Dabir delivered the body to Monitor 8391 as ordered and departed to other tasks. Monitor 8391 ran a laboratory for the analysis of organic specimens. The Monitor put the slender corpse on his examining table. A chemical spray removed the creature's hair. The Phyrexian precisely measured every critical dimension of the body with calipers, then carefully laid a square of flowsheet over the corpse's head. At the Monitor's command, the tiny machines in the flowsheet crawled over the cold skin, conforming themselves to every contour. When they were done, he had a perfect mold of the dead girl's face.
Monitor 8391 passed on the corpse to the Necrometric Unit 725 for further processing. Body fluids were drained. The blood was contaminated by poison and therefore useless. A substitute would have to be used. The flesh was carefully stripped off and sent to culture vats so the corpse's tissues could be preserved for eventual reuse. The sterilized, polished bones were sent back to the Monitor, who applied his meticulous skills to them once more, measuring them to the finest calibration of his instruments. These figures were forwarded to the engine controlling the mighty apparatus of Processing Mill 44.
The rollers and stamping presses of the factory began to churn. Bars of duralumin and steel were fed into the machinery, which formed a hard, metal skeleton identical to the one measured by the Monitor. Each bone was copied, right down to the individual metacarpals of the hands and phalanges of the feet. The girl had once broken her right arm, and the calcified break was mirrored in the new duralumin humerus.
Jointed and joined, the sparkling new skeleton was sealed in a sterile copper shell to shield it from the everpresent oil rain of the Fourth Sphere. Gremlins loaded the shell into a pneumatic tube and sent it whistling away to the culture vats. Organs and tissues were re-fitted to the gleaming bones, along with certain mechanical improvements added by Phyrexian engineers. The crude and wasteful processes of eating and sleeping were eliminated by filling the body's veins with Phyrexian glistening oil in lieu of ordinary blood. The new body would have six times the speed and strength of the purely organic creature it was based on. It would be resistant to heat and cold, and its senses would surpass those of any elf or human. As a final touch, the mold made by Monitor 8391 was used to restore the old face to the new creation.
The lifeless body was placed in another copper capsule and routed downward to the Sixth Sphere, where it would await the attention of the Inner Circle member, Abcal-dro, servant of the Dark Lord of Phyrexia himself.
She awoke standing in a domed, circular room. It was cold. She looked down at her bare arms and legs, flecked with goose pimples. A moment's concentration dispelled them as heat coursed through her veins.
How strange it was, this shell of flesh. Strange and yet familiar. She stood easily, testing the articulation of her hands, arms, and legs. Breath plumed from her nose in soft wisps. All parts worked. All systems were in order.
The chill walls were blue glass, polished and seamless. Without effort, she calculated the height of the dome at 16.39 feet. She walked slowly toward the only other object in the room, a five-foot-high chrome tripod, above which floated a small black sphere four inches in diameter.
Some things she knew, others she didn't. She knew she was alive and on Phyrexia. She knew the periodic table of the elements, the expansion rate of live steam in a turbine, and the speed at which flowstone multiplied under optimum conditions. She knew where to strike a human body to cause the most damage, but she could also set a broken leg with her bare hands. She did not know her own name.
"That has not been decided yet," said a calm, genderless voice.
She darted away from the hovering sphere and crouched near the wall. It wasn't fear that made her crouch. Fear was not in her design. Her posture was defensive, a position from which to strike at the unseen speaker.
"I am Abcal-dro, your master. Stand up."
She obeyed.
"Speak. You have the means," said the voice.
"Who am I?"
"You are called 'Belbe.'" The name had two syllables, bell-be.
"What does it mean?"
"It derives from the ancient Thran language, be'el-be. It means 'a lens.'"
She went to the gleaming tripod in the center of the room. "Lens. A device that focuses to a point or spreads apart rays of light or other forms of energy," she recited.
"Correct."
Belbe looked at her hands. "Do I focus light?"
"In your case, the name is metaphorical. As you are going among flesh beings, you are therefore expected to have a name."
"Where am I going?"
"The plane of Rath."
She closed her eyes and thought. "Rath. An artificial world, created by our supreme master, composed of flowstone nanomachines, inhabiting its own plane at coordinates-"
"Stop." The command was mildly expressed, but absolute. Belbe not only ceased speaking, she ceased moving at all,
"Learn not to speak what you're thinking. By so doing, you give away too much and bore your listeners."
Belbe remained immobile, like a statue of flesh and metal.
"Speak," commanded Abcal-dro.
"I do only your will, Great One."
A strange, liquid, bubbling laughter filled the dome. It subsided to a sigh. "Listen well, Belbe. You are going to Rath soon, as our emissary to that world. Our lens, one might say. The time approaches when Rath will be in congruence with Dominaria, the prime plane of our ancestors. When the conjunction of planes occurs, all that is on Rath will be on Dominaria-"
"And all that is on Dominaria will be on Rath."
A pause. "True." Cold clutched at her fabricated heart. Even the mildest pique of the high priest raked her entrails like a razor blade of ice.
"You were made to resemble the inhabitants of Rath, not your masters on Phyrexia. In fact, the native environment of Phyrexia is inimical to your existence, which is why you must be kept in this environmental chamber until your departure. You are as much like them as we could make you, and that is an important parameter in your mission.
"The governor of Rath has abandoned his post for the sake of personal vengeance. His dereliction is contrary to our purpose, and it will not be tolerated. A new evincar must be found to take his place. You will choose the new evincar for us. Since natural selection is the best scalpel for dividing the weak from the strong, allow the candidates to struggle among themselves until one of the specimens establishes himself as the superior candidate. You will observe this struggle for us. You may choose-" more bubbling laughter rippled through the chamber, "-we give you leave to participate in the competition as you see fit.
"Only one task must remain inviolate. Under no circumstance is the conjunction of Rath and Dominaria to be altered, delayed, or interfered with-by anyone. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Great One."
"You may encounter certain beings who, by an accident of breeding, have the power to pass from plane to plane. These planeswalkers may attempt to thwart our plans to overlay Dominaria. You will not let them interfere. Your own life means nothing compared to the success of our plan. Is that clear?"
She bowed with all the grace of her copied body. "It is, master."
"Approach the sphere."
Belbe closed within arm's length of the black orb. It floated a scant inch above the polished tripod. The ball's surface was smooth, yet did not reflect her face as she gazed at it.
"Stand still."
Belbe locked her legs in place. The sphere silently rose and came to her. It touched her at the base of her throat, and for an instant she felt nothing. The sphere melted into her flesh without breaking the skin or causing any bleeding. Pressure built inside her chest, pushing on her newly-placed organs. She gasped with newfound pain.