710 28
only
pale
responds
underlined
possible
let
responded
always
time
fifty
mature
expression
conditioning
after
operation
six
did
these
twos
rest
swimming
community
developing
undergone
production
for
upright
betas
world
ripening
ten
first
porous
enormous
with
from
long
advantage
didn
fool
every
necessary
troop
microscopes
you
said
accelerated
free
full
months
about
thereafter
abjectly
rather
rack
recorded
week
sisters
arms
scores
age
floridly
community
approached
point
introduction
x
towards
having
busy
only
charges
difficult
insisted
was
know
perfectly
flesh
intention
head
him
stability
fair
blood
mouth
stability
heat
formed
ground
north
mention
sharply
contents
fertilizing
upon
or
all
three
stories
lips
warmed
mass
seeking
boys
not
silence
seventy
grow
lifted
actively
passing
plunged
last
brothers
shield
do
occur
dozens
good
history
draped
substance
any
died
fertilize
obviously
five
indefinitely
quoted
moment
check
how
desperately
overalls
way
can
millions
major
showed
manufacture
standard
consequently
band
absent
best
compose
series
identical
notebooks
along
we
very
add
centre
susceptible
brought
words
he
even
go
breathing
proliferate
quarter
egg
year
over
pages
hum
advanced
fertilized
if
anyhow
london
off
reach
begin
ninety
room
racks
original
two
rare
identical
pallid
modern
stand
man
concentration
bouillon
centimetre
bonus
hungrily
slides
lay
on
the
d
thirty
and
no
state
figure
arise
whistle
put
make
give
leaning
cold
talking
you
social
yet
lying
it
warm
kept
drawn
have
one
instruments
seemed
tall
metal
embryos
heels
smiling
threes
receptacle
seven
happy
detached
products
rich
left
normal
t
students
stabilize
machinery
windows
great
thin
ova
an
adult
remained
he
planetary
fatal
the
just
here
fifteen
whenever
men
divide
nearly
stamp
viviparous
temperature
us
onto
notebook
buds
spermatozoa
but
followed
say
use
brief
virtue
their
hundred
itself
most
intellectually
bokanovskification
out
that
essentially
f
tropical
gametes
must
pencils
squat
society
working
one
tell
made
almost
could
boy
nature
not
generally
preserving
same
began
identity
begin
per
specially
explained
carried
four
ghost
old
each
bent
tables
when
get
h
round
piddling
menacing
chin
then
who
takes
departments
through
now
sometimes
moving
polished
just
lambs
incubators
eggs
excised
sure
mr
optimum
absorbed
staffed
limit
against
epsilons
account
shall
again
little
while
transferred
fertilizers
at
drop
tremulous
borrow
old
told
panes
re
waved
bokanovskify
concluded
examined
further
motto
bleakly
develop
sort
ninety
bud
where
being
individuals
callow
exceptional
they
passed
our
illegibly
women
test
down
mad
light
pointed
ovary
contained
whereas
much
by
fifty
frozen
second
fertilizing
certain
philosophers
arrests
summer
stability
accidentally
population
ruddy
record
white
central
room
which
scores
faced
uniform
least
sadly
applied
settling
bokanovskified
but
hands
course
batches
went
haired
technique
see
arrived
minimum
more
large
into
leading
beget
its
emerging
back
prodigious
on
general
morrow
curved
single
various
took
teeth
work
unvarying
solemn
had
standard
geniality
normality
question
and
sized
process
identity
butter
sterilizes
immersed
can
personally
biology
solved
container
goose
shining
and
a
undergo
workers
checked
suddenly
london
another
shook
in
instead
containing
minded
progress
spoke
hatchery
repeated
yellow
slightly
theremogene
salary
solved
nervously
yield
voice
immensely
happiness
wintriness
they
improvement
still
responds
fret
becoming
ask
whole
it
covered
alas
raised
peace
male
happened
chilled
alive
consists
before
human
largesse
agree
referred
cases
living
zealous
dribbling
really
called
few
tubes
flung
surgical
minutes
numbered
idea
full
thirty
insulated
death
door
eight
beckoning
some
pink
grew
multiply
entrance
main
alphas
as
grey
streak
process
maturity
rams
knows
recession
other
grand
of
alcohol
average
intelligently
dosed
eight
them
supply
central
until
watch
coloured
faintly
particulars
this
luscious
business
won
privilege
many
by
burgeoned
shape
members
to
conducting
newly
wheeled
twins
hours
collectors
consideration
salinity
principle
a
embryo
nickel
bokanovsky
would
budded
ripened
his
s
conditioning
glass
budding
be
technique
c
society
over
returned
director
machines
to
beginning
within
two
generalities
voluntarily
growth
foster
for
scurried
liquor
like
amounting
deltas
inspected
anything
harsh
kept
box
development
hatcheries
podsnap
gave
will
actually
if
distributing
backbone
small
fact
divided
i
abnormalities
continued
though
soliloquizing
rubber
evils
what
explain
years
young
wintriness
unfertilized
scribbled
slowly
entered
laboratory
enough
were
thousand
turn
counted
new
opening
beings
factory
opened
carries
scarcely
dead
wrapped
glared
sawyers
big
porcelain
entering
barrels
days
definitely
beyond
viscosity
gloved
paradoxically
academic
corpse
enthusiasm
rays
purred
building
we
century
arrest
hand
eleven
bottled
across
from
major
straight
prominent
floor
ll
gammas
horse
finding
cubic
meanwhile
problem
my
description
making
hard
is
are
serious
A SQUAT grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and, in a shield, the World State's motto, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY.
