"You just go to sleep, and then wake up in a future somebody else picked for you.  No dreams," Miles agreed.  "Blink out, blink back in.  Like anesthesia, but longer."  An intimate preview of death, and doubtless a lot less traumatic when the blink out part wasn't accomplished by a needle-grenade blowing out one's chest, Miles had to allow.  He spread his palm on the drawer front.  "What happens to all the poor frozen people"—or frozen poor people—"if this place is discovered by the authorities?"

A brief, humorless grin ruffled the beard-thatch.  "Well, they can't just let us thaw and rot, then bury us.  That's illegal."

"Murder?"

"Of a sort.  One of the grades of murder, anyway."

So this place was not as futile an effort as Miles had first guessed.  Somebody was thinking ahead.  How far?  Who might find the future legal responsibility for these frozen souls on their hands?  The municipality of Northbridge?  Some unwitting entrepreneur, buying the rediscovered property for back taxes without inspecting it first?  Cheating death, indeed.  "Illegal at the moment, then.  What happens if the law changes?"

Tenbury shrugged.  "Then several thousand people will have died calmly and without pain, in hope and not despair.  And won't know the difference."  He added after a thoughtful pause, "That would be an ugly sort of world to wake up in anyway."

"Mm, I don't suppose the authorities would go to the trouble and expense of reviving folks just to let them die again immediately.  Blink out, and . . . stay blinked."  There were worse ways to arrive at an identical fate.  Miles had seen many of them.

"Well, I need to get back to work," Tenbury hinted away his uninvited visitor.  "I hope this helped you."

"Yes, yes it did.  Thank you."  Miles let Tenbury shepherd him back through the shop to the first corridor.  "I suppose I'd better go feed Jin's pets.  I did promise the boy I would."

"Odd kid, that.  I had hopes for a bit he might apprentice to me, but he's more interested in animals than machinery."  Tenbury sighed, whether in regret or bafflement Miles was not quite sure.

"Um . . ." said Miles, staring up the darkened corridor.

"First door on your left," said Tenbury, and thoughtfully held his office door wide to light the way till Miles had found it in the gloom.  The stair rail and a careful count of the turns guided Miles after that.  He emerged again in the basement near the cafeteria, and from there found his way back up to Jin's roof via the interior stairs.

Emerging into the daylight and greeted by milling chickens, he thought, Damn, but I hope the boy makes it back here soon.

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