Page:Astounding Science Fiction (1950-01).djvu/84

 Doc saw it, worthless carrots. But O'Hara dragged him on through the noisy heat and dust of the place until they stood at Shed Thirteen.

"This is the lion shed," said O'Hara.

"Interesting," said Ole Doc disinterestedly.

O'Hara opened the door. A long row of vats lined each side of the passage and the sound of trickling fluid was soothing as it ran from one to the next. A maze of intricate glass tubing interconnected one vat to the next and a blank-beaked Achnoid was going around twiddling valves and reading temperatures.

"Hm-m-m," said Ole Doc. "Artificial birthing vats."

"Yes, yes. To be sure!" cried O'Hara in wild agreement, happy that he was getting some understanding. "That's the way we get our stock. Earth sends me sperm and ovums in static ray preservation and I put them into the vats and bring them to maturity. Then we take them out of the vats and put them on artificial udders and we have calves and lambs and such. But this is the lion shed."

"The what?" said Ole Doc.

"For the lions," said O'Hara. "We find that carefully selected and properly evoluted Earth lions kill catbeasts and several other kinds of vermin. I've got the deserts to the south of here crawling with lions and some day we'll be rid of catbeasts."

"And then you'll have lions," said Ole Doc.

"Oh no," said O'Hara impatiently. "Then we'll bacteriacide the lions with a plague. Which is to say I will. There isn't any we. I've been here for fifteen years—"

"Well, maybe you've been here for fifteen years," said Ole Doc without much sympathy, "but why am I here?"

"Oh. It's the last cargo. They send my stuff up here in tramps. Unreliable freight. Last year a tramp came in with a cargo for me and she had some kind of director trouble and had to jettison all her freight. Well, I didn't have any stevedores and they just left it in the rain and the labels came off a lot of the boxes—"

"Ah!" said Ole Doc. "You want me to reclassify sperm—"

"No, no, no!" said O'Hara. "Some of these cargoes were intended for some other experimental station I am sure. But I have no lading bills for the stuff. I don't know. And I'm frantic! I—"

"Well come down to it," said Ole Doc. "WHAT is your problem?"

Dramatically O'Hara approached the first vat and gave the cover a yank. The pulleys creaked. Lights went on and the glass bowls within glowed.

In this one vat there were five human babies.

Ole Doc pushed the cover up further and looked. These babies were near the end of their gestation period and were, in other words, about ready to be born. They seemed to be all complete, hair, fingernails, with the proper number of fingers and 84