"Timothy Zahn - A Coming of Age" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zahn Timothy)

compensate for her small size. Just thinking about it brought a tightness to her jaw.

To her right a flicker of light showed briefly through the trees. Moved by idle curiosity, she veered
to investigate.

She could always simply run away, of course. Gavra had once said that over half of Tigris was still
uninhabited, so it would be easy to find a secluded spot where she would never be found, using the
remaining year or whatever of her teekay to build a house and clear some land. But after Transition...
without the slightest idea of how to survive in the wilderness, things could turn ugly very fast.
Besides, she wasn't really the hermit type. What she really needed was a way to get a jump on her
peers at the school itself.

Again, the light flickered. This time Lisa was close enough to recognize it: a car's headlights,
moving along the forest road from Barona toward Rand.

For a moment she paralleled the road, wondering what to do. She wasn't especially interested in
chasing the car... but on the other hand, she'd seldom if ever seen anyone driving west of Barona at
night. Perhaps there was some sort of emergencyтАФand if so, her teekay might be the difference
between life and death for someone. Dropping to treetop level, she increased her speed and headed
toward the lights.

She caught up easily enough; the car seemed to be staying at the posted speed limit, and Lisa didn't
have to bother with the road's occasional curves. How to approach without startling the driver right
off the road was a matter for a few moments' thought; she solved it by flying a hundred meters ahead
of the car, matching its speed, and dropping to just within headlight range. When she was sure she'd
been seen, she reduced both her speed and height a bit more, and soon was pacing the vehicle at
window level.

"Are you in some kind of trouble?" she shouted, trying to minimize the nervousness in her voice.
Flying at seventy kilometers per hour high above the trees and at a single meter above the ground
made for two entirely different sensations, and she was acutely aware that a slight drift in practically
any direction would slam her hard into something solid. Keeping her eye on the speed-blurred road
beneath her, she opened her mouth to shout againтАФ

The car vanished, and abruptly a bright light exploded in her eyes.

She was three meters up and heading higher before she realized that the driver had simply put on his
brakes, dropping him behind her. Thankful that the darkness hid the hot flush spreading across her
face, she circled back around, landing next to the car as it coasted to a halt.

"Is something wrong?" the driver asked, rolling down his window.

Lisa ducked her head and peered inside. The driver was a middle-aged man, dark-haired, dressed in
a casual but nice-looking outfit. In the backwash of light she could see traces of the tension that
some adults seemed to continually carry around with them. "I just wondered if something was wrong
with you," she explained, suddenly feeling a little silly. "I noticed you driving at night, and..." She

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A Coming of Age