Raven was maddeningly vague about how soon his patient might be questioned, and made it clear that her children had priority as her first visitors.  Miles didn't argue with that; he couldn't think of anything better to motivate the woman to fight her way to her full faculties.

Miles was anxious to offer help, but as they approached the point of no return in the procedures, Raven sat him down at a distance on a stool with a face mask across his mouth.  The memorystick around the edges molded to his skin in a flexible but efficient seal, and the electropores even filtered viruses.  Still, Miles wasn't entirely sure if it was only to block germs.  So he bit his tongue rather than shrieking when Raven muttered, "Damn it . . . that's not right."

"What's not right?" Miles asked, as Raven and the medtech busied themselves about the table and didn't answer.

"There's no electrical latency in the brain," Raven said, just before Miles started to repeat his question, louder.  "It should be coming up by now . . .  Tanaka, let's try a good old-fashioned shot of shock, here."

Lisa Sato's head bore something resembling a swimming cap, studded with electronics and sensors, tight to the dark hair plastered flat with cryo-gel.  Raven did something to his control screen, and the cap made a snapping noise that made Miles jump and almost topple off his stool.  Raven scowled at his readouts.  His gloved hand went out, almost unconsciously it seemed to Miles, to massage his patient's limp hand.

"Close that drain," Raven said, abruptly and inexplicably, and the medtech hurried to comply.  He stepped back a pace.  "This isn't working."

The bottom fell out of Miles's stomach in a sickening lurch.  "Raven, you can't stop."  My God, we can't afford to botch this one. Those poor kids are waiting for us to deliver their mother back to them.  I promised . . .

"Miles, I've done over seven thousand revivals.  I don't need to spend the next half hour jumping on this poor woman's corpse to know she's gone.  Her brain is slush, on a micro-level."  Raven sighed and turned away from the table, peeling down his mask and drawing off his gloves.  "I know a bad prep when I see one, and that was a bad prep.  This wasn't my fault.  There was nothing I could do.  There was nothing I could ever have done."  Raven was far too controlled a man to throw his gloves across the room and swear, but he hardly needed to; Miles could read his emotions in his set face, the more fierce for the sharp contrast with his usual easy-going cheer.

"Murdered . . . do you think?"

"Things can go wrong without someone intending them, you know.  In fact, that's the statistical norm.  Though not around you, I suppose."

"But not, I think, in this case."