The stinger shot down as if of its own accord, burying itself in Andre’s belly and rooting around.

Squelch.

I watched Andre’s eyes go white. He rattled on the assembly belt, but the straps kept him from moving much. It looked like he was having a seizure.

Then he stilled.

Several Hosts released the straps from Andre’s body and tossed them into a big crate brimming with them. Another Host carried the crate back into the building to the beginning of the assembly belt so the straps could be recycled, used on a fresh lot of kids.

For a moment Andre lay atop the edge of the assembly belt.

The figure removed the stinger from his belly, the end squirming again, those sensory bumps wiggling.

Then something even more impossible happened.

The figure pulled over a rectangle of sheet metal to the edge of the assembly belt.

But it wasn’t connected to anything. It floated in the air like a blow-up raft in a swimming pool. With a faint touch, the figure guided it across, lining it up so it served as an extension of the belt. When the belt lurched forward again, the tread rolled Andre onto the floating slab of sheet metal, clearing the way for the next bound child to slide into place beneath the writhing stinger.

With her gloved hand, the figure gently pushed the slab away, and it glided across toward the far side of the foundation. I followed it into the last sheets of morning mist, and what I saw there made me cover my mouth so I wouldn’t gasp.

Andre’s slab joined an army of others arranged in neat rows. Hundreds of kids lying motionless on their backs, hovering above the ground on their slabs.

Most of them showed bulges in their stomachs. The closest ones looked bloated. But as I peered into the far reaches of the concrete plain, I saw that the farther away the kids were, the more pronounced the bulges were. At the far edge, the boys and girls showed humps protruding almost a foot, filling the space between their waists and their chests. I noticed now that these kids and the others strapped to the assembly line all looked older—at least twelve years old. Where were the younger kids? Being fed at some other center, aged up like cattle?

Making the rounds through this perverted harvest were several more figures wearing seamless space suits like the high priestess, but they were shorter and more muscle-bound. Males? Parading around on autopilot, bent to a single task, they reminded me of drone insects. Their suits were black as well, though less shiny than the female’s armor.