"We came to see Tanaka-san," Jin explained.  "It's important."

"She's busy right now"—Tenbury jerked a thumb at the room beyond—"but they should be done soon."

Raven craned his neck to peer through a narrow glass window in the door.  "Ah, cryoprep in progress?  I'd like to see that."

"Raven-sensei's a doctor.  From Escobar," Jin began.  Tenbury looked perturbed, and began to speak.  Miles cut the debate short by simply knocking.

The knock was answered by a frowning woman, brown skin like old leather, spare of build and with straight white hair where Suze was stout and frizzy, but of a like age, Miles judged, and without the alcohol fumes.  Her face lightened when she saw Jin.

"Ah, you're found, Jin!  And who have your creatures savaged now, and can it wait?"

"No one, Tanaka-san.  But it's kind of urgent.  Suze-san sent us over."

Miles let Jin run through his introductions, at which the boy was becoming nicely practiced.  He picked up: "We've made arrangements with Madame Suze to use your facilities for a private cryorevival, if they meet Dr. Durona's needs.  May we come in?"

"Huh!" she said, and gave way, staring at Raven.  Miles wondered if he'd rumpled Raven's clothes, mussed his neat hair, and doused him with gin if he would have seemed less out of place, here, less alarming to these people.  Too late.

On a table standing out from the far wall lay the naked body of a frail old man, detained, Miles thought, at the border crossing between life and death.  A sheet draped across his middle lent him a scrap of dignity, as much as one could have when given over to plastic tubes and the will or whim of others.  A cold-blanket wrapped around his skull sped the chilling of his brain.  A tube from a tank above, divided partway down, ran a clear liquid into both carotid arteries.  A wider tube, from a vein in his thigh, ran a dark pink color to a knee-height tub with a drain, with a trickle of water from a spout above to keep things flowing.  Judging from the paleness of the skin and nails, and the color of the murky exit fluid, the old body was almost wholly perfused with cryo-solution.

Ako hovered, closely supervising the process; she'd evidently overheard something through the doorway, because she looked up and said excitedly, "A doctor?  We're getting a real doctor?"

Miles waved down this hope, before it could grow big and bite.  "Just visiting.  We'll explain it all when you're finished, here."