Jin's nose wrinkled further, but he bobbed a sort of nod with his whole body, and trotted off.

"Two coffees!" Suze called after him.  He waved an acknowledging hand as he thumped out the door.

Miles turned in his chair and looked after him—the boy was out of earshot already.  "Nice kid, that."

"Yah."

"Good of you to take him in.  What do you know about him?"  Prime the pump, my Lord Auditor.  "He told me his father was dead and his mother was frozen, making him an orphan of sorts, I suppose.  I'd think his mother would have been too young for long-term cryo-sequestration.  Usually at that age it's only used as a last-ditch emergency procedure to hold people till they can be treated."  As Miles had once been.  He couldn't even add, To my cost, because despite the imperfections of his revival, his life and everything in it for the past decade had been its grant.  And a gift of the kindness of strangers, don't forget them.  The Durona Group being about as strange as they came.

Suze's snort this time had a decidedly editorial tone.  She looked him over and evidently came to some decision in his favor, for she went on: "Jin's father was killed in a construction accident.  He didn't have a cryo-contract or cryo-insurance, so he was denied treatment till it was too late, though I expect things were happening brutally fast at the time."

Miles nodded.  Emergency cryo-treatment was either fast or useless, giving a new meaning to the phrase, the quick or the dead.  There was little point in reviving a body when the mind was irretrievable; you might as well just clone the victim and start over.

"Jin's mother went a little crazy after that.  Launched a campaign for freezing as a universal public right, and went after the corps' grave-robbery as well.  She became quite the spokeswoman, a few years back.  Lawsuits, protests.  Then one of her rallies went violent—they never did figure out who was to blame, though I have my own suspicions—and she was arrested.  They rammed though an allegation of mental illness—not quite a charge of criminally insane, because that would have had to meet stricter standards—and some kindly friend of the court offered to fund her freezing till her cure could be discovered."

Miles's teeth tightened.  "That chill the opposition, did it?"

"You could say."

"Didn't her relatives protest?  Or anybody?"

"Her campaign group was broken up by the expenses of it all.  Her relatives were embarrassed by her—put at risk of losing their own jobs, don't you know.  I expect they were secretly glad when she was shut up."  Suze eyed him.  "You don't seem especially shocked."