Cryoburn - Lois McMaster Bujold [70]
Ako turned to the clean-up process, Raven leaned against a counter, and Miles found a stool to perch upon. While the medtech folded her arms and listened dubiously, Miles embarked on much the same pitch as he'd presented to Madame Suze, heavy on the implication that Suze had sent them over here with her full blessing. Since Tanaka seemed susceptible to the boy, Miles also unleashed Jin for a judicious blast of heartfelt imploring.
As a result, her frown at the end seemed more technical than political. "We haven't had most of that section open for years. A lot of the equipment that wasn't stripped out when the place was decommissioned went later."
Palmed and pawned or sold, Miles presumed.
"But I do maintain . . . huh. I think we'll have to go up and take a look around."
Not a flat no, impossible, then. Good so far. "That's what Raven is here for," Miles assured her. "Suze said-is that her first name or her last, by the way?"
"Both," said the medtech. "Susan Suzuki."
"Have you been working with her for long?"
"Since the beginning. There were three of us put the scheme together-Suze, her sister, who was assistant to the comptroller, and me. We roped in Tenbury pretty quick, though."
"A younger man then, was he? You were critical for the cryoprep, obviously. Did you have any plans for the other end of things, the revivals?"
She blew out her lips in a short laugh. "At the time, I didn't think we'd go more than a year before we all ended up in jail. I figured it for more of a hopeless protest than anything. Then the street people started coming in, even more desperate than we were, and we found we couldn't quit. Couldn't betray them as everyone else had."
"The world is made by the people who show up for the job," Miles agreed.
Medtech Tanaka eyed Ako, who had finished cleaning up and drifted over to listen in. "That's a true thing. Ako and her great-aunt used to run a cook-shop. The usual-the old woman grew ill, the medical bills bankrupted them, the shop failed, they were evicted . . . came in to us. Ako'd never finished school, but she knew how to clean and wasn't afraid of work, so I took her on." Earnest but timid Ako, Miles guessed, would never have gained entry to, let alone graduated from, any medtech academy. This place gave a whole new dimension to the term unlicensed.
"Shouldn't we take Raven-sensei upstairs now?" Jin urged.
They mounted one floor to the corridor directly above, which had apparently once been a fully-equipped cryorevival facility, with half a dozen operating theaters, a recovery room, and some intensive care booths. Most of it was dark and dusty and, indeed, sadly stripped, but Medtech Tanaka apparently maintained one operating room for procedures more demanding than what antibiotic ointment, surgical glue, and bracing advice would cover. She and Raven fell into intense but by no means discouraged tech-speak, medical division, which ended with sending Jin downstairs to bring back Tenbury for more consultation.
"Who is the owner-of-record for this place?" Miles asked the medtech while they were waiting. "If it was legally abandoned, I'd have thought the city would have seized it for back taxes by now."
"There have been a couple of supposed owners, over the years. The city won't seize it for the same reason the current owner, poor slob, can't unload it. Legal liability for two or three thousand destitute cryo-corpses. He was a contractor, who bought it for what he thought was a song and only then discovered what came with it. Suze has him under control for now. We think the biggest current danger is that he'll try to solve his dilemma through a spot of