Sal’s lip curled. ‘You mean… like… as if we’re stabbing it?’ she called out.

‘Well, obviously don’t stab it with the pipe!’ Maddy’s voice echoed back. ‘Gently do it!’

Liam looked at Sal and shook his head. ‘I can’t do it. I’d be sick. Here…’ He passed the foetus to Sal.

‘Oh, right… thanks, Liam.’

Sal cradled the thing in her hand and then gingerly reached into the perspex growth tube beside them to retrieve the feed pipe dangling down inside. She grimaced as she fumbled in the slimy growth solution, finally pulling out the tip of the feed pipe. As the slime dripped like mucus from the end of it, she could see the pipe ended with a sharpened tip.

‘Bob says you shouldn’t have to push too hard. The belly button skin is very thin and should… Oh, that’s just gross…’ Maddy’s voice faded away.

‘What?’ called out Liam. Maddy didn’t answer immediately.

‘Maddy?’ chirped Sal. ‘What’s gross?’

‘He says the skin should pop just like a blister.’

Liam looked sheepishly at Sal. ‘Really, I can’t do it. I’d be… I’ll be sick over the poor little fella.’

‘Shadd-yah,’ Sal muttered, ‘you are hopeless sometimes.’

She took the end of the pipe between her fingers and gently drew it up until it hovered an inch above the foetus’s tiny belly: translucent skin criss-crossed with a faint spider’s web of blue veins and a small inward twist of rubbery skin.

She took a deep breath. ‘OK… here goes.’

She gently pressed the sharp end of the feed pipe into the small whirl of flesh. The foetus shuddered in her hand; finger-length arms and legs suddenly flailing, its walnut-sized head slapping against the palm of her hand.

‘Uh… Maddy! It doesn’t like it! It’s struggling!’

‘Bob says that’s perfectly normal… just push it in until the skin pops.’

She heard Liam mutter something about Jesus before his legs buckled beneath him and he sat down heavily on the floor, then slid over on to his side.