The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

They were fed by tubes, and their bodies were exercised by giant metal arms that grasped their legs and flexed them as though the cows were walking through an endless field. The cows were lined up, patiently waiting. The day came when he implanted the tiny embryos in the brood cows. “But some of them should grow,” Lisa said sternly. They can’t be as healthy as samples taken yesterday.” “The cells were frozen over a hundred years ago. She had worked for so many years in the dark, her face was chalk white and her blue veins were visible through her skin. “It’s okay,” said Lisa, so close by that Eduardo jumped.

If he failed, he would be sent to the Farms, and then what would become of Anna and the children, and his father, who was so old? There were only fifteen now, and Eduardo felt a cold lump in his stomach. Something about the food, the heat, the light was wrong, and the man didn’t know what it was. He watched the samples grow, and then he carefully moved them to the incubator.īut it wasn’t all right. All that was hidden in the droplet.įinally the round outlines quivered and lines appeared, dividing the cells in two. It might even have a hazy desire for music or crossword puzzles. The cell already understood what color hair it was to have, how tall it would become, and even whether it preferred spinach to broccoli. So much knowledge was hidden in that tiny world! Even Eduardo, who understood the process very well, was awed. Each was furnished with all it needed to grow. Each one contained a drop of life.Įduardo moved his dishes, one after the other, under the lens of the microscope. A dull, red light shone on the faces of the workers as they watched their own arrays of little glass dishes. Water bubbled through tubes that snaked around the warm, humid walls. He studied them anxiously in the darkened room. In the beginning there were thirty-six of them, thirty-six droplets of life so tiny that Eduardo could see them only under a microscope.

Chapter 1: In the Beginning 1 IN THE BEGINNING

The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer