A tiny star-shaped crack ran across the top of a glassfish egg near the Unfinished One’s shoulder blade. Inside the clear shell, the hair-thin silver fry lashed its tail twice and pressed its snout against the seam.
“Too early,” the Unfinished One muttered, its low body going rigid on the gravel. “The drill vibrations down-valley shook the rock all night. They are coming out all at once.”
With its two tired, humanlike hands, it reached painfully backward over its own shoulders, catching a cold drop of spring water on one blunt fingertip and touching it to the cracked shell. The instant the cold drop hit the seam, the jelly parted cleanly and the tiny silver fish wriggled free into the shallow basin of the dorsal fold, its transparent gill-fringes fanning open.
Three more eggs ticked at the same time—one near the base of the neck, two far back by the hip where the short arms could not reach without twisting the spine.
“If I grow two more arms now, the skin across my ribs will pull tight and crush the middle pockets,” the Unfinished One said, its breath whistling through its nostrils. “Wait—no, who has small hands? If the shell splits dry, their gills glue shut to the casing.”
