This story was rejected by two top-flight science-fiction editors for the same reason:
"Too hot to handle." "Too dangerous for our book." We'd like to know whether or not
the readers of Amazing Stories agree.
Chalmers stopped talking abruptly, warned by the sudden attentiveness of the class in
front of him. They were all staring; even Guellick, in the fourth row, was almost half
awake. Then one of them, taking his silence as an invitation to questions found his voice.
"You say Khalid ib'n Hussein's been assassinated?" he asked incredulously. "When did
that happen?"
There was no past—no future—only a great chaotic NOW.
"In 1973, at Basra." There was a touch of impatience in his voice; surely they ought to
know that much. "He was shot, while leaving the Parliament Building, by an Egyptian
Arab named Mohammed Noureed, with an old U. S. Army M3 submachine-gun.
Noureed killed two of Khalid's guards and wounded another before he was
overpowered. He was lynched on the spot by the crowd; stoned to death. Ostensibly, he
and his accomplices were religious fanatics; however, there can be no doubt whatever
that the murder was inspired, at least indirectly, by the Eastern Axis."
The class stirred like a grain-field in the wind. Some looked at him in blank amazement;
some were hastily averting faces red with poorly suppressed laughter. For a moment he
was puzzled, and then realization hit him like a blow in the stomach-pit. He'd forgotten,
again.