ire, in the Tenth Century of the
Interstellar Era. He hadn't been too clear on that period, and he
found new data rising in his mind; he hurried his steps, almost
running upstairs to his room. It was long after midnight before he had
finished the notes he had begun on his return home.

Well, that had been a mistake, but he wouldn't make it again. He
determined again to destroy his notes, and began casting about for a
subject which would occupy his mind to the exclusion of the future.
Not the Spanish Conquistadores; that was too much like the early
period of interstellar expansion. He thought for a time of the Sepoy
Mutiny, and then rejected it--he could "remember" something much like
that on one of the planets of the Beta Hydrae system, in the Fourth
Century of the Atomic Era. There were so few things, in the history of
the past, which did not have their counter-parts in the future. That
evening, too, he stayed at home, preparing for his various classes for
the rest of the week and making copious notes on what he would talk
about to each. He needed more whiskey to get to sleep that night.

Whitburn gave him no more trouble, and if any of the trustees or
influential alumni made any protest about what had happened in Modern
History IV, he heard nothing about it. He managed to conduct his
classes without further incidents, and spent his evenings trying, not
always successfully, to avoid drifting into "memories" of the
future....

* * * * *

He came into his office that morning tired and unrefreshed by the few
hours' sleep he had gotten the night before, edgy from the strain, of
trying to adjust his mind to the world of Blanley College in mid-April
of 1973. Pottgeiter hadn't arrived yet, but Marjorie Fenner was
waiting for him; a newspaper in her hand, almost bursting with
excitement.

"Here; have you seen it, Doctor Chalmers?" she asked as he entered.

He shook his head. He ought to read the papers more, to keep track of
the advancing knife-edge that divided what he might talk about from
what he wasn't supposed to know, but each morning he seemed to have
less and less time to get ready for work.

"Well, look! Look at that!"

She thrust the paper into his hands, still folded, the big, black
headline where he could see it.

KHALID IB'N HUSSEIN ASSASSINATED

He glanced over the leading paragraphs. Leader of Islamic Caliphate
shot to death in Basra ... leaving Parliament Building