О дивный новый мир / Brave New World

“They can only stand red light[6 - They can only stand red light – Они могут выносить только красный свет].”

The sultry darkness here was visible and crimson, like the darkness of closed eyes on a summer’s afternoon. Row upon row and tier above tier of bottles glinted like rubies, and among the rubies moved men and women with purple eyes and all the symptoms of lupus. There was a hum and rattle of machinery in the air.

“Give them a few figures, Mr. Foster,” said the Director, who was tired of talking.

Two hundred and twenty metres long, two hundred wide, ten high. He pointed upwards. The students lifted their eyes towards the distant ceiling.

Three tiers of racks: ground floor level, first gallery, second gallery. Near them three red ghosts were unloading bottles from a moving staircase. Each bottle could be placed on one of fifteen racks. Each rack was a conveyor traveling at the rate of thirty-three and a third centimetres an hour[7 - at the rate of thirty-three and a third centimetres an hour – со скоростью 33,3 см/ч].

Two hundred and sixty-seven days at eight metres a day. One round of the cellar at ground level, one on the first gallery, half on the second, and on the two hundred and sixty-seventh morning, sent to the Decanting Room. Independent existence—so called.

“But in that time,” Mr. Foster concluded, “we’ve managed to do a lot to them.”

“That’s the spirit I like,” said the Director once more.

“Let’s walk around. You tell them everything, Mr. Foster.”

Mr. Foster duly told them.

Told them of the growing embryo on its bed of peritoneum. Explained why it had to be stimulated with drugs. Described the artificial circulation installed in every bottle. Showed them the simple mechanism that shook the embryos into familiarity with movement. Told them about the “trauma of decanting,” and the test for sex taking place in the neighborhood of Metre 200.

Explained the system of labelling—a T for the males, a circle for the females and for those who were destined to become freemartins a question mark, black on a white ground.

“One fertile ovary in twelve hundred—that would really be enough for our purposes,” said Mr. Foster. “But we want to have a good choice. And we must always have an enormous margin of safety. So we allow as many as thirty per cent of the female embryos to develop normally.