Along a corridor two flights up, they passed a row of doors to what formerly, Miles thought, might have been offices, but now seemed to be living quarters.  Through the open ones he saw filtered daylight, and piles of personal junk variously tidy or messy, the sort of shabby, battered goods that only folks who feared they couldn't get more would ever use, or save.  The people he glimpsed seemed to be mostly dozing in bedrolls on the floor, or puttering quietly.  A few residents squinted back at Miles as they passed.  While they seemed a mix of ages, a disproportionate number were elderly.  Maybe the able-bodied young ones, like Ako-the-cook, were out doing things?

This place was drawing power and water enough to maintain decency, if not such luxuries as lift tubes.  No signs of buckets used as chamber pots, stairwells doubling as urinals, or cookfires set in wastebaskets or bathtubs.  So where was the power coming from, and the sewage going to?  Was someone here paying for utilities, or were they being secretly siphoned from the municipal systems?  The answers, Miles thought, might be revealing, if only he had time to pursue them.

Up another floor lay a corridor with fewer doors.  Jin stopped at one on the end and knocked briskly.  He waited a minute, leaning his shoulders on the wall and swinging one foot, then rapped again, louder.

"Yah, yah," a gruff voice sounded from within.  "I hear you.  Don't get your undies in a knot."

The door opened a hand-span.  Miles dropped his gaze to not much higher than his own eye level, and found a seamed face scowling back at him.  "What's this?" the grumbling voice demanded sharply.  "Oh, it's you, Jin.  What are you doing, bringing a stranger up here?"

"Yani and I found him last night," said Jin.  "He was lost."

The red-rimmed eyes narrowed.  "What, is that Yani's druggie?"

Miles cleared his throat, conscious of his piratical beard stubble.  "Drugged, ma'am, but not a druggie.  I had an unfortunate allergic reaction to some medication, in the course of which I was robbed and stumbled into the Cryocombs.  It took me quite a while to find my way out again."

"You're not from around here."

"No, ma'am."

Jin jumped in: "He wants to use your comconsole, Suze-san."

The scowl deepened.  "You can't call out on it.  It only inloads."

This seemed unlikely to Miles, but for starters, he would take whatever he could get.  It was plain this Suze really didn't like him here.  An un-trusted outsider who Saw Too Much could come to a bad end, in a secretive community.  Granted, he hadn't spotted any bully boys, but murder didn't take muscle; slyness would do as well.  "I just want to check the news, ma'am.  Till I get my wallet and IDs back, I have to beg kindness from strangers."

Suze snorted.  "You find many kindly strangers where you come from?"