Abandoned World: The Awakening

Heddock rose and walked slowly to the glass: before his eyes stretched a view of the Sea of Moscow, which everyone called no other than the Atlantic Ocean. That it was the Sea of Moscow, one of the largest depressions on the surface of the dark side of the moon, he had learned a few weeks after he had learned that it was the moon at all. Not fast, he couldn't say, but given that time was irrelevant now, enough to consider that everything was working correctly.

The view was beautiful. He had grown so accustomed to his natural position as the shadow ruler of the station that he was already treating the surrounding areas as his property, and as he watched the surface, he had already outlined the boundaries of some new buildings that he was planning for the near future. And there would be separate routes to these constructions, where people would also work, follow his instructions and consider themselves to be under the control of the Council of Elders. In this way he can develop endlessly, and who knows, maybe he will be able to create a whole empire, occupying the entire space of the moon. And this work will be continued by his descendants….

By the way, I should have taken care of the offspring. He'd had a few fleeting liaisons that hadn't led to anything. And though he didn't often try to knock someone up, he had doubts that it might not work out. It had been twenty-four years since he'd started his new life. At that point, he'd certainly been in his thirties, if not forty. So now he was at least fifty. Might as well be sixty. Before you know it, nothing will be working between his legs…..

He got seriously flustered and walked back over to the desk. Then he pressed the call button. He wanted to see the one he thought was healthy enough to carry his child, Sierra Ravenwood. She looked to be in her forties, was now in charge of the administrative section, and was certain that Heddock had some very considerable influence over the Council of Elders. She had been informed of this in passing by Heddock himself as she hurried off to some meeting. "Don't worry, a word from me is enough to keep anyone from saying a word to you for any tardiness," Heddock had said then.

As soon as he heard her sweet voice call out to him, he thought at the same moment that maybe the problem with the pregnancy wasn't coming from him at all. He frankly hadn't cared much about these issues before, and from the materials he had (and no one else), he'd never probed the ground about the age of pregnancy. There is sex, orgasm leads to ejaculation, and that semen fertilizes the woman's egg. According to all the tests, Sierra had eggs. It worked for him, too. So it should have worked, but it didn't. Shouldn't we at least try someone else?

He had a number of very young girls working under him. Some of them were quite attractive. But strangely enough, he didn't want to change Sierra for someone else, especially since he didn't want to get a blowjob, which he liked especially from her. It felt to him as if he'd be trading her for someone else. And although he could definitely say that he didn't have any deep feelings for her, he certainly didn't want to lose her.

And the next thought that arose in his brain was that very few people got pregnant on the station at all. If only five thousand people woke up, there were now seven thousand, that is, only two thousand children. And this despite the fact that there were no prohibitions or restrictions on this yet.

Heddock had seen several reports from the United Nations that said that the Earth was overpopulated and that some countries were not controlling their birth rates, which meant that the problem was acute. Given that they had no contraceptives, which were used on Earth, it was logical to ask why the number of children born was so low. And Heddock was finally beginning to link those reasons to himself.

He's not the only one who can't do it. Maybe it's Sierra. Maybe it's him. But it's not as simple a process as one might think. And it's strange that he hasn't thought about it before. Very strange to himself…

He felt something tingling on his left cheek. Just a little bit, as if it wasn't even inside, but outside. Little tingles that weren't even easy to notice… Why would that be?

Heddock touched his cheek with his right hand, then massaged it a little. It seemed to go away. That was odd. What could it be? The first thing that popped into his head was the connection to the recent suicides. Maybe they had something similar before they got to this stage? No, that's bullshit. It's something else. It's just self-inflicted. You'll get such feelings when you read about people who do things to themselves that you wouldn't wish on an enemy….

There was a knock on the door. Sierra came in. In her usual high spirits. She never showed up any other way. If she had something wrong, she'd say so right away and reschedule. Good manners for a relationship like this, and where did she get that trick from?