Sulily sleeps suspended inside a transparent, cylindrical womb filled with luminous blue fluid. Her suit sticks to her body like a second skin. Knobby nodes run up the length of her spine and end at the soft helmet’s base at the back of her neck.

From the center of the helmet, wires fan outward and upward, gathering at the control center at the top of the container. Her mouth and nose are covered by a breathing apparatus with a serpentine root that coils and stretches down to the base of the cyli...