Bovac stabilized.
He had gone back one step — the null field collapsed from ten feet to three feet by the fast movement, the grey distortion now barely beyond his own body's surface. He slowed himself immediately, the deliberate pace reasserting, the field beginning to rebuild from three feet outward toward its full radius as his movement slowed.
Three feet. Four. Five.
The rebuild was slower than the initial establishment — the field's expansion from collapsed state taking more time than maintaining it from full radius.
Zarek was outside the shrinking field.
His rifts were fully functional.
He opened four rifts — the Rift Cage configuration, entries arranged around Bovac's position, exits thirty feet away. But this time the entries were outside the collapsed field's current radius rather than at its boundary.
At three feet the field wasn't reaching the cage entries.
