15
"Your prognosis...
...isn't good, Duchess, you're not getting better." Dr. Huyn stated, "maybe a decade and you'll be unfit to serve in any role in society."
"a Decade." Elizabeth sighed, "a decade, that's it?"
"ten, maybe twenty years before what happened to your great uncle, and your great aunt, happens to you..."
"How do I slow it down?" Liz asked.
"You know how. The real question you're asking, is if there's any alternatives. Answer's no."
"Human Blood."
"or flesh. Yeah, that's how you hold it off. You can hunt live victims, which is what got your great-grandmother killed, or you can dine at the all-you-can-eat Mortuary deli, it'll maybe slow the progression for up to thirty years, but you're going to end up a beast before you hit seventy. Push past that, and you'll be fit to rest in the Archives."
There'd been a chance, dammit. Dad even married a foreigner to thin the bloodline!
"how do we hide it?" Liz asked. "for as long as we can hide it, doc?"
"one way you're NOT going to hide it, is if you release what you did to Colonel Stonecipher." Dr. Huyn stated.
True, tearing a man's throat out with your teeth and drinking his lifeblood isn't exactly something you want to advertise to the Steiner-Davions.
Hell, it doesn't make good politics with the people here. "I need an heir...and I'm a ****** monster."
"You'll still look human for most of that time, if you keep up your feeding." Huyn told her, "Your grandfather lasted seventy years..."
if only Pat lived... she sighed, "Okay, I guess I should visit the old family and we can talk it out, then, start making prep, get advice..."
"Shuttle to Spider Moon's on the pad. Did Evelynn see?"
"She was there, Doc, she got it in tridee video."
"Complication."
"not really. I don't think, anyway. Pat loved her, she's not on the menu. But it means I need to bring her with me so Colonel Ngo can make the final call on it."
"Wise."
"The Clans." Liz said, "They're the Star League's descendants, did they keep records? do they know?"
Huyn shrugged, "My contacts at Heimdall don't think so, Ms. Whyte's people concur-it's likely only DeChevalier, Gilmour, and McEvedy knew about it...is Henry confirmed?"
"He's still considered KIA, at least, so far as anyone's been willing to tell me. Pat was confirmed on Tamar by the Wolves." Liz said, "I doubt there's a vector of info from either of them-both of them were clear of the markers, as far as the rest of the Commonwealth knows, I've got a degenerative, fatal disease that nobody's gotten a cure for, and I'm the last Ngo...unless I can figure out how to have a kid who won't get the thirst when they hit puberty, maybe The Colonel will have some ideas, he lived in those times, after all."
"If you want him rational when he wakes up, you're going to need something to give him..."
"We've got some of Stonecipher's ****** in holding still, right? I'll take a few prisoners. we'll have a nice dinner date, and I'll hopefully get useful answers." Elizabeth tried to keep he tone light, but the words made her wince, the idea of what she was going to do, feeding men and women to ancient monsters for a few hours of rational discussion? even worse.
but it has to be done...
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