Free Theirs Not to Reason Why 5: Damnation by Jean Johnson Page A

must continue to push the Salik forces off our many colonyworlds and push them back to their original territories. Then, a few of us—myself and my ship included—will face the Greys, show them certain things, and by doing so give ourselves some breathing room by making them pause for a little while. Then we will finish the Second Salik War and return our attention to the Grey problem.
    “Eventually, they will be constrained, shamed, and contained—don’t ask me to explain the shamed part. It’s too far into the future right now for you to need to know. What you should know right now is that a few borders will be redrawn along the back side of Terran space . . . but by doing so, we will have three hundred years of stability and prosperity in the Alliance zone after the Second Grey War ends, if everything goes right.
    “Or rather, your descendants will have peace, since we are talking three hundred years, here,” she amended, tipping her head slightly. “At the end of approximately three Terran centuries, those descendants will have to face an enemy that still scares the biological waste out of the Greys. I have plans for dealing with that far-flung war as well . . . but some of the details of that far-distant war are very much dependent on what we all choose to do here and now.”
    “I choose seeing these future sights,” the Chinsoiy Fearsome Leader stated in the silence following her words. “
If
safely you can. It is good for one of us to see what you see, viewing sound reasons.”
    Ia nodded and stepped away from Myang. Her experiences in facing down Miklinn had given her insight into the true extent of her own abilities, and she had practiced while on board the
Damnation
, mostly with help from Helstead, Harper, and Rico. Spyder had declined, and she hadn’t bothered to ask the rest. But this was not a fellow Human. “If you will rest your body, Fearsome Leader Kzul, I will begin.”
    The Glorious Leader moved aside, allowing her counterpart access to a lounger in the dimly seen observation room. The Human analog to the position the Chinsoiy took was akin to a surfer lying on a slanted surfboard. The silicon-based species did not sit quite like anyone else. He shifted twice, then stilled. “. . . I am resting.”
    Going slowly, Ia lifted her hand and flipped her mind in, then out. She didn’t need to move but did want to warn the others visually that she was beginning the process. She didn’t want anyone to interfere at the wrong moment.
    Chinsoiy brains weren’t like carbon-based ones. She couldn’t accelerate the alien’s thoughts to match her own mental speeds. Her xenotelepathy still wasn’t very strong—not really strong enough for this task, in a way—but she could reach out to Kzul with enough strength
from
the timeplains. In specific, from an alternate life-stream where
she
was a fellow Chinsoiy, as well as the Prophet of a Thousand Years.
    Fearsome Leader gasped, plunging into the timeplains without much warning. Glorious Leader flinched, leaning over his slanted perch with the species equivalent of a worried look, but carefully did not touch her counterpart. Neither did the two painted guards, though they stared at the white-haired Human on the other side of the observation glass.
    Ignoring them, Ia focused on drawing the reclining alien into that alternate timeline.
She
wasn’t a Chinsoiy, couldn’t think like them with all the nuances required to impart true understanding . . . but one of her alternate selves was. With her Feyori blood awakened, she could and did draw that alternate self out of the other waters so that silicon-based-Ia could accelerate and explain, while carbon-based-Ia trailed behind them for a moment like a third wheel on an awkward, grim date. But only for a moment; without a word, Chinsoiy-Ia passed over the Human counterpart to Fearsome Leader Kzul in the other universe. Together, they guided their respective guests through the minefields of the