whitburn who demanded my resignation from the faculty of this college because of it now what I'd like to know is why did Dr. Whitburn in this same room deny yesterday that I had said anything of the sort and accused my students of concocting the story after the event as a hoax one of them being my son Decker added I'd like to hear an answer to that myself so would I Stanley Bile chimed in you know my client has a good case against Dr. Whitburn for libel Chalmers looked around the room of the 13 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 while was his lawyer obeying an obligation to a client which at the bottom was an obligation to his own conscience Hanley was afraid of the possibility that a precedent might be established which would repair his own 10 year contract Vich and the two men from the institute of psionics and parapsychology were interested in him as a source of study material Decker resented his lure upon his son he and the others were interested in blandly college as an institution almost an abstraction and the major in the muth tide was probably worrying about the consequences to military security of having a profit at large then a hand gripped his shoulder and a voice whispered in his ear that's a good ad don't let them scare you old max podguider at least was a friend Dr. 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 Decker demanded sharply I knew nothing of the kind Whitburn blustered showing under the bluster feared as I demanded this man's resignation on the morning of October 17 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 his publication he went on at some length about that if I might be permitted to access to the drawers of my own desk he added with elephantine sarcasm I could tell you the editorial in question you needn't bother I have a carbon copy Decker told him we've all read it if you did at the time you suppressed it you should have known what Dr. Chalmers said in class I knew he talked a lot of poppycock about a man still living having been shot to death Whitburn retarded and if something of the sort actually happened what of it somebody's always taking a shot at one or another of these farm dictators and they can't miss all the time you claimed this was pure coincidence bitch demanded a 10-point coincidence event of assassination era of the event place circumstances name of assassin manner of killing exact type of weapon used guards killed and wounded along with Halid and fate of the assassin if that's a simple and plausible coincidence so is dealing 10 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 Dr. Chalmers a month ago one of the trustees asked incredulously it absolutely was look here Mr. Dacker gentlemen Fitch came forward unzipping his briefcase and pulling out papers here are the signed statements of each of Dr. Chalmers 23 modern history 4 students all made and dated for the assassination you can refer to them as you please they are in alphabetical order and here he unfolded a sheet of graph paper a yard long and almost as wide here is a tabulated summary of the boys statements all agreed on the first point the fact of the assassination all agreed that the time was some time this year 20 out of 23 agreed on Basra as the place why 7 of them even remember the name of the assassin that in itself is remarkable Dr. Chalmers has an extremely intelligent and attentive class they are attentive because they know he's always likely to do something crazy and make a service out of himself Whitburn interjected and this isn't the only instance of Dr. Chalmers precognitive ability Fitch continued there have been a number of other cases Chalmers jumped to his feet Stanley vile rose beside him shoved the case sound recorder into his hands and pushed him back into the seat gentlemen the lawyer began quietly but firmly and clearly this is all getting pretty badly out of hand after all this is intended investigation of the actuality of precognition as a psychic phenomenon what I'd like to hear and what I haven't heard yet is Dr. Whitburn's explanation of his contradictory statements that he knew about my clients 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 current, contradictory statements and I'm asking how you could do that knowingly and honestly vile 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 valetimes and had graduated story about his insane longerings 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 say the position I'm in here with his 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 bad man would talk the way he does doing this Halid even Hussain business is the only time he's done anything like this why I have a list of eight dozen occasions when he's done something just as bad only it didn't have a lucky coincidence to back him up trying to get books that don't exist out of a library and then insisting that there's standard textbooks talking about the revoke of the colonies of Mars and Venus talking about something he calls the terror and federation of the 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 bitch was asking no no I never heard anything about that that wasn't what I meant it was this terror and federation thing the major said a trifle too quickly and too smoothly he turned to Chalmers he never did any work for PSPB did you ever talk to anybody who did he asked I don't even know what the letter means Chalmers replied political strategic planning board it's all pretty hush hush but this term terror and federation is a tentative name for a proposed organization to take the place of the UN 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 back that up from somebody who talked in this crately but the rest of this Tommy Rod 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 sub-war now he remembered having made a note about it he was sure that it followed closely after the assassination of Halid Ibn Hussein he turned quickly to Vial didn't you say you had to go to Reno in a day or so he asked Vial hushed him urgently pointing with his free hand to the recorder the exchange prevented him from noticing that Max Potguider 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 was one of the best minds on the campus 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 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 Potguider 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, 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 Dacker passed a hand over his face Dr. 