At the Narrow Passage (31 page)

We're here, stranded, and there's no one to listen to us.
But it can't end this way. By all that's holy, it can't! Something's got
to be done. Someone's got to be told. Someone, somehow, must stop this
hell before it destroys billions upon billions of human beings across
the Lines and all the magnificent civilizations we've built.
And if nobody else will do it, I guess it'll be up to Sally and me.
But damned if I know how.

FROM FAR IN THE
FUTURE COMES A HIDEOUS
WARNING OF DESTRUCTION.
But the message is not clear, and the result is a mad
scramble to change the present -- all possible pres-
ents -- in order to avoid the future. For the recipients
of the message are not humans but Kriths, lizardlike
beings from a parallel Timeline.
Using machines that move sideways in time, a band of
dedicated mercenaries and Krith leaders cut a wide
swath through countless Timelines. It is a brutal and
bloody struggle that has no end -- until one of their
strongest fighters begins to ask questions the Kriths
would rather not answer.