She frowned, even paler about the mouth than her revival had left her.  "Well, yes.  She was in a lot of pain from her joint deterioration.  But she didn't fall off of things.  Oh, no, poor George . . ."

"The odd man out in all this is Dr. Leiber.  He simply went back to work for the past eighteen months."

"That makes no sense."

"Fortunately, I'm going to be able to ask him about it.  When he wakes up."

"Was he frozen, too?"

"Ah, no.  He had an encounter with a simple sedative this morning, according to my man Roic.  Raven—Dr. Durona, that is—confirms.  We've detained him here at Suze's while he sleeps it off.  He was trying to leave the planet when Roic picked him up.  Somebody else was trying to prevent him, I think.  It's going to be an interesting interrogation."  Miles hesitated.  This was, after all, Jin and Mina's mother.  Those two had to have inherited, or perhaps learned, some part of their admirable wits and determination from her.  And you couldn't demand trust without giving some in return.

"Would you like to sit in?"

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Miles was itching to get to Leiber, but was diverted by Roic to consider his other captives.  Thanks to one of Raven's potions, both now slept peacefully on the floor of an empty office—or possibly abandoned utility closet—adjoining the underground garage of the former patient intake building.  Roic had spent the time constructively going through wallets, IDs, and the lift van.

"This wasn't what you might call deep covert ops, here," Roic said, sorting out the wallets to demonstrate.  "The van is registered to NewEgypt, and the scrubs they're wearing are company issue.  They were carrying all their own identifications.  Hans Witta and Okiya Cermak.  Johannes did some back-checking.  T' one is actually the senior officer for plant security, and t'other used to be a regular guard till eighteen months ago, when he got a big raise in pay and a promotion to personal assistant to his chief."

"Interesting," murmured Miles.

"Ayup.  I'd say Dr. Leiber's kidnapping was something they put together in a hurry, out of resources they had to hand.  If they'd nailed him at work, or anywhere on the NewEgypt properties, they wouldn't even have had to bother with that much.  Thing is, now what do we do with 'em?  We can't keep 'em sacked out on the floor forever.  I mean, you got to let a man pee sometime.  And their bosses have to know by now that something went wrong.  Catch and release?  I figured to set them back in their van not far from Leiber's hotel, and let them wake up on their own."

"Hm.  Have you and Johannes rendered the van un-locatable?"

"Of course, m'lord," Roic said, his prim tone adding, I do my job.

"But they did see you."

"Unavoidable, I'm afraid.  I don't think they saw Johannes, though."

"Is kidnapping kidnappers still kidnapping?" Miles mused.