The flesh in the furnace

Vonopoens had discovered that other species tended to curiosity and could not be trusted to obey common rules of courtesy. Humans who wished to conduct business on Shaftau were issued thirty-two-hour passes, one equivalent day on that slowly turning world. Violation of the pass meant a permanent revocation of a human's right to visit Shaftau. And no man wished to lose that privilege, for the Vonopoens made many marvelous and highly marketable items, among them the Furnaces that produced the puppets.
        The Furnace came in nine pieces for easy transport, and very little skill was required to establish the proper connections between the separate components. Also, very little skill was required to pry open the casings of the machine and see what might whir and blink inside. But the moment any piece of the hull was removed, the insides melted to slag that smoked and glowed and presented better protection for the manufacturers than any number of patents might.
        Now, in the darkened room where Pertos had chosen to erect the Furnace, the process of creation was about to begin. The Olmescian amoeba, all but invisible when spread over the machine, had now rolled to the back and clung there in one gelatinous lump. The only light in the room came from the capsule-womb faceplate and was a dull green.
        Sebastian sat in the corner on a stool, out of the way. He tried to remain as quiet as he could, for he knew that Pertos would tell him to leave otherwise. Yet he found himself repeating lines from the script of Bitty Belina's story, mumbling them in complete accuracy, though he had never been able to memorize anything in his life before, other than the way his name looked on paper.
        Pertos selected a wafer from the file of puppet identities on the side of the machine, frowned, then let his smile return. He looked toward Sebastian as he replaced that wafer and chose another. He slipped the disc into the memory translator above the Furnace, and the process of creation was begun.
        Sebastian was halfway off his stool before he remembered that silence and stillness were essential. Carefully, he sat back, leaning against the wall, and watched the capsulewomb intently.
        Pertos worked the only two knobs on the machine, and slowly the green color changed to rich crimson, working across the spectrum of colors. The crimson became white, and in that glare the pudding of synthetic flesh jelly that was puddled in the forming tray began to take on a solidity. It began to mold, without the help of a form, and soon was a faceless, womanly body, with pert little breasts and creased vagina.
        Sebastian became excited, though not sexually, for that was beyond him. He strained to see more of what transpired in the capsule-womb.
        The hair came next, on the head and below the belly: golden.
        It crinkled. It grew before his eyes. Like a thousand yellow snakes. And then it stopped and the face came and it was her face with the incredibly blue eyes.
        Sebastian watched until she was fully formed, until her nose popped open with nostrils and her mouth filled with teeth. Pertos removed her from the capsule-womb, a strange god with a businesslike sense about creation, and placed her in a nutrient bath which stimulated the nerve clusters in the outer layers of her unnatural flesh. Soon, she was tossing this way and turning that, murmuring softly, fingers twitching as she grasped at dreams of death as if refusing to accept the life so suddenly flooding into her.
        More of the synthetic flesh, in its liquid form, spilled into the capsule-womb, and the cycle was begun again as Pertos chose the next wafer from the identity file and fed the disc to the machine. But Sebastian did not care about the creation of the prince of the demon-possessed stepmother, of the good angel or the three suitors who came before the prince in the story. Bitty Belina, was alive, and that was all that really mattered.
        He wanted to get up.
        He dared not; Pertos would send him out.
        He wanted to touch her hair.
        He was afraid to.
        He watched.
        And as the light flickered from green to crimson to white and the making of life from the Vonopoen synthetic flesh continued, as other small bodies, each no smaller than eighteen inches and no taller than twenty-four, were laid in the nutrient bath trays, strange images shot through the idiot's mind, sometimes dark and