Page:World Without Men (HT osu.32435053364535).pdf/156

An event of major importance had occurred in biophysical laboratory number five. Cordelia, scientist in charge of experimental synthetic cytology, took the trouble to lock the incubator and lock the laboratory door before leaving the State Biophysical Center. The thing in the main thermostatically controlled incubator was so vital that she felt constrained to deliver the progress report personally to the Senior Mistress of Applied Cytology in the Ministry of Biophysical Research.

Cordelia, a woman of seventy-two, had made full use of modern cosmetic techniques, and her metabolic control had been precisely judged for more than two decades. Consequently she had all the superficial appearance of an adolescent female, except for the maturity of her eyes and the overfull roundness of her breasts and abdomen, the result of three compulsory visits to State fertility centers where induced parthenogenesis had resulted in the birth, over four years, of eight identical baby girls.

But her mind was wrinkled and leathery, impregnated with specialized science and technology, and twisted in the accepted Lesbian fashion of contemporary society. The thing in the incubator was alien and incomprehensible, but it represented success. For centuries, perhaps millennia, women scientists had labored after the shadow, as alchemists of ancient history had sought the Philosopher's Stone, and now, finally, the shadow had taken shape. The thing in the incu-