“It’s a simple procedure. You’ll hardly feel a thing.”

 

Somehow, I doubt that.

Mother used to say, “Just a pinch, dear,” every day when I was a little girl. She would hover in, her metallic form glinting in the yellow light, and her featureless face locked on me.

 

“Miss Carlotta,” says the Surgeon, “if you would be so kind as to take a few deep breaths and let the sedative do its work.”

He lays a hand on my bare shoulder. It’s the first time in years I’ve felt actual skin against my own. I don’t like it.

 

The bright, sterile room isn’t what I’m used to. I’m completely exposed, shivering against the operating table. The Surgeon is the only other human here, tall and pale with no hair on his head. The Nurses are like Mother. Exactly like Mother.

One comes closer to the table, her ball-jointed arm extending a spidery hand to me. From a middle finger slides a long and thick needle and a tremor runs its course through me. I haven’t been able to slow my breathing as requested, and the Surgeon watches me intensely. He squeezes my shoulder.

 

“This contribution is what you have been nurtured and protected for,” he says. “It is because of you, and others like you, that humanity will go on.”

 

“Will I keep any of them?” I ask, but he’s turned away.

 

The tall, unnatural form of the Nurse leans over me, her head cocked as she regards me with her face that is no face at all.

 

“Just a pinch, dear,” she says, then pierces the vein in my neck.

 

It hurts more than Mother’s ever did.

 

* * *

When I wake, I’m back in my dimly lit climate-controlled room. I’m groggy, in pain, confused, but for only a moment. I touch the place on my lower abdomen, wishing I could have seen them all before they were split into their respective tubes to be fertilized and transported for gestation. How many daughters, I wonder? Will it be enough? Did I help save my species?

 

My door opens, bright light blinding me momentarily. The Surgeon stands with another man, a stranger, peering in. The Surgeon turns to the man.

 

“This one is ready for relocation,” he says. “We took them all, so we’ve no further use for it.”

 

“I’m sure we’ll find something,” the stranger replies. A chill finds me when he smiles.

 

I open my mouth to speak, to ask where I’m going and why, but no sound comes out. There isn’t a hoarse or a scratchy cough, but there is pain. I reach for my throat and feel bandages there as well.

 

“Oh,” I think. “Oh, I see.”

 

Mother. The Nurses. Me.

 

I lay back. There is too much pain for me to run, to fight, or to wonder if things could be different. I can only hope in silence.

 

I hope I only had sons.