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"Really? I thought the living quarters on the Platform were less than fifteen years old. You must be at least twenty."
    "Twenty-four," Satia confessed, with a friendly and amused expression.
    "How long was I asleep?"
    The two doctors looked at each other, trying to decide what to say. Lunzie stared at them sharply. The dark-haired young man in the coverall shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other and cleared his throat. Banus shot him a sly, knowing look out of the corner of his eye and turned to face him. "I haven't forgotten you, Illin Romsey. There's a substantial finder's fee for bringing a pod in, you know that."
    "Well," the young man grinned, squinting thoughtfully. "It'll make up for losing that strike. Just. But I'd'a brought her in anyway. If I was shiplost, I sure hope someone would feel the same about bringing me home."
    "Everyone is not so altruistic as you, young man. Self interest is more prevalent than your enlightened attitude. Computer, record Miner Romsey's fee for retrieving escape pod . . . ?" The tall doctor looked to Lunzie for assistance.
    "NM-EC-02," she said.
    ". . . and verify by my voice code. If a check is necessary, refer requests to me."
    "Acknowledged," said the flat voice of the computer.
    "There you go, Miner," Stev said. "There's no security classification, so if you want to beat the rumor mill with your news . . ."
    Illin Romsey grinned. "Thanks. I hope all's well for you, Dr. Mespil." The young man dropped a courteous bow and left the room.
    Stev returned to Lunzie's side. "Of course, the fee is nothing compared to the back salary that is owing to you, Doctor Mespil. You were in the Company's employ at the time you underwent deepsleep. Descartes is honest about paying its debts. Come and talk to me later about your credit balance."
    "How long have I been asleep?" Lunzie demanded.
    "You must understand where the miner found you. Your capsule was not recovered when the other two pods from the, er, ' Nellie Mine 'were brought in. Even they were difficult to locate. The search took more than three months."
    "Is everyone else all right?" she asked quickly, immediately concerned for the other fourteen members of the Nellie's crew. Jilet had been so frightened of going into deepsleep again. She regretted not having ordered a sedative for him before he took the cryogenic.
    Dr. Banus swiveled the computer screen on the table toward him and drew his finger down the glass face. "Oh, yes, everyone else was just fine. There are normally no ill effects from properly induced cryogenic sleep. You should be feeling 'all go and on green' yourself."
    "Yes, I do. May I make use of the communications center? I assume you notified my daughter, Fiona, when we escaped from the Nellie Mine. I'd like to communicate with her that I've been found. She's probably been worried sick about me. Unless, of course, there is an FTL shuttle going towards Tau Ceti soon? I must send her a message."
    "Do you think she's still there?" Satia asked, frowning at Stev.
    Lunzie watched the exchange between the two. "It's where I left her, in the care of a friend, another medical practitioner. She was only fourteen . . ." Lunzie paused. The way the doctors were talking, it must have been a couple of years before they found the shuttle. Well, that was one of the risks of space travel. Lunzie tried to see Fiona as she might be now, if she continued to grow into her long legs. The adolescent curves must be more mature now. Lunzie hoped her daughter's mentor would have had the clothes-sense to guide the girl into becoming fashions instead of the radical leanings of teenagers. Then she noticed the overwhelming silence from the others, who were clearly growing more uncomfortable by the minute. Her intuition insisted something was wrong. Lunzie looked suspiciously at the pair. When an FTL trip between star systems alone could take two or three years, a cold sleep stint at that length would hardly provoke worry in modern psychologists.