Cryoburn-ARC (36 page)

Raven-sensei led off, Jin tagging along in silent wonder, down and under and through and up to Suze-san's door. Lord Mark and Miss Koudelka looked all around as they walked, very keenly, the blond lady taking vid scans on the way with a tiny hand-held.

At the corner suite, Raven-sensei knocked briskly. The door was opened surprisingly soon not by Suze-san, but by Tenbury-san. "What's all this?" He peered suspiciously through his hedge of hair. "You've gone and brought new people in without asking!"

"Asking is just what we came for," said Raven-sensei. "I'm glad you're here. May we come in and talk to Madame Suze?"

"I suppose." Tenbury squinted down at Lord Mark. "God, it's another one. How many of these sawed-off galactics do you have up your sleeve, Raven?"

Lord Mark's eyebrows twitched, but Raven-sensei replied soothingly, "Just the two," and Tenbury gave way.

Suze-san was sitting by her window playing mah-jong and drinking something that probably wasn't tea with Medtech Tanaka; Tenbury had apparently just risen from the third seat. Their eyes opened wide at Lord Mark's party.

"Now what, Raven?" said Suze-san. "I thought I'd settled with you. When do I get my two revivals, eh?"

"We're considering changing the Deal," said Raven-sensei.

Suze-san's scowl deepened.

"Instead of two, how would you like two thousand?"

Her brows went up, though her frown still bent down; but she waved a wrinkled hand, and the whole mob filed in and pulled up seats around her. Raven-sensei first introduced Consul Vorlynkin, who, indeed, had been running in and out of her facility for the past several days, as she likely knew perfectly well. Jin cast her a nod, trying to say,
This one's all right
. Tenbury half-sat on the wide windowsill, frowning and pulling on his beard.

Raven-sensei repeated his introductions: "Madame Suzuki, may I present my employer, Lord Mark Vorkosigan—he's also Lord Auditor Miles Vorkosigan's younger brother—and his partner, Miss Kareen Koudelka. Lord Mark is a co-owner of the Durona Group, my clinic on Escobar."

"Who's the other co-owner?" Suze-san asked, staring hard at Lord Mark.

Lord Mark bowed slightly and said, "Dr. Lily Durona. Who is also founder and clone-progenitor of the original Durona Group of Jackson's Whole. I acquired my interest a decade ago when I helped expedite the group's removal from the ownership of Baron Fell, there, and emigration to Escobar."

"You a doctor, too? Researcher?"

Lord Mark shook his head. "Entrepreneur. My primary interest in the Durona research is to support development of an alternative to the clone-brain transplant method of life extension that will knock it out of business."

"That technique's illegal!" said Medtech Tanaka.

"Not on Jackson's Whole. Unfortunately."

Jin tugged Vorlynkin's sleeve and whispered, "What are they talking about?"

He whispered back, "Some bad rich people try to get young again by having their brains transplanted into the bodies of clones, purpose-grown to match them. Very dangerous operation, and the clone's brain always dies."

"Eew!"

"I agree." His brows drew down as he frowned anew at Lord Mark. He made a hand-down motion to Jin,
Be quiet and listen,
and set the example.

Lord Mark tapped his spread fingers together in a gesture very like one of his brother's, and said, "The Durona Group is considering expanding its cryorevival services to Kibou-daini."

Suze-san's lip curled. "That would be a waste of—oh, wait. Cryorevival, you say? Not cryo-storage?"

"Cryo-storage seems to be a fully mature industry here, with no room for start-ups. I think there could be far more opportunity in an arena the current cryocorps are neglecting. Raven tells me you have over two thousand unlicensed, illegal cryo-patrons stored in your lower levels. A liability that has rendered this facility unsalable by its present owner-of-record, one Theodore Fuwa."

"Yah, when the idiot bought the place for development he didn't know we were here. He tried to get rid of his dilemma by arson, once," said Suze-san. "Anyway, it's closer to three thousand, by now."

"Even better."

"And what would you do to get rid of 'em?"

