If I can get Wissa awake, just manage to get her into the nutrients, you’re dead, she thought. Together, we’ll manage with the others-and before that we’ll put the scissors to you.
She lifted the viewplate, which swung up and back, then looked down at the lovely, dark-complexioned seductress that played her stepmother on stage. “I’ll get you out of there,” she whispered, though she knew that Wissa could not hear.
It was impossible to stand outside the womb and lift Wissa free, for then she was struggling with both their weights, attempting to raise Wissa and keep herself from tumbling inside. At last, perspiring and determined, Belina swung over the lip of the capsule-womb and dropped inside, landed on the forming tray beside her unconscious stepmother.
She felt ill at ease being here. It was like a human child waking and finding itself returned to its mother’s womb even though it was grown and could understand where it was. This was a region restricted to spirits, and she was surely looking upon sanctified ground where no eyes were ever meant to spy. To either side, there were thousands of wires and tubes, pumps that swished rhythmically, tubes that carried unknown lubricants from place to place, icy with their burden. She could see the guts of the Furnace to either side, back under the housing that shielded things from an externally prying eye.
This was no place to remain for long.
She lifted Wissa without a great deal of trouble and attempted to shove her over the sill of the womb’s exit by shoving first on the other puppet’s buttocks, then grasping her thighs, then her knees . … Once she fell and she required several minutes to free herself from Wissa’s weight and regain her breath.
Outside, Sebastian still slept.
She muscled Wissa over the rim without regard to bruising or cutting the small woman. Finally the stepmother was balanced there precariously, her belly creased by the metal edge, free from the waist up. Had she been awake, her breasts would have pained her terribly for the way she had been handled. But she was not awake, Bitty Belina reminded herself, and there was no time for gentleness. Drawing renewed strength from a thirty-second rest period, Belina grabbed one of Wissa’s feet in each hand and strained to force her away. The stepmother was pushed another few inches into the open. Only her legs remained suspended over the womb recession, and these were not heavy enough to cause her to fall back inside.
Belina leaped, caught the edges of the escape hatch with her fingers, curled them over and held on tight.
She muscled herself, but found that she was too exhausted to get out. She let go and fell onto the forming tray, breathing so harshly that she was certain she would wake the idiot.
Time passed.
Around her, things hummed and thumped.
She tried it again, managed to force herself to waist level with the rim, looked out on the fiat field of the machine’s surface, at the only two prominences which were the control knobs.
Her face was red, and she could feel the blood pounding in her temples. Every muscle in her face ached.
She caught the edge with her belly, tried to get a better hold with her hands and slipped back inside, striking the forming tray with her forehead and slipping mercifully into unconsciousness.
She woke up with Sebastian’s face hanging over her like a moon, his fat fingers jabbing at her. She sat up, pushing his fingers away, and cursed him. Against her will, he took her out of the womb.
She watched while he fed Wissa’s unawakened body back into the machine. Her identity wafer popped out and was jammed into the file.
Now she wished she had killed him when she had the scissors at his throat. Even if she had failed to get Wissa from the womb and wakened, she would not, at least, have been forced to look at the long, pallid face and those deep-set, hollow eyes that always looked so damned melancholy.
He placed her on the floor and this time allowed the Olmescian amoeba to shield the machine. He did not know if it would keep her out of trouble, but he seemed to remember that the alien organism only responded to either Pertos or himself.