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 my prejudice but I'm beginning to get some idea of what you have to contend with here at Blandly 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. Dacker it's precisely as I believed Dr. Chalmers is an unusually gifted precognitive recipient you've seen gentlemen how his complicated chain of precognitions Dr. 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 a normal psychology and psychopathology aren't my subjects but they're not my subject either Whitburn retorted but I know a lunatic by his ravings Dr. Fitch is taking an entirely proper attitude Pod Geider 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 Dr. 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 on opinion of that subject most of all Whitburn turned on him angrily oh shut up you dodgering old fool he shouted look there's another of them he told the trustees another dead end on the faculty that this tenure law keeps me from getting rid of he's as bad as Chalmers himself you've just heard that string of nonsense he was pouting why his courses I've been noted among the students were ears is not courses in which nobody ever has to do any work Chalmers was on his feet again thoroughly angry abusive himself he could take talking that way about gentle learned old Pod Geider was something else I think Dr. Pod Geider 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 Vile set his record 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 has 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 Dr. Chalmers that you would be willing to submit to a psychiatric examination he asked don't agree you're putting your foot in a trap Vile told him urgently of course I agree as long as the examination is conducted by a properly qualified psychiatrist how about Dr. Houserman at Northern State Mental Hospital Whitburn asked quickly would you agree to an examination by him excellent Fitch exclaimed one of the best man in the field I'd accept his opinion unreservedly Vile started to object again Chalmers cut him off Dr. Houserman would be quite set of factory to me the only question is would he be available I think he would Dr. said glancing at his watch I wonder if he could be reached now he got to his feet telephone in your outer office Dr. Whitburn fine if you gentlemen will excuse me it was a good 15 minutes before he returned smiling well gentlemen it's all arranged he said Dr. Houserman is quite willing to examine Dr. 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 150 miles from the hospital but the doctor flies his own plane 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 Dr. 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 and get some sleep end of part 5 recording by Giulio Marchini the edge of the knife by H. Bing Piper part 6 of the edge of the knife this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Giulio Marchini the edge of the knife by H. Bing Piper part 6 vile 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 vile said this hauser-man isn't any ordinary couch pilot he's the state psychiatrist if he gets the idea you aren't saying 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 Dacker 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 might be his way of a good place to put you away you don't think this man hauser-man would allow himself to be influenced no you just don't think I'm saying do you I know what hauser-man will think he'll think this future history business is a classical case of systematized gazoid 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 hauser-man alright you can forget about that damaged suit you would not stand a chance with it in court in spite of what happened to Halid 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 Halid 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 I while 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 goodnight professor and try, please try for the sake of your poor harried lawyer keep your mouth shut about things like that at least till after you get through with Hausermann 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 classrooms and six or seven wicker armchairs a lot of apparatus had been pushed back along the walls the dust covers were gay or tone a couch with more apparatus similarly covered beside it Hausermann was seated at the desk when Chalmers entered he rose and he shook hands a man of about his own age smooth-faced, partially bald Chalmers tried to get something of the man's nature from his face but could read nothing he faced well-trained to keep its owner secret something to smoke professor he began offering a cigarette case my pipe if you don't mind he got it out and filled it any of those chairs Hausermann said gesturing toward them they were all arranged to face the desk he sat down lighting his pipe Hausermann nodded approvingly he was behaving calmly and didn't need being put at ease they talked at random at least Hausermann 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 Hausermann 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 agree to it good distinction and why was your sanity questioned I won't deny that I heard of this affair here before Mr. Dacker 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 forward choosing every word carefully trying to concentrate on making a good impression upon Hausermann and at the same time finding that more memories of the future were beginning to see a barrier of his consciousness he tried to damn 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 wondered ahead of my text I was trying to show the results