- "Jin proved a skinny kid just shy of puberty, with a shock of straight black hair in need of a cut and bright brown eyes, his features typical of the multi-racial blends of the local founder populations. He was dressed in a shirt too large for him, the sleeves rolled up and the shirttail trailing down over a pair of baggy shorts. Worn sport shoes without socks slopped on his feet."
- ―Miles's first real look at Jin Sato[src]
Jin Sato was an 11 year old Kibou-daini boy who ran away from his aunt and uncle's home a year before the events of Cryoburn. His father had previously died in a construction accident but was not cryo-preserved because he lacked cryo-insurance, and his mother, Lisa Sato, was cryo-preserved soon afterwards as a means of silencing her activist group; this left him a sort-of-orphan.
His passion for animals and notable collection of pets led to friction with his aunt and uncle; when they decided to get rid of them, Jin fled, taking his pets with them. He lived for about a year in a cryo-preservation facility that was operating as part of Kibou-daini's sub-economy. When he met and befriended Miles Vorkosigan, his life rapidly changed.
Jin's Pets[]
- Twig - a chicken that laid brown eggs
- Galli - a chicken that laid white eggs
- Mrs. Speck - a chicken that lost some chicks from them falling off the roof
- various younger chickens
- Gyre - falcon
- Lucky - an elderly three-legged cat
- Jinni - a rat
- various other rats
- a turtle
- Lady Murasaki - a wolf spider
- Nefertiti - a sphinx
Behind the scenes[]
Lady Murasaki is very probably named after Lady Murasaki / Murasaki Shikibu, who wrote The Tale of Genji.