Timothy Zahn - A Coming Of Age

High overhead, three slowly moving figures caught her eye.

Pressing herself tighter against the wall, Lisa watched the drifting righthands with a crushing sense of defeat. Of course they hadn't been crazy enough to try and match her terrified flight; at three-to-one odds all they needed to do was get someplace where they could see her and then just teek her in. If she hadn't stopped to catch her breath they'd probably have picked up her movement and nailed her by now.

Strangely enough, the panic of a few minutes earlier was gone, leaving Lisa more clearheaded than she'd been since entering the city building. It's just like hide-and-search, she told herself, and you know how to play that game. Keeping the rest of her body motionless, she looked carefully around her. With streetlights blazing all over the city, there were no shadows really dark enough to hide in for long. All three righthands were still visible in front of her; if she could get to the building at the other side of her alleyway, she would be completely hidden from them, at least for the moment. But the movement might attract their attention... and hiding wasn't a real solution, anyway. For all she knew the rest of Barona's righthands might be flying in at any time to do a complete search of the area. No, her only chance was to get out of the city as fast as possible.

Or to get back to the hive.

She frowned suddenly. With Weylin's command echoing through her mind, the thought of going home hadn't occurred to her before. But Dayspring was a lot closer than the temple site and certainly easier to find in the middle of the night. If Sheelah was there to open a window for her—and if she hadn't reported her absence to Gavra—

Without warning, Lisa was yanked away from the wall and pulled upward.

She acted instinctively, not fighting the motion directly but teeking herself sideways to it. The pull wavered a bit as the darkness and her unexpected action apparently interfered with the righthands' view of her. Wavered just enough—and as she all but slammed into the building across the alley their teekay grip was abruptly cut off. An instant later Lisa had dropped nearly to the pavement and was skimming the wall as she shot back in the direction she'd come from.

One of the righthands managed to get overhead before she reached the corner, but it was instantly clear that he'd expected her to continue moving away from the city building and was thus in the wrong place, far to her rear. His tentative grip on her was again cut off as she swung around the edge of her building. Counting two seconds, she came to a sudden stop and reversed direction, flying alongside the building and ducking once more into the alley. The righthand, racing over the rooftops to intercept her, was again taken by surprise, and got even less of a hold on her this time before she was out of his sight. She reached the end of the alley without difficulty and shot across the next street at full speed. A cross street led off a few meters ahead and to her left; shifting direction, she headed down it, again hugging the buildings along one side. Several recessed doorways whipped by, and on sudden impulse she stopped short and ducked into one of them. Pressing back into the shadows, blinking away the latest flood of tears, she breathed deeply and wondered if her move had been seen.

If it had, the fact was not immediately apparent. Faintly, she could hear voices calling to one another overhead, and though she couldn't make out the words the tone sounded more frustrated than triumphant. They'd seen her head down the street, she guessed, but had then lost her. If they now split up, leaving one to search the block while the other two went on—

The conversation ended. Heart pounding, Lisa eased forward and risked a look upward. One of the tiny figures was disappearing over the rooftops in the direction she'd been going; the other two were dropping rapidly toward the ground, apparently heading for opposite ends of the block where she was hiding.

Head pressed against the cold stone of the doorway, Lisa froze, afraid to move the short distance back into the deeper shadows and knowing such an effort would be wasted anyway. A careful search would find her instantly... and while she might have been able to out-teek a single righthand, there was no way she'd be able to handle two at once. Her eyes shifted back and forth, searching the brightly lit street for inspiration. But there was nothing there; no weapons, nothing to distract them with, nothing that would give her cover for an escape. One of the righthands was drifting along at street level a block away now, and she could see his head turning back and forth as he moved slowly away from her down the street. So they weren't sure which of the two blocks she might have vanished into... but that was little comfort. The second righthand had disappeared off to her left and was presumably working his way down the block toward her hiding place. She had maybe half a minute before he hauled her out into the light and together the two of them teeked her like a wounded catling back to the city building—

And with the inspiration of having nothing at all to lose, she closed one eye and reached out to one of the streetlights halfway down the next block, teeking the bulb forward as hard as she could.

The faint tinkle of broken glass reached her a half second after the light went dark. Blinking at the purple blob that temporarily blinded her, she switched eyes and shattered the next light in line. With both eyes blocked by purple her third attempt was unsuccessful, but an instant later it proved to be unnecessary, anyway. With a swish of wind the righthand who'd been searching her block shot past, his full attention on the patch of darkness from which their quarry was presumably trying to escape. An instant after that Lisa was heading the other way, keeping close to the wall and hoping desperately she could make it around the corner before they realized they'd been tricked.

No shouts or teekay grips reached her before she made her turn. Ten blocks and two direction changes later, she paused to cautiously poke her head over the edge of a roof. Off in the distance she could pick out two faint figures circling over the area she'd just left; a third was tracing what seemed to be an ever-expanding spiral around the same place. Slipping back to streetlight level, Lisa continued on, hugging the buildings and flying as swiftly as she dared. A few more blocks, she told herself over and over. Just a few more blocks and you'll be safe. Safe... but for how long?

She didn't let herself think about that.

The twin towers of Dayspring were even darker than the city building had been, without a single light showing anywhere. Under other circumstances Lisa might have found the view a little creepy, but at the moment she had far too many other things on her mind to even notice. Keeping to all the shadows she could, with half her attention on the sky and buildings behind her, she flew up to her window, hoping fervently she'd be able to get in.

But that problem, at least, had already been solved. For the first time since they'd become roommates, Sheelah had gone to bed with the curtains wide open... and looking closer, Lisa realized the window was open a crack, its lock unfastened. Without hesitation she teeked it open the rest of the way and slipped inside, closing it quietly behind her.

"Lisa?" The soft voice coming from Sheelah's bed was alert, without a trace of sleepiness in it.

"Yes," Lisa whispered. She teeked the curtains closed, pulling them the last couple of centimeters by hand as they cut off most of the light from the street. "It's okay; go to sleep."

Her answer was a creak of springs as Sheelah flew out of bed. "Watch your eyes," her voice warned from near the door, and the room suddenly blazed with light.