Shielded and insulated cables connected the silver cylinder to three clear glass jars, each one containing a small, unremarkable looking mass of soft, plum-coloured tissue. A host of fine extraction needles and gene-samplers pierced these strange organs, and they pulsed like childrens’ hearts as the information encoded on every zygote and impossibly complex amino-acid chain was decoded.

A bank of monitoring equipment carefully regulated the process, a fantastically delicate operation that could go wrong in a million ways and which had an almost infinite amount of steps that needed to be exactly right before anything approaching success might be achieved.

Eventually, a series of gem-like bulbs on the upper surface of the silver cylinder flickered to life, each one turning green in rapid succession. A soft chime sounded, and coolant gases vented from a grille on the side as the nutrient fluids were drained.

The cylinder slid open with pneumatic hiss, and a mist of chemically-complex vapour drifted from the glistening organ within. It surfaces were glossy red and purple, webbed with myriad networks of super-oxygenated blood. Fresh grown and throbbing with potential, it was as close to perfection as could be imagined.

Only one other laboratory on Terra could have identified this organ, and it was deep beneath the skin of the world, protected as no other place of Terra was protected. No mortal geneticist could have unravelled the complexities of this biological miracle, and only one other individual could have replicated the process of its creation.

‘Did it work?’ asked Ghota.

‘Yes, my son,’ said Babu Dhakal with a triumphant exhalation. ‘It worked.’