The enormous room on the ground floor faced towards the north. Cold for all the summer beyond the panes, for all the tropical heat of the room itself, a harsh thin light glared through the windows, hungrily seeking some draped lay figure, some pallid shape of academic goose-flesh, but finding only the glass and nickel and bleakly shining porcelain of a laboratory. Wintriness responded to wintriness. The overalls of the workers were white, their hands gloved with a pale corpse-coloured rubber. The light was frozen, dead, a ghost. Only from the yellow barrels of the microscopes did it borrow a certain rich and living substance, lying along the polished tubes like butter, streak after luscious streak in long recession down the work tables. 
"And this," said the Director opening the door, "is the Fertilizing Room." 
Bent over their instruments, three hundred Fertilizers were plunged, as the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning entered the room, in the scarcely breathing silence, the absent-minded, soliloquizing hum or whistle, of absorbed concentration. A troop of newly arrived students, very young, pink and callow, followed nervously, rather abjectly, at the Director's heels. Each of them carried a notebook, in which, whenever the great man spoke, he desperately scribbled. Straight from the horse's mouth. It was a rare privilege. The D. H. C. for Central London always made a point of personally conducting his new students round the various departments. 
"Just to give you a general idea," he would explain to them. For of course some sort of general idea they must have, if they were to do their work intelligently-though as little of one, if they were to be good and happy members of society, as possible. For particulars, as every one knows, make for virtue and happiness; generalities are intellectually necessary evils. Not philosophers but fret-sawyers and stamp collectors compose the backbone of society. 
"To-morrow," he would add, smiling at them with a slightly menacing geniality, "you'll be settling down to serious work. You won't have time for generalities. Meanwhile :" 
Meanwhile, it was a privilege. Straight from the horse's mouth into the notebook. The boys scribbled like mad. 
Tall and rather thin but upright, the Director advanced into the room. He had a long chin and big rather prominent teeth, just covered, when he was not talking, by his full, floridly curved lips. Old, young? Thirty? Fifty? Fifty-five? It was hard to say. And anyhow the question didn't arise; in this year of stability, A. F., it didn't occur to you to ask it. 
"I shall begin at the beginning," said the D.H.C. and the more zealous students recorded his intention in their notebooks: Begin at the beginning. "These," he waved his hand, "are the incubators." And opening an insulated door he showed them racks upon racks of numbered test-tubes. "The week's supply of ova. Kept," he explained, "at blood heat; whereas the male gametes," and here he opened another door, "they have to be kept at thirty-five instead of thirty-seven. Full blood heat sterilizes." Rams wrapped in theremogene beget no lambs. 
