New Nina and I stand in front of a huge glass viewing window. Behind the window, at the far wall are two women and a man. Their backs are to us. The three of them are wearing blue hospital scrubs, and all three are bent over a PC that seems to be fascinating them. Of even more intense interest to me are the many other human beings in the room. The babies. Babies and babies and babies.

I estimate roughly fifty high-tech-type cribs. It looks as if each crib holds a baby.

Even more fascinating and frightening are the wires and tubes and electronic monitors that run in and out of all these cribs. These wires seem to feed into some wall monitors displaying charts and numbers and letters and graphs.

New Nina suddenly raps hard with her knuckles on the vast glass nursery window. One of the women—a doctor, nurse, biochemist?—turns toward New Nina and nods, a wisp of annoyance on her face. That annoyance immediately disappears when New Nina gestures in my direction. The woman says something to her colleagues. I think at first she is walking toward the door to meet me, but instead she stops at one of the cribs near the window. With her back to me she removes a syringe from her pocket. It looks like she’s about to thrust it into the infant’s stomach. Then she hesitates and seems to change her mind. She looks flustered, nervous.

The second woman turns and looks at her colleague. In a voice loud enough that I can hear it through the window, she says, “Oh, for Chrissake, Bobbie. I’ll get the sample myself,” and she marches sternly toward the first woman. This tough-acting woman grabs the syringe from Bobbie.

I look away from the scene, and New Nina seems to sense my discomfort. “You obviously find watching this very upsetting,” she says. “We have a room where you can wait for your host. You’ll be better off there.”

In what seems to be a standard GIH technique, she takes my elbow to lead me. Her grip is a bit stronger than the guard who brought me in.

“Not so tight,” I say.

“I apologize, but I want you to go quickly. For your own sake. It will only be a moment,” she says.