"This is our mother-flesh," said Jandro.
Illia shuddered faintly at the sight. "It looks almost like an enormous cancer," she said.
They peered into the vat, the base of the mound of flesh being hidden by a thick, soupy liquid.
A technician approached as they neared the dome. He carried a long-handled instrument which he had just removed from a sterilizer. As they watched, he opened a port in the dome and thrust the instrument quickly into the mound of flesh and turned it. The mass quivered and recoiled, but the instrument withdrew, holding a core from deep within the mass. Slowly, the wound closed and the thick, dark blood ceased flowing.
The technician dropped the core into a container and carried it across the room to one of several hundred cagelike units about a foot square.
"There you see it," said Jandro. "The primeval flesh is cut out and placed within its forming box where surgical manipulation and radiation will cause the formation of the specialized cells that will turn it into one of the three abasa."
"I'd swear that is cancerous tissue," said Illia. "Whatever the purpose of these strange organs developed from it, it may be that these people have succeeded in perfecting the mutation that nature has been struggling with on Earth for thousands of generations."
"But what could be the purpose of it?" Underwood demanded. "What abilities do these organs give that we do not already possess? I don't see any evidence in Jandro nor did I see any in Demarzule, showing the results of these organs."
"Who knows?" said Dreyer. "But I believe Illia may be right. Among us, cancerous formation has all the appearance of a mutation gone wild, yet it seems to be one that nature insists on. Perhaps with Jandro aboard the ship we can find out what these organs do."