Still leaning against the incubators he gave them, while the pencils scurried illegibly across the pages, a brief description of the modern fertilizing process; spoke first, of course, of its surgical introduction-"the operation undergone voluntarily for the good of Society, not to mention the fact that it carries a bonus amounting to six months' salary"; continued with some account of the technique for preserving the excised ovary alive and actively developing; passed on to a consideration of optimum temperature, salinity, viscosity; referred to the liquor in which the detached and ripened eggs were kept; and, leading his charges to the work tables, actually showed them how this liquor was drawn off from the test-tubes; how it was let out drop by drop onto the specially warmed slides of the microscopes; how the eggs which it contained were inspected for abnormalities, counted and transferred to a porous receptacle; how, and he now took them to watch the operation, this receptacle was immersed in a warm bouillon containing free-swimming spermatozoa-at a minimum concentration of one hundred thousand per cubic centimetre, he insisted; and how, after ten minutes, the container was lifted out of the liquor and its contents re-examined; how, if any of the eggs remained unfertilized, it was again immersed, and, if necessary, yet again; how the fertilized ova went back to the incubators; where the Alphas and Betas remained until definitely bottled; while the Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons were brought out again, after only thirty-six hours, to undergo Bokanovsky's Process. 
"Bokanovsky's Process," repeated the Director, and the students underlined the words in their little notebooks. 
One egg, one embryo, one adult-normality. But a bokanovskified egg will bud, will proliferate, will divide. From eight to ninety-six buds, and every bud will grow into a perfectly formed embryo, and every embryo into a full-sized adult. Making ninety-six human beings grow where only one grew before. Progress. 
"Essentially," the D.H.C. concluded, "bokanovskification consists of a series of arrests of development. We check the normal growth and, paradoxically enough, the egg responds by budding." 
Responds by budding. The pencils were busy. 
He pointed. On a very slowly moving band a rack-full of test-tubes was entering a large metal box, another, rack-full was emerging. Machinery faintly purred. It took eight minutes for the tubes to go through, he told them. Eight minutes of hard X-rays being about as much as an egg can stand. A few died; of the rest, the least susceptible divided into two; most put out four buds; some eight; all were returned to the incubators, where the buds began to develop; then, after two days, were suddenly chilled, chilled and checked. Two, four, eight, the buds in their turn budded; and having budded were dosed almost to death with alcohol; consequently burgeoned again and having budded-bud out of bud out of bud-were thereafter-further arrest being generally fatal-left to develop in peace. By which time the original egg was in a fair way to becoming anything from eight to ninety-six embryos- a prodigious improvement, you will agree, on nature. Identical twins-but not in piddling twos and threes as in the old viviparous days, when an egg would sometimes accidentally divide; actually by dozens, by scores at a time. 
"Scores," the Director repeated and flung out his arms, as though he were distributing largesse. "Scores." 
But one of the students was fool enough to ask where the advantage lay. 
"My good boy!" The Director wheeled sharply round on him. "Can't you see? Can't you see?" He raised a hand; his expression was solemn. "Bokanovsky's Process is one of the major instruments of social stability!" 
Major instruments of social stability. 
Standard men and women; in uniform batches. The whole of a small factory staffed with the products of a single bokanovskified egg. 
"Ninety-six identical twins working ninety-six identical machines!" The voice was almost tremulous with enthusiasm. "You really know where you are. For the first time in history." He quoted the planetary motto. "Community, Identity, Stability." Grand words. "If we could bokanovskify indefinitely the whole problem would be solved." 
Solved by standard Gammas, unvarying Deltas, uniform Epsilons. Millions of identical twins. The principle of mass production at last applied to biology. 
"But, alas," the Director shook his head, "we can't bokanovskify indefinitely." 
Ninety-six seemed to be the limit; seventy-two a good average. From the same ovary and with gametes of the same male to manufacture as many batches of identical twins as possible-that was the best, sadly a second best, that they could do. And even that was difficult. 
"For in nature it takes thirty years for two hundred eggs to reach maturity. But our business is to stabilize the population at this moment, here and now. Dribbling out twins over a quarter of a century-what would be the use of that?" 
Obviously, no use at all. But Podsnap's Technique had immensely accelerated the process of ripening. They could make sure of at least a hundred and fifty mature eggs within two years. Fertilize and bokanovskify-in other words, multiply by seventy-two-and you get an average of nearly eleven thousand brothers and sisters in a hundred and fifty batches of identical twins, all within two years of the same age. 
"And in exceptional cases we can make one ovary yield us over fifteen thousand adult individuals." 
Beckoning to a fair-haired, ruddy young man who happened to be passing at the moment. "Mr. Foster," he called. The ruddy young man approached. "Can you tell us the record for a single ovary, Mr. Foster?" 
