TGoaW-39

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==Chapter 39 - The Glow of a Worm inside a Child's Eye==
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Triad - Tharkard, Lyran Commonwealth
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"She's a great kid, always has...
...been." Evelynn noted.
"I've had a question for years about that." Victor Ian Steiner-Davion leaned on a column watching the kids below from the balcony. "What's the deal? I've heard of parents being distant, but Kommandant Ngo specifically said he wouldn't come and I want to know what the hell the deal is?"
"Mmh...Not my story to tell." Evelynn said, "Did you ask Pat?"
"Patrick's currently giving the CO of the 8th Lyran Guard eight kinds of hell with IG." Victor observed, "I could make it an order. What's the deal with his little sister?"
"She won't make it to age forty-five." Evelynn commented, "It's not a state secret. Pat and Hank both came through their tests clear, but Lizzie?" she shook her head. "The reason her parents treat her like she doesn't exist. That is because her dad doesn't want to go through what his father did...thus proving the son isn't as strong as the father."
"Walk me through it." He said, "I heard the stories, but...from your view?"
"Liz has Cholmann's syndrome. She's asymptomatic,so we don't know how long she's actually got, but sometime before she's thirty. She'll start having seizures, lingering sensation, and chronic, constant pain." Evelynn held her drink carefully, and glanced down at the children, gathered around Arthur as he showed off Lizzie's gift. "Sometime before age forty, she'll be taking the kind of drugs they use for surgery to stay conscious and functional, and at some point? The pain doesn't stop, and neither do the seizures-her body will spasm hard enough to break bone and rupture veins, and the only pain-relief that works after that? is Euthanasia. She's incurable and has dog years."
"God, that's horrible!" the Crown Prince and Heir shuddered.
"Yeah, and her parents have already written her off." Evelynn stated. "Her brothers haven't, I haven't, and the Captain of the SLS Tabiranth hasn't...but minus something truly miraculous, Lizzie's going to die before she hits middle age."
"Does she know?"
"if I know, then you can bet she knows." Evelynn stated, "Pat confessed to me, but he had to find out, because he had the same questions you do, only we were still kids. which is why we won't be inviting his parents to the wedding."
She took a sip, and let out a bitter laugh, "Hank thinks a miracle's coming, he's still a kid, he doesn't know that wishes don't come true."
"Maybe miracles can happen, Mosovich." Victor suggested.
"Seven hundred years of research says otherwise." she countered. "the syndrome's too rare, it should've bred out by now, but those idiots at the Hanoi Genome Research Clinic in the 22nd century? they were just good enough to make something persistent by trying to cure epilepsy and Huntington's. It's why recombinant DNA research was banned under the Terran Hegemony."
"How'd you find that out?"
"Armor was my second choice, but I couldn't pass the SAT's for Medicine." Evelynn told him, "Not talented enough to get into the program. I was aiming for that, because I wanted to see if I could beat the best doctors in seven hundred years of medical research...but instead, I tested up just about well enough to be a tanker. she's like my little sister too...and you better watch your brother there."
"WHat?"
"I think he has a crush on our girl." Evelynn stated, "she's not showing it, but if this gets deeper, he'll have to learn to live with it too."
"It?"
"Dealing with loving someone who's going to die horribly when you don't have any way to save them." she stated, "I told you, Dave Ngo's not the man his father was-he's too much of a coward to deal with it.
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