The most sophisticated "engineering" process on Earth is pregnancy among mammals -- especially among humans. There is already talk of using goats and cattle to produce industrial products instead of milk, and possibly bringing to term organic machines, programmed in eggs to develop in the womb. What if this happens... and continues? Might poor women earn a living by renting out their wombs for industrial "piecework" production of high-end organic machinery? In this chilling, award-nominated tale, a master of modern science fiction lets us glimpse an all-too possible near future when science, economics and individual dignity clash across the most intimate battlefield of all.