“Good-bye, Ryo … Don’t come out with eight legs!” “See you as an adult,” shouted another. “Come back and show us your hands,” cried a third. “Tell us what color is!”

Ryo knew he wouldn’t be returning to the Nursery. Once gone, there was no reason to return. It would belong to another life, unless he opted for Nursery work as an adult. He watched the Nursery recede as his palette traveled in train with the others down the long central aisle. The Nursery, its friendly-familiar whites and grays, its cradles and compassion the only companions he’d ever had, all vanished behind a tripartite door.

He heard someone cry out, then realized he was the noisemaker. The medical personnel hushed him, calmed him.

Then he was in a great, high-ceilinged chamber, a dome of glowing darkness, of perfectly balanced humidity and temperature. He could see the other palettes being placed nearby, forming a circle. His friends wiggled and twisted under the gentle glow of special lamps.

On the next palette rested a female named Urilavsezex. She made the sound indicative of good wishes and friendship. “It’s finally here,” she said. “After so long, after all these years. I’m—I’m not sure I know what to do or how to do it.”

“Me either,” Ryo replied. “I know the recordings, but how do you tell when the precise moment is, how do you know when the time is right? I don’t want to make any mistakes.”

“I feel … I feel so strange. Like I—like I have to …” She was no longer talking, for silk had begun to emerge magically from her mouth. Fascinated, he stared as she began single-mindedly to work, her body contorting with a flexibility soon to be lost forever. Bending sharply, she had begun at the base of her body and was working rapidly toward the head.

Layer upon layer the damp silk rose around her body, hardening on contact with the air. Now he could see only her head. The eyes began to disappear. Around him others had begun to work.

Something heaved inside him and he thought he was going to vomit. He did not. It was not his stomach that was suddenly, eruptively working, but other glands and organs. There was a taste in his mouth, not bad at all, fresh and clean. He twisted, doubled over, working the silk that extruded in a steady, effortless flow as if he’d spun a hundred times before.

He felt no claustrophobia, a fear unknown to a people who mature underground. Up, high, higher, around his mouth and eyes now, the cocoon rose. The upper cap narrowed over his head. It was almost closed when a pair of truhands reached in and down through the remaining gap. Moving quickly, in time to his mouth movements so as not to become entangled in the hardening silk, they held a tube that was pressed against his forehead.

The hands withdrew. Nothing else remained to concentrate on except finishing, finishing, finishing the work. Then the cocoon was complete and the sedative that had been injected into him combined with his physical exhaustion to speed him into the Sleep. A dim, fading part of him knew he would sleep for three whole seasons …