The Rings of Tautee by Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch Page B

could draw enough power from the emergency field to connect to an outside camera, if any are still out there."
    Folle had turned and was holding on to the back of her chair. "Good idea," he said. "Let me[*thorn]" He started to push off from the chair to move to the emergency power panel on the far wall when suddenly his entire body started to shimmer.
    The shocked look on his face told Prescott that she wasn't imagining the effect. His entire body really was shimmering, as if she were looking at him through a layer of water and someone was stirring the water up.
    Then he was gone.
    No noise.
    No pop.
    Nothing.
    Gone.
    One moment he was there and the next moment he wasn't.
    Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch "Folle?" she said, starting toward his last position out of instinct.
    He was gone.
    She stopped, holding on to the back of her chair.
    Maybe her mind was gone as well. The guilt and stress of the last few weeks would have driven anyone insane. Why would she think she'd be any different?
    "Folle?" she called out once more, only to have her voice echo through the empty chamber. Was this what happened when people died? Did the billions of people who were alive when the waves hit remain in place for a few moments, a few days, and then shimmer into nothingness?
    Or had she imagined him in the first place?
    Maybe he hadn't come at all.
    "You're starting to lose it," she said to the emptiness. "Hang in there just a little longer."
    Long enough to find him. He had to be on the station somewhere. And if he wasn't, well, then maybe she would have to examine his disappearance as a death.
    Another death caused by the experiment.
    She gripped her chair, about to push herself toward the door, when the station started to rumble and shake.
    Several chunks of steel fell from the ceiling.
    Dust floated around her. The emergency lights flickered.
    And she knew she was going to die.
    She swung around into her chair and held on. Every since she had followed Folle's advice, her survival instincts had kicked in. She didn't want to die.
    THE RINGS OF TAUTEE Not anymore.
    Even though she really didn't deserve to live.
    Then the rumbling stopped and the dust began to settle again, coating her and everything in the room with another fine layer of gray.
    In front of her the blank screens taunted her, laughed at her, told her by their very emptiness that she wasn't dead. Yet.
    Inside, she was still shaking. Folle's disappearance terrified her more than she wanted to admit.
    She had spent the last five years with him on this research facility. They had been together most of that time.
    He was helping her through this, and she had thought they would die together.
    She brushed a strand of hair out of her face with her wrist lamp, its plastic cool against her forehead, and forced herself to take a deep breath. She didn't know he was dead yet. She had to search first.
    She was a scientist. Scientists waited for evidence.
    She hadn't touched him when he was here the last time.
    She had been working. She had been under a lot of strain. People who were under stress imagined things.
    Like that odd feeling all over her body, as if something very small were breathing on her skin.
    All of her skin.
    She brought her arm down, and stared at it. It was composed of multicolored light. And it was shimmering.
    She opened her mouth to call for help when[*thorn] [*thorngg'everything went black. 73 Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch Then almost instantly, she was in bright light. She blinked. The air was clear here, and it smelled fresh.
    "Captain," said a strange voice with an even stranger accent. "I've got one more set to go."
    She blinked again. Red and green spots danced in her vision.
    "Excellent, Scotty. Do it quickly. I'd like to be out of here as soon as possible." The second voice had a tinny quality and a completely different accent, another one she had never heard before.
    Slowly the glare eased and she could see. She was standing on a