Frank Tilton

What? No Babies? Frank Tilton

An Air Force doctor notices babies are no longer being conceived. Elsewhere, a lieutenant in the Air Force's NORAD command center pursues his curiosity about a comet. Both are ridiculed. Yet both are right to be concerned. Kinderman's Comet had partially vaporized as it passed through perihelion. Earth passed through the comet's tail and became contaminated by an undetected virus. The story follows Doctor Dan Holland who learned how "Copernicus must have felt ..." as he tries to convince contentious Washington that he knows the cause of the world-wide zero conception rate. Washington and the rest of the world begin to awaken to the reality of the virus' scourge. Yet few are willing to listen to this Air Force physician who argues, "We're trying to find a way to keep human beings on the planet. There's no time now for politics." Nation accuses nation. Terrorists seek revenge. Kidnappers supply children to a hungry market. Drugs, alcohol, and human folly further reduce a rapidly declining population. A world without children emerges. School playgrounds rust. America comes to look like Pompeii without the ashes.