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yes, it does. Why do you think I got out? The price was too high for the power I was capable of wielding.” Neela looked at her boss with a mixture of respect and worry.
    “But…”
    “No buts, Neela. Suppose that we had managed to succeed. And I was willing to expend the bulk of my fortune using the connections built up over a lifetime to protect and revive this man against the most powerful corporation in human history—against, I might add, a corporation that wants this man for numerous compelling reasons, and would be willing and economically justified to go to incredible lengths to insure their investment in him. Now, my dear girl, what do you think GCI would do to anyone standing in their way?”
    “Oh please, Mosh, you don’t really mean to say that they’d…”
    “Neela, don’t be dramatic,” he continued. “But they would make our lives miserable, if only as a warning to others. How would you like to spend the next hundred years performing emergency suspensions on the frozen moons of Jupiter?”
    “But what could they do to you?” Neela asked. “You’re rich and have already made majority. You’re untouchable, aren’t you?”
    Mosh looked at her, his sad smile the precursor to an answer she suspected but had never really wanted to hear.
    “Neela,” he said, “most people assume that when you get majority all your worries go away—in most cases that’s correct. As long as you don’t try to off yourself you can pretty much do what you want with your life. But let’s assume that GCI decides to make an example of me. I might start getting audited medically on a monthly or even weekly basis. There may be court challenges as to my fitness to maintain control of my own portfolio.”
    “On what basis?”
    “Well, the willingness to spend ten million credits on someone I have never met may be justification for trial alone.”
    Neela sighed. “That wouldn’t stand, Mosh.”
    “Neela, it doesn’t have to stand. But it would be expensive and time consuming. Or they could just have people sue me, not for money but for stock. I would just need to lose three or four cases, and there goes my majority.”
    “Damsah’s ghost,” whispered Neela.
    “You’re beginning to understand.”
    Mosh took her hand and leaned closer. “Neela, sometimes there are things in life worth sacrificing everything for. For every individual it’s something different. I’m not sure what I would risk everything for. But even if it were Tim Damsah himself in there I doubt I’d do it. And I’m positive I won’t for a three-hundred-year-old frozen body of someone I have never met and probably never heard of.”
    Neela sat for a moment while she absorbed all that Mosh had told her.
    “OK, Mosh,” she asked, “why did we go through all of that if you realized it wasn’t going to get us anywhere?”
    “Why,” he smiled, “to cover our collective asses, of course… and you can say ‘thank you.’ ”
    “OK, now you’ve lost me.”
    Mosh took out his DijAssist and pushed a button. He showed her the screen. The entire encounter in the bay had been vidacorded for posterity.
    “But why?” she asked.
    “Insurance, my dear.” Mosh leaned forward and lowered his voice, indicating that she come closer. “When our poor bastard finally does wake up and finds his valuable shares already owned by GCI, what do you think he’s gonna do first? Say ‘thanks for screwing me’? Not bloody likely. He’s going to go to court and try and win back as much of himself as he can. And who, my dear, do you think’s going to get nailed against the wall in all his legitimate fury?”
    “Hektor and his cohorts. Who else?” she answered.
    “ We else, Neela. Think about it. He goes after GCI, and he’ll be tied up in court for years. He goes after us, and we’ll be forced to settle a lot sooner than that. But let’s just take your scenario. Let’s suppose he hires a bad litigator and is stupid enough to go after GCI. Who do you