of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after the first world war the transition 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 Hausermann knew it that memories were coming into his mind more and more strongly it was impossible to suppress them the period of anarchy falling Khalid's death would be much briefer and much more violent than he had previously thought Talal ibn 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 of 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 is that it? something like that he replied, wide awake to the trap Hausermann had said and fearful that it might be a blind to disguise the real trap history follows certain patterns I'm not a toying being by any manner of means but any historian can see that certain forces generally tend to produce similar effects, for instance space travel is not a fact our government has it 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 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 rose when the european powers were colonizing the new world for that matter, when the greek city states were throwing out colonies across the ageing that's the sort of thing we call projecting the past into the future through the present hauser man 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 a fictionalized form tried to fill in the details from imagination in the case of Halid I was trying to imagine what would happen if his influence were suddenly removed from near eastern and middle eastern affairs I suppose that constructed an imaginary scene of his assassination he went on at length Mohammed and Reid were common enough names the middle east was full of old us 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 never really believe that you have real knowledge of the future I'm beginning to since I've been talking to those psychonics and parapsychology people he laughed it sounded he hoped like a natural and unaffected laugh they seem to be convinced that I have weapons 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 30 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 rocket ports from which it was supplied delivered without warning they never succeeded except that every rocket port had its secret duplicate and triplicate that was operation triple carous no wonder major cutler had been so startled at the words last evening the enemy would be utterly overwhelmed under the reign 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 and frightfully let down some more of my alleged prophecies misfire on him but I really haven't been deliberately deceiving him and Blamley college was at the center of one of the areas which would receive the worst of the thermal nuclear hell to come and it would be a little under a year and that's all there is to it Hauser-Man explained an 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 aced into 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 looking at the 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 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 another kind of knife edge the thin almost invisible line which separates sanity from non sanity from madness to use a deplorable lay expression how them and lit another cigarette most minds are a lot closer to it than their owner suspect to 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 he took it from his pocket and laid it on the desk the modern equivalent of the letter de cashier 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 the northern state mental hospital Thomas said it wrecked 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 age bones of the 30 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 uninfected you confine me anywhere confining poor old history professor's body yes but that isn't me I'm universal I exist in all space-time and 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 bastille to the noon thermador I was in Basra and saw that crazed tool of the axis shoot down Halide bin 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 quemble and fall I have seen Dr. Houserman 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 Houserman 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 goodbye to some of my friends Houserman nodded and asked who well professor pot-guider he's outside now he was inquiring about you and Stanley vile my attorney not business just to say goodbye 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 do you go Torino he took the plane five o'clock vile wouldn't have believed anyhow no use trying to blame himself for that but he was sure that he would never see Stanley vile live again as he was that the next morning the sun would rise he nodded impassively sorry he couldn't stay can I see max pot-guider alone yes of course professor old pot-guider came in his face anguished and 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 pot-guider looked troubled for a moment he seemed to be wondering if he mightn't be wrong and hauser-man and Whitburn and the others right Max do you believe in me he asked do you believe that I knew about Halide's assassination month before it happened it's horribly hard thing to believe pot-guider admitted but damn it you did I know medieval history is full of stories about prophecies being fulfilled I always thought those stories were just prophecies 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 exposed factual legends after all yes after Halide I'll believe that alright I'm saying now that in a few days there will 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 Syria and Lebanon the old man nodded when that happens get away from Blandly 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 Fender 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 you know you are 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 potguider 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 large young man in the white coat entered the end of the edge of the knife by H. B. Piper recording by Julio Marchini in Iberão Preto, São Paulo, Brazil