She started shivering, little tremulous bursts at first, and then almost continuously. She felt as if she were having a seizure. From skiing, she knew what that meant. Her core temperature had dropped dangerously, and the shivering was an automatic physiological attempt to warm her body up.

Her teeth chattered. It was hard to speak. But her mind was still working, still looking for a way out. “Isn’t there a way to build a snow house?”

Evans said something. The wind whipped his words away.

“Do you know how?” she said.

He didn’t answer her.

But it was too late, anyway, she thought. She was losing control of her body. She could hardly even keep her arms wrapped around her knees, the shaking was so bad.

And she was starting to feel sleepy.

She looked over at Evans. He was lying on his side on the ice.

She nudged him to get up. She kicked him. He didn’t move. She wanted to yell at him but she couldn’t, because her teeth were chattering so badly.

Sarah fought to retain consciousness, but the desire to sleep was becoming overpowering. She struggled to keep her eyes open and, to her astonishment, began to see swift scenes from her life—her childhood, her mother, her kindergarten class, ballet lessons, the high school prom…

Her whole life was passing before her. Just like the books said happened, right before you died. And when she looked up, she saw a light in the distance, just like they said happened. A light at the end of a long, dark tunnel…

She couldn’t fight it any longer. She lay down. She couldn’t feel the ground anyway. She was lost in her own, private world of pain and exhaustion. And the light before her was growing brighter and brighter, and now there were two other lights, blinking yellow and green…

Yellow and green?

She fought the sleepiness. She tried to push herself upright again, but she couldn’t. Her muscles were too weak, her arms blocks of frozen ice. She couldn’t move.

Yellow and green lights, growing larger. And a white light in the center. Very white, like halogen. She was starting to see details through the swirling snow. There was a silver dome, and wheels, and large glowing letters. The letters said—

NASA.

She coughed. The thing emerged from the snow. It was some kind of small vehicle—about three feet high, no larger than those Sunday lawn-mowers that people drove around on. It had big wheels and a flattened dome, and it was beeping as it came directly toward her.

In fact, it was going to drive right over her. She realized it without concern. She could do nothing to prevent it. She lay on the ground, dazed, indifferent. The wheels grew larger and larger. The last thing she remembered was a mechanical voice saying, “Hello. Hello. Please move out of the way. Thank you very much for your cooperation. Hello. Hello. Please move out of the way…”

And then nothing.