Beth followed very closely after Mira, hunting for an opening to pass her. On the one hand, she could not be<em>too</em>aggressive—she could imagine what a disaster it would be to cause Mira to crash. On the other hand, purposely letting the other woman win such a trivial contest would be a bit insulting. And the truth was Beth could be quite competitive herself, or she never would have made it far in the MBF to begin with.