David Weber - At All Costs

"I...." Emily's voice rasped, and she stopped and cleared her throat.

"That's... a part of it," she said finally, distantly amazed she could admit even that much to Allison. "I suppose I've always known it's not entirely... rational. As you say," her mouth twisted in a bitter smile, "the fact that someone has reasons for her decisions doesn't necessarily make those reasons valid."

"Did you ever discuss the question with a good geneticist?" Allison's gentle voice was completely devoid of any shadow of judgment.

"No." Emily looked away. "No, not really. I consulted several of them. But I suppose, if I were honest, I'd have to admit I was just going through the motions. For me, perhaps for Hamish. I don't know." She looked back at Allison, green eyes brimming with tears. "I talked to them. They talked to me. And they kept reassuring me, telling me it wouldn't happen. And that even if somehow I did pass on my 'curse,' it was absurd to think any child of mine would ever be injured the way I was. And none of it mattered. Not one bit of it." She stared into Allison's eyes and forced herself to admit to someone else what she had never until this moment fully admitted to herself. "I was too frightened to be rational."

She hovered on the brink of telling Allison why. Of telling her what she'd overheard her own mother saying. Of admitting how deep that wound had cut, even though her intellect had fiercely rejected the searing hurt. But she couldn't. Even now, she couldn't expose that jagged scar. Not yet.

"If that's the only way in which you reacted 'irrationally' after what happened to you, then you're some sort of superwoman," Allison said dryly. "My God, woman! Your life was destroyed. You've rebuilt a new one, a deeply productive one, without ever surrendering. You're entitled to not be strong about everything every instant. And you have the right to admit that it hurts, and that things frighten you. Someday you need to sit down with Honor and let her tell you about the things she carried around inside for far too long. The things she didn't share even with me. They've left scars-I'm sure you've seen some of them-and she'd be the very first person to say that everything that happened to her was small beer compared to what happened to you.

"But I think perhaps it's time you revisited that decision of yours. Perhaps enough time's finally passed that you can think about it rationally... if you want to."

"I think.... I think, perhaps, I do," Emily said, very slowly, astonished at the words coming out of her own mouth. And even more astonished to realize how true they were.

"I think I do," she repeated, "but that doesn't magically dispel the things that frighten me."

"Maybe not, but then again," Allison grinned suddenly, "that's my job."

"Your job?" Emily looked at her, and Allison nodded.

"You know what Honor's been through in terms of physical injury. Nothing that's happened to her was as severe as what happened to you, but it was more than enough to make her worry about passing her inability to regenerate on to her children. Fortunately for her, her mother happens-if I may be pardoned for blowing my own horn-to be one of the Star Kingdom's leading geneticists. I made identifying the gene group which prevents her from regenerating a personal project, and I found it years ago. The problem child is a dominant, unfortunately, but it's not associated with the locked sequences of the Meyerdahl modifications-if it were, Alfred wouldn't regenerate either, and he does-so it's not automatically selected for at fertilization. Once I'd determined that, I also determined that she carries it only on the chromosome she received from her father, and I've done a scan on her child. As a result of which, I was able to reassure her that she hasn't passed it along to him."

"Him?" Despite her own whiplashing emotions, Emily fastened on the personal pronoun.

"Oh, crap!" Allison shook her head, her expression suddenly disgusted. "Forget you heard that," she commanded. "Honor doesn't want to know yet. Which, if you'll pardon my saying so, is fairly silly. I always wanted to know as soon as possible."

"Him," Emily repeated. Then she smiled. "Well, once Grayson gets over the fact that he's illegitimate, they'll probably be pleased!"

"Bunch of stuck-in-the-mud patriarchal male chauvinists, the lot of them. It pisses me off to think how frigging delighted they're all going to be," Allison muttered, and Emily surprised herself with a genuine laugh.

"That's better!" Allison approved with a smile. "But my point is that even with Hamish and Honor's genetic material colliding as accidentally as it did in this case, his Y-chromosome's done the trick quite neatly. Mother Nature didn't even need my intervention."

"Not in her case," Emily agreed, and Allison snorted.

"Oh, for goodness sakes, Emily! This isn't the dark ages, you know. I haven't looked at your chart yet, for obvious reasons, but I will be frankly astonished if the problem is anywhere near as complicated as you seem to believe it is. Since we already know Hamish's genotype is perfectly capable of regenerating, and since we already know he and Honor can produce a child equally capable of regenerating, it's probably as simple as selecting the sperm with the genes we need. If it's not, then I feel quite certain I can repair the problem before fertilization. In fact, I could probably repair it after fertilization, although I'd hesitate to promise that without a careful examination of you both."

"You sound... remarkably confident," Emily said slowly.

"I sound-?" Allison paused, looking at Emily with an expression of almost comical surprise. Then she cleared her throat.

"Ah, Emily. Although I haven't reviewed any of your files, I know you spent quite some time on Beowulf after the accident. And I believe Dr. Kleinman is Beowulf-trained. He graduated from Johns Hopkins, Beowulf, didn't he?"

"I think so, yes."

"Then it would be fair to say you've been exposed to the Beowulf medical establishment in all its smug, not to say narcissistic, tradition-encrusted glory?"

"To some extent," Emily said, puzzled by the curious bite in Allison's tone.

"And do you happen to know what my maiden name was?"

"Chou, wasn't it?" Emily's puzzlement was, if anything, deeper than ever.

"Well, yes. Except that if I'd stayed on Beowulf, I'd have been known by my entire maiden name... whether I particularly wanted to be or not. Which, as it happens, I didn't."

"Why not?" Emily asked, when she paused.

"Because my full family name is Benton-Ramirez y Chou," Allison said, and Emily's eyes widened.

Of all the medical "dynasties" of Beowulf, acknowledged throughout explored space as the preeminent queen of the life-sciences, the Benton-Ramirez and Chou families stood at the very pinnacle. They were Beowulf, with a multi-generational commitment to the field of genetic medicine which stretched back to well before Old Earth's Final War. George Benton and Sebastiana Ramirez y Moyano had actually led the Beowulf teams to Old Earth to battle the hideous consequences of the Final War's bioweapons, and Chou Keng-ju had led the bioethics fight against Leonard Detweiler and the other "progressive eugenics" advocates six centuries ago. Among the many jewels in the crown of their families' achievements since was a leading role in the development of the prolong process itself. And-

"Well," she said, mildly, after a moment, "at least I finally understand exactly where Honor's rather... volcanic attitude towards the genetic slave trade and Manpower comes from, don't I?"

"You might say she imbibed it with her mother's milk," Allison agreed. "Bad science, no doubt, but I did breast-feed, and having a direct ancestor's signature on the Cherwell Convention didn't hurt, I suppose." She smiled thinly. "My point, however, is that if I come across as sounding just a bit breezily confident, I come by it honestly. I can't give you an absolute, categorical assurance that you and Hamish could produce a biological child who will regenerate. The probability that you couldn't, especially with my intervention, is so vanishingly small I literally couldn't quantify it, but it does exist. What I can guarantee you, however, is that with my intervention you won't produce a child who can't regenerate."