The Vonopo were each as large as two men, with twelve spindly appendages not quite like arms and not quite legs. Each appendage was tipped with a fleshy tool, each tool with a different purpose and design, like fingers and yet utterly unlike fingers. Their skin was really scales and the color of polished amber. They swallowed their food directly into their stomachs through a mouth on their bellies, and they shivered in disgust at the thought that men fouled their vocal apparatus with food pulp.
Despite this fierce appearance, the Vonopo were a gentle people who shied from publicity and valued privacy above all else. Each lived separately in a subterranean warren, with all the comforts of a super-technical society. If one Vonopoen met another more than twice in any single week, he felt it necessary to purge himself with rituals no human had ever witnessed. No other race was permitted to live on Shafta,u, for the Vonopoens had discovered that other species tended to curiosity and could not be trusted to obey common rules of courtesy. Humans who wished to conduct business on Shaftau were issued thirty-two-hour passes, one equivalent day on that slowly turning world. Violation of the pass meant a permanent revocation of a human’s right to visit Shaftau. And no man wished to lose that privilege, for the Vonopoens made many marvelous and highly marketable items, among them the Furnaces that produced the puppets.
The Furnace came in nine pieces for easy transport, and very little skill was required to establish the proper connections between the separate components. Also, very little skill was required to pry open the casings of the machine and see what might whir and blink inside. But the moment any piece of the hull was removed, the insides melted to slag that smoked and glowed and presented better protection for the manufacturers than any number of patents might.
Now, in the darkened room where Pertos had chosen to erect the Furnace, the process of creation was about to
begin. The Olmescian amoeba, all but invisible when spread over the machine, had now rolled to the back and clung there in one gelatinous lump. The only light in the room came from the capsule-womb faceplate and was a dull green.
Sebastian sat in the corner on a stool, out of the way. He tried to remain as quiet as he could, for he knew that Pertos would tell him to leave otherwise. Yet he found himself repeating lines from the script of Bitty Belina’s story, mumbling them in complete accuracy, though he had never been able to memorize anything in his life before, other than the way his name looked on paper.
Pertos selected a wafer from the file of puppet identities on the side of the machine, frowned, then let his smile return. He looked toward Sebastian as he replaced that wafer and chose another. He slipped the disc into the memory translator above the Furnace, and the process of creation was begun.
Sebastian was halfway off his stool before he remembered that silence and stillness were essential. Carefully, he sat back, leaning against the wall, and watched the capsulewomb intently.
Pertos worked the only two knobs on the machine, and slowly the green color changed to rich crimson, working across the spectrum of colors. The crimson became white, and in that glare the pudding of synthetic flesh jelly that was puddled in the forming tray began to take on a solidity. It began to mold, without the help of a form, and soon was a faceless, womanly body, with pert little breasts and creased vagina.
Sebastian became excited, though not sexually, for that was beyond him. He strained to see more of what transpired in the capsule-womb.
The hair came next, on the head and below the belly: golden.
It crinkled. It grew before his eyes. Like a thousand yellow snakes. And then it stopped and the face came and it was her face with the incredibly blue eyes.
Sebastian watched until she was fully formed, until her nose popped open with nostrils and her mouth filled with teeth. Pertos removed her from the capsule-womb, a strange god with a businesslike sense about creation, and placed her