Earth Without Children

By J. Grace Warren

In Earth Without Children, longevity treatment was a way of life for most people. It enabled them to live for hundreds of years. However, it had unforeseen side effects which eventually caused sterility in nine-tenths of the human race. Men produced defective sperms; women’s ova became infertile, slowing down the growth of the human population. The last birth recorded was two hundred years ago: a male child. Maxwell Blackwell, an advocate of parturition who had always kept sperm and ova banks, made the discovery during an attempt to replenish his stock. President Alexis Tobias, world leader, was informed of the situation. She inferred that breeding prejudiced world peace and security; therefore, she enforced total breeding prohibition…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: May 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9781645756019

J. Grace Warren

J. Grace Warren started her career as a clerk typist and moved on to become a secretary to a puisne judge in her home. She migrated to this country and held many positions including a word processor operator, putting words together for more than ten years to create various kinds of documents, reports, books, letters etc. Joan enjoys writing short stories.

Book preview

About the Author

J. Grace Warren started her career as a clerk typist and moved on to become a secretary to a puisne judge in her home. She migrated to this country and held many positions including a word processor operator, putting words together for more than ten years to create various kinds of documents, reports, books, letters etc. Joan enjoys writing short stories.

Dedication

Dedicated to the memory of Bill who initiated the story.

Copyright Information ©

J. Grace Warren (2021)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Warren, J. Grace

Earth Without Children

ISBN 9781645756002 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781645755999 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781645756019 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020925283

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published (2021)

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

[e-mail]

[phone]

Acknowledgment

To Cory, who inspired and encouraged me to face the challenge to write it. To Drea, my constant assistant.

Chapter 1

The last diapers were in the museums along with every style of teething rings, layettes, formula bottles, perambulators, rattles, and teddy bears.

Swings, slides, and jungle gyms had been broken up for scrap. The books, most of them had been junked: Baby and Child Care, Black Beauty, The Book of Knowledge, Manners for Teenagers, and all the others about children and adolescents. The world was in a state of birthing prohibition, instituted by the world leader president Alexis Tobias; consequently, longevity treatment became a way of life for most people, and it enabled them to live for 100 or more years.

A group of officials, being aware of the adverse effect that would have on the world, assumed the responsibility of finding a way to reserve longevity treatment and for President Tobias to rescind prohibition, and formed a committee engaging many available professionals as well as laypeople.

The last recorded birth had been 200 years ago; a male child named Cody Kesiak. The last child to wear a snowsuit, to cut his finger playing with knives, and the last to learn about women, had now reached the physiological age of 25 years, and looked even younger; a credit to his excellent condition. Many people still regarded him as a child who had been a great curiosity in his day.

Cody did his best to live up to his name.

Everything he did was essentially bizarre, including excessive drinking and smoking. Everything he wore was outlandish; everything he said was outrageous. He got along well with most women than with most men. He said the sort of things to women that made them say, Oh, Cody! half wincing, half melting. Once, he tried to explain to Jenny Smallish, head of Human Conservation League, who tried to prohibit him from his excessive drinking and smoking, that prohibition of any kind was the reason he never gave up drinking or smoking permanently or anything he was not allowed to do. Not the most logical reason, she thought.

Oh, Cody! Jenny said, it will take ten percent of your life.

I can afford that, Cody told her earnestly. Maxwell Blackwell, an advocate of parturition, tells me that my present life expectancy is probably somewhere around 3,000 years. If he is right my disgraceful habits will not catch up to me until 5062 AD. By that time, I’ll be glad enough to lie down.

Jenny carefully tilted her black curls forward to avoid a drink in the hand of a wondering uninvited guest standing in the center of the meeting room.

That’s on average, Cody, she said. Of course, it’s only a guess because nobody who’s had the longevity treatments early in life has passed away from old age yet. Now, I personally believe that it’s possible to live for 10,000 years or more; Cody, just suppose you did pass away in 5062 from overindulgence, and the very next year they found a way to extend the life span even more?

Great! Cody said, looking distressed, that would be a laugh on me, wouldn’t it?

Really, Cody, this is serious.

Cody put his hand on her arm. You’re right, he said with fervor, I’ll stop this very minute. He took a silver cigarette case out of his coat pocket and emptied the cigarette in his hand.

If you’ll excuse me, he said, rising, I’ll go and throw these in the fireplace and avoid temptation.

Stick to it, that’s the important thing, Jenny called to him. You’ve quit before you know.

I know, Cody called back to her, carrying the cigarettes at an arm’s length as if they were a bunch of poisonous serpents. He maneuvered his slender body among the standing, sitting, and ambulated guests until he reached the fireplace.

Garth Benedictine, he said to a plump gray-haired man sitting comfortably in a reclining chair, wearing a pair of rimless glasses twice the size of his face, and smoke circling his head from a cigar stuck in his mouth.

I’m enjoying your party, he told Garth Benedictine, ready to dispose of the cigarettes in the fireplace behind a charred burnt log.

You quit again? Garth asked him amiably.

Jenny talked me into it. You ought to try virtue sometime. It gives you a sort of intense feeling: I am the master of my own fate kind of thing. Besides, it is an inexhaustible source of conversation, and when you finally succumb, you have a delightful sense of wickedness. I think everybody ought to abstain from everything once, in a while, just to keep from taking them for granted.

Cody, Garth said, frowning in concentration, I believe that is the same first discovery you mentioned to me when you were about 23. How do you manage to—shall I say, keep your mind so fresh?

How do you manage to remember every damned thing I’ve said over the course of 150-odd years? Cody countered with a little irritation.

You always say the same thing, Cody.

One of Garth’s cats wandered by and Garth stooped to pick it up. It was a pretty thing, marked like a Siamese but with long, light fur. It stared at Garth with offended dignity and made a noise in its throat.

Haven’t seen that one before, have I? Cody asked Garth.

No! She’s a sixteenth descendant of Mau-Mau. You remember Mau-Mau?

I do indeed. A beautiful cat, very verbal. You were not worthy of her. Pity they’re so short-lived, isn’t it?

That’s why I like them, Garth said, letting the cat drop from his hands like some golden taffy. People are so inconveniently permanent.

Maxwell, is that you? I thought you went roaming around on the islands for the season, Garth told a stocky owl-faced man with a shining bald head, touching him on his shoulder.

I flew in specially to see Garth, the man said. You too, Cody, how the heck are you two? He shook hands with them in turn.

Can we go somewhere and talk? It is important. Is Bruce Channing here? Maxwell Blackwell asked, peering across the room.

He’s around somewhere, Cody told him.

Maxwell sopped one of the waiters who was carrying a tray of glasses filled with cocktails. Have you seen Mr. Bruce Channing? he asked the waiter.

No!

Find him for me, will you? Tell him Maxwell would like to see him in the study.

Garth took Maxwell by his arm and gently propelled him toward the door leading to the study, with Cody to trail along.

How are you, you dog robber? How are the famous Maxwell Blackwell fruit? Garth jeered.

Ecstatically rewarding. More than I can say for your ‘obnoxious pets.’ How are they? Maxwell returned.

Garth opened the door to the study and ushered them in. It was almost as fantastically tidy as the rest of Benedictine’s apartment. There was a desk, a worktable, an easy chair, and two straight chairs. The walls were covered with shelves of books, mostly about history and genetics, with the usual peppering of juicy novels. From a small window, looking out over the rooftops of the city, the great E1 Campo Avenue was visible on the opposite side of the building. Two cats were in easy chairs, one in each of two straight chairs, and one asleep on the table.

"Dump