The embryos grew healthily and at term were born of plastic wombs.
The first voices they heard were of their real mothers. Soft, caressing songwords. Melodious, warm, recorded women voices, each different, bell-clear, vivacious, betraying nothing of the fact that they were dead these long centuries.
"I am your mother," each voice told its belated offspring. "You can see me and hear me and touch what appears to be me, and together with your cousins, you'll grow strong and healthy...."
The voices sang on and the babies gurgled in their imported terran atmosphere. The words were meaningless but important, for it had been learned on the now dead world that these sounds were one of the factors in love and learning.
Day after day, the voices lapped warm over the children. Plastic feeders provided nutrition as noiseless pumps removed excess carbon dioxide.
In one end of the ship, a miniature farm was born hydroponically, its automatic grinders pre-digesting ripe vegetables for the children. Animals were born, too, for food, but also companionship, and later to stock New Earth ahead.
As the babies began to understand, the woman voices merged into one mechanical mother who could be heard and seen and summoned on panel screens throughout the ship. Everything became as Earthlike as possible, but because the environment was artificial, the children grew aware of their purpose in life at an age rarely reached on ancient Earth.
They were two years old when their Mecmother informed them: "You are unlike any children ever born. You are the last of a dead race, but you must live. You must not be afraid. You must do everything humanly possible to live."
When they were four, Mecmother introduced them to Mecteacher and said to pay attention for five hours each day. Mecteacher took their IQs and explained to Adam that he had a greater capacity than Eve, Joseph and Mary, and was therefore their leader.