"Why, revive them, and let them walk out on their own."

Suze-san snorted. "Only if you've found a cure for old age."

A weird little smile turned Lord Mark's lips, showing his teeth. "Just so."

Medtech Tanaka's head came up. In a voice of slow wonder, she said, "What have you people
got
?"

He nodded to her. "Not, alas, a fountain of youth. It may prove to be a fountain of middle-age, however. We don't think it'll do much for anyone under sixty, but from there up it seems to knock off about twenty years. So far. Not a single-pronged treatment—sort of a cocktail, really, as it presently stands—but our R & D group has finished virtual and live mammal trials, and we're almost ready to move up to clinical trials on humans."

"Has it been tried on any humans?" asked Tanaka-san.

"Just one, so far," put in Raven-sensei.

"One trial?"

"One human. Lily Durona, as it happens," said Raven-sensei. "You can imagine how riveted the whole Group is by the outcome."

"Can you guarantee the results of this treatment?"

"Of course not," said Lord Mark. "That's why it's called a
trial
. But by the time we work through two or three thousand varied test cases, all the bugs should be ironed out."

"You'll never get permissions," said Suze-san.

"On the contrary. Escobar has reciprocal medical licensing arrangements with Kibou-daini. Any facility I might buy here would move under the Durona Group's regulatory umbrella from the instant the purchase was registered. No need to stir things up by reapplying for, ah, anything." Lord Mark rubbed his double chin. "If the trials worked out, the enterprise might become self-supporting in as little as two years."

"And after twenty years," said Tenbury, "what happens to people? Can they go around again?"

Lord Mark shrugged. "Ask me in two decades."

"Damn," said Suze-san. "This sounds like a license to print money, you know that, young man?"

Lord Mark made an impatient throw-away gesture. "A side-venture, from my point of view. It will be safer than the clone-brain transplant, to be sure, but the sort of octogenarian customer who would buy a body of an eighteen-year-old is hardly going to prefer a body of sixty. We have to do better, somehow. But this could be another small step in the right direction."

"Will it only work on revives? Frozen folk?" asked Tenbury.

"Oh, no. I expect it will work even better on the never-frozen."

Suze-san's wrinkled lips drew back in a fierce smile. "Who wouldn't choose it over a risky illegal brain transplant, hell. Who wouldn't choose it over
freezing
?"

"People are strange," said Lord Mark. "I make no predictions."

Medtech Tanaka said, "But what about the poor?"

Lord Mark gave her a blank look. "What about 'em?"

Their stares of mutual incomprehension lengthened. Miss Koudelka put in, "If I may offer an interpretation, Mark, I believe Madame Suzuki and her friends feel just as strongly about Kibou's poor being shut out of their chance at the future as you feel about the Jacksonian clones being shut out of their chance at a future. Or they wouldn't have been running this place as a protest for more years than you've been running the Durona group." She turned to Suze-san. "Mark, and Dr. Durona for that matter, were both raised on Jackson's Whole, where one must hustle constantly to survive, and there is seldom margin to think of others. They're both getting over it, slowly. I suggest we all take the chance to consider the wider aspects of this while we look around. Mark and I hoped to inspect the place before our first meeting with Mr. Fuwa."

Suze-san sat back, looking strange and stern. "And if not
.
.
.
?"

Lord Mark shrugged. "Then we'll just have to meet with Fuwa without your input."

Suze-san's eyes narrowed. "Think you hold all the cards, do you?"

Miss Koudelka said, "It's hardly such a zero-sum game. A cooperative venture might yield major advantages to all, according to their varied needs."

"Yes," said Suze-san slowly, "I need to think." She sat forward and jammed the cork into the top of her square bottle with a hand that shook slightly. "Tenbury, take 'em around. Let them see whatever they like."

Tenbury nodded and pushed off the wall. "Follow me, then, folks
.
.
."

