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he was still alive when the moon shattered, and he had supported her.
    She hadn't supported him.
    THE RINGS OF TAUTEE She had ridiculed his attempts to survive.
    What had her biology instructor in early children's class said? The basic instinct of all creatures is survival.
    Even for her.
    She let go of the chair arm. The extremely low gravity felt odd. Moving was like swimming, only without the weight of the water around her. The air supported her[*thorngg'or at least that was what it felt like[*thorngg'z she pushed off from her chair, buoyed her up when she jumped, and almost made her feel as if she could fly.
    It took her no time at all to reach the doors to the amphitheater.
    Then she stopped. She hadn't been outside this room since the moon shattered. Folle had been her window into the rest of the center. She had hidden from her colleagues and staff like a child expecting discipline from a parent.
    Time to face the world again.
    Or what was left of it.
    She took a deep breath of the dry, stale air and pulled open the big door.
    The dim lights made the corridor seem narrower than she remembered. Some chunks of steel had fallen out of the ceiling. Long cracks ran alongside the walls. Dust and debris floated here, too, like they did inside, only here they bounced off the walls, and had odd trajectories. The air seemed thicker, harder to breathe. The low ceiling now felt like a threat instead of a comfort.
    At any minute, it might topple on her.
    But she faced that same threat inside the amphitheater.
    45 Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch It was time for her to move. Time for her to go to Folle.
    If he still lived.
    She took another deep breath of the dust-caked air. Her throat was dry. Folle had brought her food and water the last two days.
    She had done nothing to survive. And now he wasn't thinking of her at all.
    She would go to the communications center. If he wasn't there, working on the signal[*thorngg'well, she would worry about that then.
    At first, as she made her way down the corridor, she tried to pretend to walk. But that was like walking in neck-deep water. Her body wanted to float. It was hard to stay on the ground.
    The designers had built railings for the times when the gravity ran out, but most of the railings had been dislodged in the destruction.
    Finally, she gave in, jumped forward, and kept one hand above her so that she didn't rise too high and hit her head on the ceiling.
    The trip went quickly.
    Most of the doors were closed or off their hinges, the emergency lighting obscured by clouds of dust that followed her. She was starting to understand why Folle had been picking small metal objects out of the air and putting them in his pockets. She had dodged more than one piece of metal. Another slammed her in the head. She hadn't been traveling very fast and the piece of metal had been coming at her at an even slower speed, but the combination of her speed and the metal's speed caused a collision that left a cut on her scalp.
    THE RINGS OF TAUTEE A few small droplets of blood floated away as she quickly ripped a small piece of cloth off her pants leg and held it against the wound.
    It didn't really hurt. It was just annoying, because it functioned as a reminder that she was still alive when so many others weren't.
    She was almost to the communications room when the station started vibrating. The railing beside her banged against the wall, sending a clanging through the narrow passage.
    More debris floated by, this time at quicker speeds.
    She wedged herself into a corner, hoping that nothing would fall on her, nothing would hit her.
    Then the vibrating stopped.
    As it always did.
    She knew some time soon it wouldn't stop.
    She clung to the steel walls for a moment, shaken, her eyes so dry that they hurt. She felt different from the way she had before, and she wasn't sure why.
    Until she realised.
    She had protected herself.
    For the first time since she watched the first planet shatter, she had