In a gap between two tunnels, a nurse was delicately probing with a long fine syringe into the gelatinous contents of a passing bottle. The students and their guides stood watching her for a few moments in silence.

‘Well, Lenina,’ said Mr. Foster, when at last she withdrew the syringe and straightened herself up.

The girl turned with a start. One could see that, for all the lupus and the purple eyes, she was uncommonly pretty.

‘Henry!’ Her smile flashed redly at him—a row of coral teeth.

‘Charming, charming,’ murmured the Director and, giving her two or three little pats, received in exchange a rather deferential smile for himself.

‘What are you giving them?’ asked Mr. Foster, making his tone very professional.

‘Oh, the usual typhoid and sleeping sickness.’

‘Tropical workers start being inoculated at metre 150,’ Mr. Foster explained to the students. ‘The embryos still have gills. We immunize the fish against the future man’s diseases.’ Then, turning back to Lenina, ‘Ten to five on the roof this afternoon,’ he said, ‘as usual.’

‘Charming,’ said the Director once more, and, with a final pat, moved away after the others.

On Rack 10 rows of next generation’s chemical workers were being trained in the toleration of lead, caustic soda, tar, chlorine. The first of a batch of two hundred and fifty embryonic rocket-plane engineers was just passing the eleven hundredth metre mark on Rack 3. A special mechanism kept their containers in constant rotation. ‘To improve their sense of balance,’ Mr. Foster explained. ‘Doing repairs on the outside of a rocket in mid air is a ticklish job. We slacken off the circulation when they’re right way up, so that they’re half starved, and double the flow of surrogate when they’re upside down. They learn to associate topsy-turvydom with well-being; in fact, they’re only truly happy when they’re standing on their heads.’

‘And now,’ Mr. Foster went on, ‘I’d like to show you some very interesting conditioning for Alpha-Plus Intellectuals. We have a big batch of them on Rack 5. First Gallery level,’ he called to two boys who had started to go down to the ground floor.

‘They’re round about metre 900,’ he explained. ‘You can’t really do any useful intellectual conditioning till the fœtuses have lost their tails. Follow me.’

But the Director had looked at his watch. ‘Ten to three,’ he said. ‘No time for the intellectual embryos, I’m afraid. We must go up to the Nurseries before the children have finished their afternoon sleep.’

Mr. Foster was disappointed. ‘At least one glance at the Decanting Room,’ he pleaded.

‘Very well, then.’ The Director smiled indulgently. ‘Just one glance.’