Chapter 4

Several weeks later Mama gave us an update. “Boy, Girl, my last pregnancy health assessment was only partially accurate. Girl is pregnant and there are eight embryos inside her, octuplets. All are at the expected size for 60 days’ gestation.”

At the same time, we demanded, “WHAT?”

“Her uterus contains six female embryos and two males. This is a significant problem. The maximum capacity of an incubation chamber is two human fetuses, and two of the four incubation tubes are in use. Your offspring have grown too large for cryo-stasis. You must select the two new offspring you wish to keep.”

“We can only keep two? NO! NOT OUR BABIES!” “NO! And why only two?”

“The umbilicals are attached to a single placenta, which they share. I cannot divide the placenta quickly and delicately enough to place the embryos into multiple gestation chambers safely. By the time four were placed into two gestation tubes as pairs, all but the first two would expire.”

Girl suggested, “There has to be another way! Can you make a tube bigger? Or maybe use something other than a tube that will work?”

Mama took an extremely long time thinking for her, at least five whole seconds. “There are four water tanks on the ship and two tanks of water would be sufficient for the remainder of our journey. I can modify a water tank for incubation.”

I asked, “Are you sure? Will it be safe? Will it be big enough for eight?”

“The water tanks are made of the same materials as the incubation cylinders and have a capacity of eighty thousand liters. That will be sufficient for up to twenty infants.”

If it weren’t for our breathing tubes, we would have sighed in relief. Girl said, “That’s GREAT! Start setting it up right away!”

Our parents had named my octuplet brother and I ‘Freedom’ and ‘Escape’. Our sister Liberty was three months older and lived in a regular incubation tube, like our parents Boy and Girl. Our sister Amnesty liked to sleep hugging me with our brother Escape behind her. Our other siblings usually crowded in and made it a comfy group hug. They were all female too; Emancipation, Autonomy, Absolution, Sovereignty, and Comfort. Comfort usually slept leaning against my back with her head on my shoulder.

Half a year after we were placed in the tank, Mama added three new sisters; Release, Reprieve and Recess, who were triplets. I was thankful when Mama told us there was a problem when the triplets were moved in with us, so our mother Girl couldn’t have any more kids. I thought sharing a modified water tank womb with a bother and nine sisters was more than plenty.

Sometimes our parents Girl and Boy complained about not having much space in their small tube, which was next to our tank. Our umbilicals limited our movements, but we weren’t actually crowded. Sometimes I could move my arms all the way around without touching anybody or the tank wall.

Mama had told us our tank was four meters across and almost three meters high, which was a bit larger than a typical bedroom in the old videos we watched frequently. We invited Boy and Girl to live with us several times, but they always declined and wouldn’t explain why. I hypothesized they were doing something they didn’t want us to see.

When we were about seven years old, one morning we woke up with air hoses in our mouths and feeding tubes in our noses, as our parents had told us. A few days later my brother Escape started a competition for who could make the biggest poop cloud. We all tried to hold our bowels as long as possible, then turn in a circle as we let fly. I won two of the three times we did it, but we stopped when Autonomy complained about it being disgusting. After that, we’d sit on the floor and poop near the tank outlet to be cleaner and more polite.

We lived and matured about the same way our parents told us they had. Mama would give us a boring lesson, an entertainment video, and then another lesson. One day I had an idea for new entertainment.

I asked, “Mama, you showed us a game called ‘soccer’ or ‘football’. That looked like a lot of fun. Can we get a ball to play with?”

“Freedom, a soccer ball would float to the top of your tank. You would not be able to reach it.”

“Well, could you weigh it down?”

“I will modify a ball and provide it for your use.”

The next morning there was a ball on the bottom of our tank. I was quite happy until I kicked it experimentally and hurt my foot. “Mama, the ball is really hard!”

“It is filled with stainless steel nuts and bolts, so it will not float.”

“But ... but it’s so hard that if we kick it we’ll hurt our feet!”

“You desire a ball you can safely kick? Very well. I will ballast another with water and silica sand instead.”

A short time later, another ball dropped into our tank and slowly sank to the bottom. I kicked it gently and it moved a bit. I kicked it harder and it bounced off my sister Sovereignty’s ankle and stopped near her foot. She kicked it back to me. We had a family game going before long, kicking the ball back and forth. We were having a great time until Comfort kicked the wrong ball by accident.