"Quick, help me toss him back into his van," Roic told Leiber, who, puffing, nodded and complied.

Chief Financial Officer Akabane proved a local-looking sort—he might have been Raven's middle-aged wicked uncle, if the Durona clone had owned any uncles of any description.  Although Akabane did not look especially wicked at this point, just pale and limp.  And, Roic hoped, defeated.

For all the days m'lord had been playing against the NewEgypt cabal, this was the first direct view Roic had gained of the enemy's face, except for a few vid scans.  It had all been action at a distance, like a space war.  Or perhaps some bizarre mutant form of chess where the rules changed every two moves.  M'lord's formidable father, who'd once been a space admiral, might have felt at home, and m'lord had scarcely been given pause, but to Roic it felt strange and bloodless and removed, though he was very grateful for the bloodless part.

And then Roic wondered how m'lord's sudden trail of chaos through their affairs, erupting out of seeming-nowhere, must have felt to the confused cryocorp men, who'd thought they'd had it all locked down.  That was a vision to make a fellow smile, though it was a smile that made Leiber draw back in unease.

From the corner of his eye, Roic saw the lights of emergency vehicles turning into the street; they'd be through the gate in seconds.  "Melt into the crowd and meet me back at the end door," he told Leiber, and swiftly followed his own advice.  Melting into this crowd proved a bit of a trick, as he was a head taller, as well as about a century younger, than anyone else around him.  But there was plenty enough else going on right now that no one spared him much attention.

Leiber arrived a few paces behind him.  "That's it?" he asked.

Roic nodded.  "M'lord will arrange the rest.  Stunner tag's over."  Roic took a moment's modest satisfaction in his job performance.  "It's all words from here on.  Which are not my department."  He added after a reflective pause: "Thankfully."

#

Jin blinked open his eyes to discover himself staring at a ceiling—of the recovery room, he realized after turning his head.  He touched his face, which was tingling, and scrunched his eyelids open and shut a few times, but he didn't feel especially sick or dizzy.  He didn't feel especially good, either.  Sort of blah, really.  He seemed to be lying on one of the room's several raised, narrow bed-tables, though it didn't have any sheets, and its brittle old plastic felt nasty on his skin.

"Jin, are you all right?"

He sat up on one elbow to find his mother leaning over the side of the bed-table.  She was wearing her filtering mask again, her robe all belted up tight, and her eyes searched him anxiously.