"We never finished our conversation," Miles explained.  "We now have something he wants.  He'll come.  Saves putting a trace on him, at least.  Damn.  Johannes is the only one of us he hasn't seen yet, but I need him for other tasks.  You'll be glad to know I now regret not having brought that ImpSec team you always want."

"Cold comfort," sighed Roic.  "Why not just wait for Leiber to come back?"

"He won't, not while we're here.  If I've guessed right he risked his job, maybe his life, to secure what we found in the basement.  He'll be skittish, till he has time to calm down and think it through."  And then he'll be terrified.

After considerately closing the garage door behind them, they all piled back into the lift van.  "To Madame Suze's," Miles directed Johannes.  "Circuitously and sedately."

Raven leaned over the seat back.  "You know, if we've just stolen that poor man's grandmother, we're going to be very embarrassed."

Miles grinned, exhilarated.  "Then we'll simply return her.  Leave her on the lawn after dark.  Or maybe ship her back anonymously.  No, it would take a lot more than that to embarrass me."

The thought was less amusing when Miles remembered yesterday morning's debacle.  He wasn't sure if that noise from Roic was a sigh or a snort, but in either case, he elected to ignore it.

#

Back when he'd been a young municipal street guard for the town of Hassadar, Roic had undergone first-aid training.  Later, after taking the solemn oath of a Count's Armsman, he'd been sent off for a much more advanced course in military field aid.  It had included how to do an emergency cryoprep, with practice on a disturbingly realistic and anatomically complete model person and fake cryo-fluid.  It hadn't given him nightmares.  Helping shift Madame Sato's body onto the procedure table, he wasn't so sure that would remain the case.

Cutting away the protective caul and prepping the still form, Raven and Medtech Tanaka were too professional to permit much embarrassment on the helpless woman's behalf.  But she didn't look like the model, she didn't—quite—look like a corpse, and she didn't look alive, either.  Maybe no one had a slot in their old ape brain for this.  Yet if he ever had to perform a cryoprep for real, God forbid, Roic suspected this experience would help him do a better job, knowing what all those rote steps were aimed at.  He was conscious of an odd sense of privilege.

At least m'lord had made damned sure he had the right woman this time, after that unholy mess day before yesterday.  Fortunately, he'd stopped short of bringing in those poor kids to ID his new prize last night, after they'd got her to Suze's and unwrapped her.  This time around, Jin and Mina hadn't even been told she was found yet.  When he'd asked m'lord, But which is better? M'lord had replied simply, Neither.  Which just about summed it up.