Cryoburn - Lois McMaster Bujold [124]
Suze glowered in suspicion. Tenbury raised his hairy eyebrows.
The lawyer, Madame Xia, put in smoothly, "By the tacit contracts argument, Ms. Suzuki is the tacit proxy holder for all who have been frozen here, and can give blanket protocol permissions for all who entered here under her care. I believe I can make this argument work for the city adjudicator, since the city doesn't want the liability for several thousand destitute cryo-corpses."
"Not even if the city could register their votes?" asked Miles. "Seems to me that would be enough to swing a city election, if not one on the Prefecture or planetary level."
"I think I could guarantee-or at least plausibly suggest-expensive legal challenges about that, which the adjudicator would not relish." The lawyer smiled quietly. "Unless disunity among the petitioners forces the matter to go before a judge, in which case I cannot guarantee the outcome, because at that point the issues will become public and political. I actually spend most of my working time keeping my clients out of court."
"Public and political sounds like a job for Madame Sato's group, or something like it," Miles said. "I regret that we didn't snatch the other two members of her committee while we were at it. We'd have them now." Although an attempt to carry off three cryo-corpses from NewEgypt's coffers would certainly have taken more time, and might have gone less luckily.
"Client confidentiality has certain limits, Lord Vorkosigan," Xia warned him. Kindly, he thought.
"Diplomatic immunity?"
"Works for you. Not for me. But in this event, with criminal charges certainly coming down on NewEgypt, there may be legal ways to wrench Mr. Kang and Ms. Khosla away from their captors. Subpoena them as witnesses, for starters."
Miles tilted his head in appreciation. "If one could keep them from being destroyed by NewEgypt en route."
"That would be an important consideration in designing the approach, yes."
Mark pointed. "Kareen, put her on retainer."
Xia smiled warily. "My plate at work is actually rather full. I was only able to come here tonight because it's after hours."
"Partner or employee?"
"Me? I'm one of three associates in the galactic business law department of my firm. We work under a partner."
"The Durona Group will certainly be needing full-time local legal advice," murmured Kareen. "Perhaps we should talk instead about salary . . . later."
Xia waved this away, provisionally. "In any case, Ms. Suzuki, I'd invite you to think about what is the better long-term practical result for your patrons. You serve one community; this technology has the potential to serve the planet. If the-"
An echoing boom from outside rattled the windows. Roic shot to his feet and peered into the night. "What t' hell . . . ?"
"That sounded awfully close," said Xia uneasily.
"Was that us?" said Madame Suze. "Tenbury . . ."
"Could be the plastics fabricator next door," said Fuwa, joining Roic. "Though I can't think what they'd be doing over there at this hour. Or something from the street . . . collision?"
But with the municipal traffic control net here, collisions were vanishingly rare, Miles had thought.
"It's hard to tell the direction," said Tenbury, craning his neck as well.
"Go up on the roof and look," directed Madame Suze.
Tenbury was halfway out the door when Miles's wristcom chimed, emergency secured channel. Vorlynkin. Not good. Miles found himself on his feet without remembering standing up. "Vorkosigan here."
"Lord Auditor." Vorlynkin sounded winded. "An arson team-I counted four men-just put a fire bomb through a ground-floor window of the heat exchanger building. Asterzine, I think-it was a two-part liquid fire-starter, anyway."
"Call the local fire guards!"
"Already did, sir." The cadence of Vorlynkin's language was reverting to old military training, Miles noted in passing. "Police, too. They should be here in moments."
"Good man."
"I'm looking now to see if there are more intruders. Haven't spotted any so far. I'm fairly sure there's no one left in the