fact that I did make such a blunder was because I was talking
extemporaneously and had wandered ahead of my text. I was trying to
show the results of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after the First
World War, and the partition 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 Hauserman knew it.
The "memories" were coming into his mind more and more strongly; it
was impossible to suppress them. The period of anarchy following
Khalid's death would be much briefer, and much more violent, than he
had previously thought. Tallal ib'n 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 at 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 it? Is that it?"

"Something like that," he replied, wide awake to the trap Hauserman
had set, and fearful that it might be a blind, to disguise the real
trap. "History follows certain patterns. I'm not a Toynbean, by any
manner of means, but any historian can see that certain forces
generally tend to produce similar effects. For instance, space travel
is now a fact; our government has at present a military base on Luna.
Within our lifetimes--certainly within the lifetimes of my