“What, volume?”
Things went on like that all during their training (which was more for the benefit of their first “Mosi” and “Alula” clones, who began their accelerated lives within hours of that first chaotic lecture than for the Alphas themselves); the Leas continually questioned and mocked their handlers, until that weekend prior to the eight of them being put into cryo-sleep, when they were all shown their Nexts, lying in their womb-like nurturing liquid murk, where only parts of their developing bodies were visible—a floating hand there, a bobbing big toe, a swirling nimbus of kelp-like hair. The tanks which held the first clones were different from those on the ship; thanks to their highly engineered genetics, their gestation chambers had to be unique, and thus less viewable. But th
