О дивный новый мир / Brave New World. 4 уровень

“Essentially,” the D.H.C. concluded, “the process consists of a series of arrests of development[4 - arrest of development – замедление развития].”

He pointed. On a very slowly moving band a rack-full of test-tubes was entering a large metal box, and another rack-full was emerging. It took eight minutes for the tubes to go through, he told them. Eight minutes of hard X-rays. A few eggs died. The rest were returned to the incubators, where they began to develop. In the end, one egg was on its way to becoming anything from eight to ninety-six embryos-an improvement on nature.

Identical twins-but not in twos and threes as in the old days, when an egg would sometimes accidentally divide, but in dozens at a time.

One of the students was fool enough to ask where the advantage was.

“My good boy! Can’t you see? Can’t you see?” He raised a hand; his expression was solemn. “Bokanovsky’s Process is one of the major instruments of social stability!”

Standard men and women; in uniform batches.

The whole of a small factory staffed with the products of a single bokanovskified egg.

“Ninety-six identical twins working ninety-six identical machines!” The director’s voice was very enthusiastic. “You really know where you are. For the first time in history. �Community, Identity, Stability.’ If we could bokanovskify[5 - bokanovskify – бокановскизировать] indefinitely the whole problem would be solved.

”

Solved by standard Gammas, unvarying Deltas, uniform Epsilons. Millions of identical twins.

“But, alas,” the Director shook his head, “we can’t bokanovskify indefinitely.”

Ninety-six seemed to be the limit; seventy-two a good average. From the same ovary and with gametes of the same male that was the best that they could do. And even that was difficult.

“In nature it takes thirty years for two hundred eggs to reach maturity. But our business is to stabilize the population at this moment, here and now.

Producing twins for over a quarter of a century-what would be the use of that?”

Obviously, no use at all.

“And in exceptional cases we can make one ovary help produce over fifteen thousand adult individuals.”

Beckoning to a fair-haired young man who happened to be passing at the moment. “Mr. Foster,” he called. The ruddy young man approached. “Can you tell us the record for a single ovary, Mr.