They all shuffled out after Tenbury, except for Suze-san and the old medtech, who bent their heads together before the door even shut. Out in the corridor, Jin edged close to Consul Vorlynkin, and whispered up to him, "What did they mean? I didn't understand any of that. Why was Suze-san mad?"

They trailed the group not quite out of earshot. Vorlynkin rubbed his knuckles across his lips, looked down at Jin, and lowered his voice. "If Lord Mark has the money, and I gather he does, he could buy this facility outright and there would be nothing Madame Suzuki could do about it. He could do—well, not anything, because he'd pick up liability for all those cryo-corpses downstairs, but in theory he could clear out all the live people here as trespassers and dump them back on the street."

"That's not right!" said Jin indignantly.

Miss Koudelka cast him a glance over her shoulder, and a funny smile. Jin blushed furiously.

"I'm not sure that's quite what he has in mind," murmured Vorlynkin, "but I guess we'll have to see."

Jin frowned, trying to sort it all out. "How come Miles-san is Lord Vorkosigan, and his brother is Lord Mark, if their last names are both Vorkosigan?"

"Both are the sons of Count Aral Vorkosigan. Your, er, friend Miles-san is Lord Vorkosigan because he is his father's heir. Lord Mark, as the younger brother, has a courtesy title with no direct political duties."

"Oh."

The consul had a very thoughtful look on his face as he followed Tenbury and the new Barrayarans. Jacksonians. Whatever. So if Lord Vorkosigan and Lord Mark were brothers, how come they'd been raised on different planets? Did all that creepy clone history have anything to do with them? And was that five-year-old boy, the one with all the confusing names his own parent couldn't remember, lord anything?

Jin thought of Miles-san's story about being allowed to sit in on his father's conferences, if he was quiet and useful, so shut his mouth and hurried to keep up.

Two hours later, Jin was yawning. He wondered if Miles-san had ever fallen asleep at any of those old meetings. Maybe his dad's business, whatever it was, had been more interesting than this. They'd trailed Tenbury-san all over: up and down and through parts of the facility even Jin had never seen. The talk was all boring grownup stuff about finances and drains and regulations. It never did get back to more strange stories about cloning and medical murders. Tenbury showed off his shop and tools and tricks, Lord Mark taking it all in expressionlessly, Miss Koudelka outright encouraging the custodian to drone on forever with way too many questions. Jin thought of abandoning them and going back to the recovery room to see if his mom and Mina were awake yet. He was getting hungry.

They were crossing the parking garage under the old patient intake building, when everyone's heads turned at the sound of pounding and muffled yells coming from a door marked
No Admittance.

"Hadn't someone better let that person in? Or out?" asked Miss Koudelka.

"Out, and no," said Raven-sensei. "They're Lord Vorkosigan's prisoners. They must have woken up. I hadn't wanted to give them too much sedative, atop the fast-penta and the stunner hangovers."

Lord Mark held up his hands, palm out. "No affair of mine, then." He didn't sound surprised that his brother went around drugging and detaining people, but merely asked, "When is he thinking of removing them? I expect my deal to be moving rather quickly."

"Don't know." Raven-sensei shrugged. "They're his puzzle-pieces." As the pounding continued, he added, "All the same, I'll wait till Roic comes back to go in and settle them. They're a nasty pair."

Jin tilted his head and ventured nearer to the door. "Hey! That's old Yani's voice!"

"Who?" said Raven-sensei, and "Are you sure?" said Tenbury.

"Hey, Yani! Is that you in there?"

The pounding stopped. A quavery voice cried, "Jin? Is that you? Unlock the door and let me out!"

"Where are the two guys?" Jin yelled back.

"I heard someone thumping and carrying on and went to go look," Yani returned, muffled. "What call they got to go locking people up around here?"

Raven-sensei threw up his hands and clenched his teeth. "Oh, my Lord Auditor will not love this." He bent to the lock.

Lord Mark stood back, drawing a businesslike stunner from his black jacket. Miss Koudelka didn't get behind him, but rather, circled to cover another angle, hitching her shoulders and flexing her hands and suddenly looking very athletic.