Pathways - Jeri Taylor [201]
“Put him into the other shelter,” suggested Chakotay.
“Good idea,” agreed Harry. “I’ll go over there with the second transporter, and be ready to send him back. That way we’ll have a test of both units.”
Minutes later, Harry left the shelter with the second transporter contained in a tarpaulin they’d acquired, his arm around Coris, whispering to her as though they were taking this opportunity to get some time alone.
B’Elanna positioned Vorik in the center of the shelter, directly in front of the transporter. “Ready?” she inquired, and Vorik, eyes straight ahead, nodded briskly.
Neelix realized that Vorik actually had his eyes fastened on Tuvok’s, a gaze so strong it might have been a forcefield. He could almost sense the strength that Tuvok was willing to the young man.
“Okay. This is it.” B’Elanna took one quick glance toward Vorik, drew a deep breath, and then said, “Energizing.” And she pressed the controls.
It didn’t look like a transport any of them had ever seen before. Vorik began to shimmer, which was expected, but then patches of him faded and vanished, only to reappear a second later. He became a strangely undulating figure, as his right thigh went, and then returned, then his left arm and shoulder, a shimmering, half-dematerializing presence that would neither disappear nor be restored to a whole.
Perspiration broke out on B’Elanna’s forehead. “The annular confinement beam is destabilizing. I’m compensating.”
Vorik’s eyes, when they were visible, had gone wide with some unidentifiable emotion, but he kept them locked on Tuvok’s. His jaws were tensed from clamping his teeth tightly together. He was clearly experiencing profound distress.
“All right, I’m reestablishing the confinement beam,” said B’Elanna, trying to keep the emotion from her voice. Neelix himself felt as though a block of ice had settled in his stomach, and he realized he was digging his fingernails into his palms. It was harrowing, watching poor Vorik come apart in bits and clumps. He could only imagine what the young Vulcan was feeling.
B’Elanna pushed the controls again with fingers that were a little shaky. Then she looked up at Vorik.
Piece by piece, part by part, he was dematerializing, in a patchwork effect that reminded Neelix of the quilts his mother used to fashion. Foot, arm, eyes, belly—a grotesque, distorted image of a young man dissolving as though by the random splash of acid.
Finally, he was gone.
There was a mass exhalation of breath among the group. “Neelix,” Chakotay said quickly, “go see if he made it.”
Neelix hurried out of the shelter and into the chill night air, into the noisy, braying organism that was the prison camp, with its fetid smells and its fearful sounds, and raced the few steps to the second shelter, bursting in through the canvas that covered the entry.
Except for Harry and Coris, it was empty.
Neelix felt as though a fist had been driven into his abdomen, and reflexively, he bent over. “Isn’t he here?” he asked unnecessarily, for it was apparent Vorik was not in the shelter.
Harry shook his head, looking pale.
Then, before them, an arm appeared.
Followed by a pair of feet, a midsection, part of a head.
It took an agonizing ten seconds longer, but finally, Vorik the Vulcan stood in front of them, fully materialized.
They stared at him, afraid to speak, afraid to move for fear he would vanish again. Vorik himself appeared to be in shock, and Neelix half expected him to fall unconscious—or dead—at their feet.
But finally Vorik drew a breath and gazed at them with eyes that were once more imperturbable. “That was a most unusual experience,” he intoned, and then his legs began to wobble and give way.
Neelix and Harry caught him and helped him to sit, and only after ascertaining that, although somewhat shaken by the ordeal, Vorik was physically intact did Neelix leave to report the good news to B’Elanna and the others.
“Thank goodness,” said B’Elanna when Neelix had finished. “I see now what the problem was—I’ll have to compensate for the variance in our power supply.