Io devesseled.
Simple math.
It was devesseling day.
Every month, on Onesday the first, the devesseling team gathered in the Incubatory in one of the ten vessel chambers, twenty rolling bassinets pulled up and ten wetnurses gathered, some new and wide-eyed, some experienced, behind them. The technicians checked the vitals, the doctors and nurses prepared the equipment, and the infants floated in the dim red light in their oval glass bottles, banded and reinforced by orange ceramic and steel. Lights blinked fitfully on the terminals, and tiny fists reached out, bumping the placental mass.
It was a nervous day, always, even with veteran technicians. Few, few, few babies were ever lost: they had been coaxed into being ten months ago and watched closely by machine and technician alike. They were genetically ideal, and the environment was ideal, and the method of devesseling low stress. There was too much money involved. Any woman could get stuffed and walk around with a fetus inside her for two hundred and sixty, two hundred and seventy days, and probably bring it term, and probably it would survive, and very likely she would as well: but the Investors required high returns, and the State subsidies covered only so much of the Birth Center’s costs.
A team of medical interns was also always on hand to observe, take notes, and, in theory, step in if suddenly the devesseling team all fell dead at once. The doctor leading them ran them over basic knowledge—hormones, stimulation, temperature changes, nutrition increases over the last seven days—
“Why two hundred and eighty days?” he suddenly demanded.
The interns looked blankly at him.
“Human gestation—you!”
He pointed at a young woman, who took a breath and said, “Two hundred and sixty-eight days, on average.”
“Yes, yes, but why do we keep them in two hundred and eighty days?”
“Convenient for the calendar,” someone in the back said.
“Ha, yes, a spare twelve days is fine, lets them cook-up, yah? So why is human gestation two hundred and sixty-eight?”
The woman he’d quizzed tentatively raised her hand.
“Yes?”
“It’s about ten times the twenty-seven-day menstrual cycle?”
“That’s your guess?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Also known as we don’t know why, exactly. But correct, so far as it goes. But what if I told you that on Earth, the gestation period is two hundred and eighty days?”
They looked at him, and murmured.
“What?”
“Why?”
“That can’t be.”
“We weren’t taught this.”
“You don’t live on Earth,” he sneered. “No need. Why’s it different?”
“Environmental degradation?”
“No!”
“Why not, sir?”
He laughed. “It’s been the same, so far’s we know, forever. Environment was fine for most of it. Try again?”
He had them baffled, and he knew it. Always worked. “How many hours in a day?” he asked.
“Eh?”
“What?”
“What do you mean?”
“Stop saying what and answer me. How many hours in a day?”
“Twenty-five, sir.”
“Twenty-five hours and thirty-six seconds to be precise. Pull up a calculator, and do some math. How many hours in two hundred and sixty-eight days? Now take two hundred and eighty days into that. What’s the number?”
“Twenty-four, about,” the female intern said, puzzled.
He laughed. “Excellent. You lot could learn from her. Think faster!—So! How many hours a day on Earth?”
“Oh! It must be twenty-four,” she said, “so gestation on Earth is two hundred and eighty days.”
“About. So we do this—?”
“Tradition.”
“And convenience. Twelve days extra is fine. A little extra mystery, and I won’t ask you to guess this time. The Earth’s moon goes around once every twenty-eight days, about. That’s twice the period of Artume, and about eight times the period of Neith. Conclusions?”
“The Earth’s moon and women are linked?”
He tossed his hands comically. “Nobody knows! And after four thousand years of medical science, women have us beat on that score. Women are inscrutable.—Don’t give me that look, Miss Intern. Ah! It begins.”
The first vessel was opening, there was an odd smell, not unpleasant, but both human and chemical, and a splash and struggle and then a tiny girl was crying. A wetnurse hurried forward with a towel, and bundled the creature into a bassinet as it mewled unhappily. Then she took the second, and gently rolled both out and down the halls to the Nursery.
“Lovely,” said the doctor, with slight sarcasm. “Off they go. Eleven years, and they’ll be socially productive. Right now, crying their heads off like any of you were. Here, girl, wait a moment. What have you got?”
“If it please Sir, this one is a Chryseis.”
“Noisy little thing. This one?”
“That’s an Io, if it please Sir.”
“Quieter! Very good.”
“Look at her looking,” the female intern said, marvelling.
The doctor scoffed. “She can’t even see thirty centimeters away yet.”
But the Io lay there quietly, fists tight, flexing, tight … looking and looking, as she stared toward the ceiling.
“Take them away, girl. So, who wants to tell me about the next steps of the process, hmm? You!”